Magic Bullets vs the Smart Bomb

Earlier posts have mapped the rise and rise in the numbers of people developing one (and usually more than one) of the non-communicable chronic degenerative diseases, especially but not exclusively in the higher-income countries (1). These multiple negative trends are clearly driven by our profoundly unhealthy diet and lifestyle. 

For the sake of balance, it is worth pointing out that the numbers of patients contracting and dying of infection are also increasing (ie 2) – and here too, our exposome is implicated.

The increasing prevalence of malnutrition (3), which dysregulates and degrades our immune systems (4), feeds into this. But so does the growth of antibiotic and antifungal resistance, driven by drug overuse, misuse and counterfeiting (5), and given a recent fillip by governments’ profoundly destructive responses to Covid (6).

Drug resistance now occurs across all classes of antimicrobials, involving all species of major pathogenic bacteria and fungi, and will undoubtedly worsen. In 2019 an estimated 1.27 million deaths were caused by and a further 4.95 million deaths were linked to infections involving Anti-Microbially Resistant (AMR) organisms (7). The recent and extensive UN report, ‘Bracing for Superbugs’, predicts that by 2050 those figures will be an order of magnitude higher (8).

The increase in infectious diseases will hit the poor and disadvantaged disproportionately. Communities with lower nutritional standards, poorer public sanitation and higher population densities have always been more vulnerable to such problems (8).

This is why low- and lower-middle-income countries are expected to suffer the highest death tolls (8). Asia is predicted to see the highest number of AMR-related deaths per 10,000 population in 2050 (amounting to 4,730,000 deaths), followed by Africa (4,150,000), Latin America (392,000), Europe (390,000), North America (317,000) and Oceania (22,000).

The above is in some ways a West-centric analysis, and I am not so sure that Europe and North America will get off so lightly. Both currently experience 30-40,000 deaths per year due to antibiotic-resistant microorganisms (9, 10), which, in global terms, is low. The UN report predicts a ten-fold increase, which is is a relatively straightforward extrapolation of current trends.

Pending geopolitical shifts, however, add complexity. Increasing AMRs are predicted to lead to a global GDP shortfall of $3.4 trillion annually in the next decade, and push 24 million more people into extreme poverty (8). And that is not all. 

Thanks to the corruption of the American political class and their vassal European politicians (11, 12) who are cheaper and easier to bribe (13, 14), structural recession has arrived in the West and is deepening. This degrades public nutrition and also water infrastructure, seen most notably in the USA (15). At some point, water-borne infectious diseases will return to formerly first-world nations. 

The poor and disadvantaged in these countries are at greater risk, and the incoming tides of resistant microorganisms will make social inequality worse (8). The divergent health prospects of different social groups, already marked (8, 16), will become more exaggerated. Urban overcrowding will factor in, thanks largely to uncontrolled migration of humans. Resistant microorganisms do not respect borders either.

Our betters will prosper as digital feudalism congeals around us, but they will not be immune. Boccacio’s wonderfully lascivious Decameron and Samuel Pepys’ diary both show how the plague struck rich and poor alike, and while they hark back to a very hands-on age, few of us can shelter on-line indefinitely. Occasionally we have to interact physically with the outside world (food, sex), and each interaction is a potential point of transmission.

We are entering, therefore, a uniquely brave new world in which there will be more non-communicable degenerative disease and more infectious disease. Our species has never experienced this dual threat before, and I suspect that the recent recorded falls in life expectancy are just getting the party started; a restoration of even 1900 values (when life expectancy was half of today’s) seems possible. 

A new Dark Ages for most, with a side of depopulation for the elite… but it doesn’t have to go this way. Even now we could pull back from the brink, following a variant of the four-step problem-solving process.

Step 1. Force multinational food manufacturers to assume a degree of social responsibility. Make them make their kibble less toxic, more directly health-promoting. It’s easy when you know how, and a highly cost-effective approach to improving public health. 

Step 2. Drag the regulators out of the arms of industry lobbyists and into the 21^st century. Allow meaningful health claims to be put into marketing, and onto food packaging.

Step 3. Repair degraded water infrastructure.

Step 4. Develop new antimicrobials.

Step 4 might appear to be the most difficult. Big Pharma is not at all interested in developing new antimicrobials, because the costs of development outstrip the limited monies that can be generated by selling short-course curative medications (17). The ‘ethical industry’ has left that particular building.

Fortunately for us the problem has already been solved, via the innate immune enzyme lactoperoxidase (LPO). This enzyme guards the eyes, ears, nose, throat and respiratory tract. It is also a critically important component in the defense of the gut, mammary glands, genitourinary tract and other tissues besides.

LPO is a ferroprotein, and requires several substrates in order to operate. It must be supplied with thiocyanate and/or iodide anions, derived from dietary sources and thence available in the plasma. After activation by hydrogen peroxide, it produces hypothiocyanite ([OSCN]-) and hypoiodite ([IO]-) ions (18). These have broad-spectrum antimicrobial actions.

