Herbs-COVID-19: Call For Asian And South American Researchers To Focus On Collaborative Studies On Herbs As Potential COVID-19 Treatments

Herbs-COVID-19: While the Western (America, Europe, Australia and Canada) world that loves to typically denounce herbal therapies are getting infected and dying by the droves and pinning their hopes on overpriced toxic drugs churned out by their greedy pharmaceutical companies and aided by their corrupted governments and further supported by their ‘bastard’ media and social media platforms (some of these American social media platforms will denounce anything herbal as fake news or misinformation, lets hope that when the second wave comes, their owners, staff and loved ones are taken care of by the COVID-19 pandemic!), the Asian and South American countries should collaboratively focus on detailed studies using herbs and traditional medicinal protocols to find possible treatments for COVID-19.


 
Thailand Medical News is making this call and looking forward towards governments in some of these countries to help in taking a bigger role in some of these initiatives. We already have teams of researchers and institutions from Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, India, China, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Peru wanting to collaborate on some of these initiatives but what is needed is governmental support. Ideal countries would be Malaysia, Vietnam or Indonesia. (We have omitted Thailand as our previous experiences with certain agencies here have been bad and there are too many old and also young ignorant yet arrogant dinosaurs with huge ego that cannot even speak a word of English and furthermore there is often corruption, nepotism and cronyism at play. We as Thais personally find it not a conducive environment for biotechnology research and development)
 
Thailand Medical News has already build database of 117 herbs and close to 420 phytochemicals that are ideal candidates for various aspects of treating the COVID-19  disease from antivirals properties that have a variety of ways to disrupt viral replications to anti-inflammatory properties, analgesic properties, anticlotting properties, anti-pyretic properties, immunomodulatory properties  to some with  specific cytokine and IFNs inhibitory properties to even some that can help in certain kinase and kinin pathways and also some with relevant epigenetic properties.
 
Almost 62 percent of some of these herbs and phytochemicals already high scores in term of silico computational molecular docking studies with the SARS-CoV-2 genome and epitopes while about 32 percent already have passed vitro studies by various international research labs and almost all have past published supporting data.
 
Thailand Medical News is also perusing through various traditional medicine formulations including those from TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Indian Ayurvedic protocols, Javanese Jamu Medicine, Northern Thai Folk Medicine, Brazilian and Mexican Folklore Therapies, and the Incas Apothecary Manuals.
 
Though in China, there were various TCM formulations that were created to treat various stages and symptoms of COVID-19, further studies by us have now revealed through lab studies conducted in various research institutions that some of the ingredients were actually contradicting each other and in certain cases the preparation methods were actually destroying certain of these beneficial phytochemicals. Also In some cases, certain toxic and useless phytochemical were also found. We found that by tweaking the formulations and preparation methods, a more pote nt and safer version with better efficacy could be made.
 
Thailand Medical News is exploring a variety of platforms including using nanotechnology for better delivery for the relevant phytochemicals to ways of using these herbs ie from oral capsulated forms, to easy to make teas to inhalants and even novel concepts.
 
Pretreatment methods are also critical. For instance when we were studying various brands of commercial herbs in Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, China and even from Canada being sold freely, we were shocked to see that most despite meeting so called local regulatory standards, were simply dried up ground herbs in whole form simply placed in capsules. Some of these had no therapeutic properties and some were even harmful. Certain herbs when dried and ground will cause certain phytochemicals to be destroyed and in some case, the gastric juices will also aid in its destruction. Some in dried forms could also actually aggravate the stomach and intestinal linings and cause inflammation. Some even had traces of dried fungal particles and spores in them which are carcinogenic and worse some had chemical preservatives in them despite being labeled organic! Even shocking was that some only had a small proportion of the real herbs in them while the majority of the filler ingredients had other properties that ‘clashed’ with the phytochemicals of the herbs.
 
A lot of these identified herbs and phytochemicals if properly formulated and correctly made using the right platforms could be very safe and cheap therapeutics to treat various aspects of the COVID-19 disease.
 
