2021: The Year of Epigenetics and Biological Aging
More validation is emerging for the furin protease (“furin”) hypothesis I posited in this blog: The Furin Protease Connection: From SARS CoV-2 and Anthrax, to Diabetes and Hypertension and that is now available as a pre-print publication here.
Considering furin protease inhibitors
Scientists are validating furin inhibition as a possible pathway to addressing COVID. And in this Medical News Today article they also used anthrax as a model to study for interventions. However, the non-specific nature of medical protease inhibitors carries a very high side effect profile. Many individuals won’t be able to tolerate this intervention.
In my mind, this elevates the potential importance of luteolin, given the high in vitro furin inhibition it has demonstrated, and the animal research on its inhibition of dengue fever replication via the same mechanism.
Lifestyle factors that lower furin
We also know that 94 percent of SARS CoV-2 cases are in individuals with pre-existing conditions. We also know that the highest-associated conditions are also associated with elevated levels of baseline furin. And that furin is an important independent risk factor that trends high very early on in the journey towards cardiometabolic disease.
What is steadfastly being missed in all the papers I am reading is the urgent need for interventions to LOWER circulating furin. This risk profile (obesity, high blood glucose, high insulin, and/or high blood pressure) is highly modifiable through correcting underlying diet, environment and lifestyle habits.
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What is being missed by status quo medicine is precisely what sets functional medicine apart: the critical importance of terrain. The biomarker reference levels for what constitutes a healthy individual are completely different. Your Furin Protease Connection paper is the most holistic and comprehensive of the hundreds of papers I’ve read. Thank you so much for your contribution.
The overfocus on pathogen/vaccine is misdirecting tremendous resources away from protecting lives, using what’s currently known by functional medicine. This is the ultimate civil rights issue. What can be done to bring the perspective of functional medicine to a larger audience?
Thank you, David. I greatly appreciate your thoughts.Similarly, Dr. Jeff Bland wrote a powerful piece- also recognizing the furin connection, but diving much deeper into the role of metabolic dysfunction (the pandemic within a pandeumic) on Medium. Check it out here: https://medium.com/@jeffreyblandphd/covid-19-a-pandemic-within-a-pandemic-fd0f4fca373b
DrKF
Please implore Dr. Bland to submit a shortened, physician-oriented version of his paper to the NEJM, as his response to the statement “the pandemic response remains hamstrung by our limited understanding of how to generate effective immunity, particularly in the elderly,” found in his first quote.
What an opportunity to bring the principles of functional medicine to conventional practices! His extensive citations to the literature create the needed contextual bridge.