Hypothiocyanite ions kill bacteria by inhibiting cell division (19), glycolysis and respiration (20, 21). They also have antiviral (22-28) and antifungal (29) properties. The LPO/H₂O₂/SCN^– reaction is important in the prevention of tooth decay (30, 31), as described in a recent blog post (32). Saliva contains higher levels of thiocyanate and hypothiocyanite ions than other biological fluids and the antibacterial effects of hypothiocyanite decrease dental plaque and caries (29, 30).

Hypoiodite ions act synergistically with hypothiocyanite ions, increasing the ability of the LPO system to kill bacteria and fungi (33).

Critically, LPO is only activated by the presence of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and H2O2 is only produced in the body when an immune cell such as a macrophage or neutrophil acts to engulf and kill an invading microbe. This triggers LPO in the immediate vicinity of the immune cell, and only while that immune cell is doing its thing; thus generating a very localised, time-restricted and generally very effective dual attack on that microbe.

The effector ions ([OSCN]-) and ([IO]-) are, therefore, hit and run compounds. They do not linger in the body for more than minutes, which is why most microbes have been unable to develop resistance to LPO. If they had ever done so, we would all be dead. 

Only a very few symbiont species are able to co-exist with this immune mechanism. Conversely, LPO does not kill our symbionts, making it a near-perfect antimicrobial system. It is a smart bomb, superior in many ways to the ‘magic bullets’ provided by the pharmaceutical industry. 

For best preventative results, the necessary co-factors for LPO (iron, thiocyanate and iodine) should be combined with 1-3, 1-6 beta glucan PAMP’s (34). The beta glucans will ensure that your innate immune cells are on peak form, moving rapidly to sites of infection and unleashing hell on the microbes there. The LPO co-factors enable local LPO to act in tandem, in a biological form of combined arms warfare.

Then there is treatment. Ten years ago a UK-based company, consisting of one man and a couple of dog soldiers, discovered that an ex vivo amplification of LPO, originally used for bulk milk sterilization, could be used clinically to cure infections. This company is Uneeke Technologies (UT), and they are developing the technology for clinical, veterinary and spatial pathogen control.

UT start by extracting lactoperoxidase from cow’s milk, and binding it to a solid substrate. A solution of thiocyanate ions is added, followed by dilute H2O2, before the reaction is stopped. All of this is provided for clinical use in a simple home-use kit. After stopping the reaction, you drink the reaction products in half a litre of what looks and tastes like water. 

In a multi-centre clinical trial conducted in Hungary, this system was as effective as fourth generation cephalosporins in treating respiratory, urinary and soft tissue infections (35).

This approach may have a particular application in the management of tuberculosis, a condition which has become increasingly difficult to treat. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacilli have been surpassed by extensively (XDR) and finally totally drug-resistant (TDR) strains. 

The caseation tissue that forms around sites of infection shields the tubercle bacteria from host immune cells, and makes it difficult to achieve bactericidal concentrations of any microbicide in the infection site. Antibiotics have molecular weights ranging from 400 to over 1500. The smaller effector ions produced by LPO, with molecular weights of circa 75, are intrinsically more able to penetrate caseation tissue and target mycobacteria effectively (36).

Another potentially important application is in the treatment of cystic fibrosis.

In this condition, the system that transports thiocyanates across the pulmonary epithelium is degraded. LPO is thus hamstrung, and lung infections become more frequent. Regular inhalations of thiocyanate in aerosol form represent a potential prophylactic approach to this problem, and aerosols of the effector ions ([OSCN]-) and ([IO]-) a potential treatment. 

And now we come back to nutrition. LPO is an elegant and important element in the immune system, but it is not immune to the inadequacies and imbalances of the modern diet.

As described above, lactoperoxidase requires iron as a co-factor, and iron deficiency and depletion are very common (37). It utilises thiocyanate as a substrate, and our intakes of thiocyanate-providing foods (such as brassica vegetables, which contain the cyanogenic glucosinolates) are at an all-time low (38). It also utilises iodine, and population levels of iodine are falling in many parts of the world (39).

The LPO system is therefore often doubly or triply compromised, and for prophylactic purposes it is worth considering iron plus a glucosinolate, iodine and beta glucan supplement. For anyone interested in the dietary route, fermented brassica (ie sauerkraut) is a rich source of thiocyanates (40).

When dealing with active infection, Uneeke Technology’s exogenous LPO generates a rapid and safe anti-microbial response with apparent anti-inflammatory benefits (41). It may be a magic bullet, but it is a smart one. And as always, my recommendation is based on personal experience.

I do not, however, recommend daily use. 

Excessive intakes of thiocyanate (42) – or brassica – will eventually lead to goiter, as thiocyanate (which is a pseudo-halide) competes with iodine for uptake into the thyroid (43). Supplements containing thiocyanate should, therefore, generally combine it with iodine. In addition, thiocyanate may potentiate inflammatory mechanisms in the endothelium (ie 44), although oddly enough the overall effect appears to be vasoprotective (45, 46). 

As our economy declines, our healthcare systems degrade and the MIC sociopaths continue to explore gain of function, Uneeke Tech is a smart bomb you should keep in your bandolier. And in your medicine cabinet.

Next week: Run away from the Big C

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