We at Thailand Medical News are exploring to use these herbs and phytochemicals for prophylactic purposes, to treat the various stages and conditions of the COVID-19 disease and also to help treat the long term health complications of the disease for those that had so called ‘recovered from it.” And without wanting to sound farfetched we are also exploring how herbs can be used to cause epigenetic changes so as to protect us against other coronaviruses and other viral pathogens.
 
It should also be noted that there will never be one drug or one herbal preparation that can treat COVID-19 as it’s a complicated disease and a more personalized approach is needed depending on a variety of factors including the patients existing health conditions and genes and stage of the disease.
 
Already it is emerging that the many physicians are questioning the effectiveness of the US FDA’s EUA approved drugs like remdesivir and the EUA approved convalescent plasma therapies plus more studies are emerging that antibodies are not going to be the solution and that even the first generation vaccines that are currently being developed is going to be of little help.
 
While the West and the incompetent WHO that has failed to stop the global spread of the disease from day one and the various Western regulatory and health agencies are against herbal therapies and masses of their innocent and helpless citizens will die, Asian countries where we did not face a brunt as seen in the west should focus on collaborative efforts with regards to the use of Herbs and phytochemicals to prevent and treat COVID-19 which is expected to be a pandemic that is going to at least 3 years or more with worsening stages.
 
Interesting it should be noted that even countries like India that has a high COVID-19 infection rate has seen a lower severity and death rate and one group of Indian researchers are speculating that most who died were non-vegetarians and some who embraced  Western and fast food diets and while vegetarians and those that were eating real Indian vegetarian cuisines that were rich in herbs like  turmeric, asafoetida, leaves of the murraya koenigii plant, ajwain seeds, cardamon and fresh coriander, were spared the severity or mortality of the COVID-19 disease. (We do not have supporting data on this claims but are actively exploring it as well).
 
While many so called herbal experts and even doctors have come up with herbal formulations and products that they claim can help prevent or treat COVID-19, we at Thailand Medical News will still regard those as scams unless there are published research of all aspects of the products ie like what we are trying to do ie published studies on the herbs and their phytochemicals, molecular docking studies, vitro studies, vivo studies, safety studies, observational studies and  proper controlled human trials.
 
For those wanting to collaborate and aid us, kindly contact us directly.
 
For more on Herbs-COVID-19, keep on logging to Thailand Medical News.
 
Read also: https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-covid-19-herbs-researchers-confirms-that-in-studies-and-clinical-trials-the-herb-honeysuckle-has-efficacy-against-sars-cov-2
 
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/herbs-for-covid-19-phytochemical-called-tryptanthrin-extracted-from-leaves-of-strobilanthes-cusia-plant-shows-promise-as-antiviral-for-sars-cov-2
 
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-herbs-scientist-study-phytochemicals-found-in-green-tea-such-as-theaflavins-,-catechins-and-myricetins-as-potential-antivirals-against-sars-c

https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-covid-19-herbs-study-shows-that-fortunellin-found-in-kumquats-is-a-natural-dimerization-inhibitor-of-the-sars-cov-2-3cl-protein

https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/further-research-into-the-phytochemicals-contained-in-licorice-root-might-yield-a-treatment-for-the-new-coronavirus-strain-in-china

https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-diets-study-shows-that-diets-rich-in-citrus-fruits-containing-hesperidin-might-be-a-healthy-option-for-dealing-with-sars-cov-2
 
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https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-artemisia-annua-german-researchers-confirm-that-extracts-of-the-plant-artemisia-annua-are-active-against-sars-cov-2-coronavirus
 
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/canadian-study-of-herbs-that-could-treat-covid-19-shows-that-prunella-vulgaris-extract-inhibits-sars-cov-2-cell-entry-in-vitro-studies
 
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/must-read-china-s-secret-to-controlling-the-covid-19-outbreak-is-traditional-chinese-medicine-concoctions-used-alone-or-in-conjunction-with-antiviral-
 
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/must-read-covid-19-supplements-chinese-researchers-in-wuhan-discover-that-curcumin-has-antiviral-effects-on-certain-coronaviruses