Summer COVID Overblown but Leaky Gut Heat Sepsis Ignored

“This (disease) model suggests that the pathophysiology of Heat Stroke (HS) starts with a leaky gut, which results in the translocation of gram negative (thin-walled) bacteria from the gut into the intravascular space (within blood vessels)….Since the heat sepsis pathway originates from the leakage of gut-related LPS (Lipopolysaccharides – fat wrapped sugar molecule - emitted from dying bacteria), the prevention of Heat Stroke should include protecting the immune system, the integrity of the gut barrier, and the overall state of health, especially during periods of intense physical training and when immune functions and gut health can be compromised”, – Chin L. Lim, “Heat Sepsis Precedes Heat Toxicity in the Pathophysiology of Heat Stroke-A New Paradigm on an Ancient Disease”, Antioxidants Journal, Nov. 2018.

NOT MEDICAL ADVICE – LAYPERSON’S INTERPRETATION

“There is a ton of COVID out there” this summer reported a spokesperson for the Pandemic Center at Brown University.  But when you delve deeper into what is being reported, it is not an actual rise in COVID hospitalizations or deaths but the doubling of the speculated presence of COVID virus in sewer water in the US. Viruses as defined by virologists are not detectable in water, but bacteria are. Thus, the CDC is inferring (guessing) that a rise in bacteria-laced sewer water must contain a corresponding increase in virus. I guess they never heard of a bacteriophage which can be detectable in water and is a virus.  Moreover, there is no consideration that dying or dead bacteria can form endotoxins that can morph into a lung infection.  Thus, bacteria can produce endotoxins and bacteriophage viruses no matter the season of the year.

COVID hospitalizations are currently hovering around 4.6 persons per 100,000 population per month in August 2024, down from about 35 per month per 100,000 in 2022.  Weekly COVID deaths are down from 25,974 per week in January 2021 to 971 per week in August 2024 (source: CDC).  Put differently, there is no summer increase in COVID, but there are wastewater markers that hypothetically indicate a POTENTIAL future increase. 

But this overblown report about “summer COVID” raises the question: how does someone generate virulence in their own body from bacteria when virology says virus is an airborne pathogen?  The quotation at the top of this page indicates an entirely internal mechanism of action due to heat stroke associated with leaky gut, resulting in potentially deadly COVID-like sepsis.

The interior lining of the small intestine has only one layer of cells between digested food and the blood stream, wherein broken-down food seeps through this thin layer to provide nutrition and energy to the human body.  Dying or dead bacteria, called endotoxins can get into the small intestine from ingestion of food or non-nutrients.  When his occurs, endotoxins are transported by vein circulation (not going through the heart) to the liver to be removed from the body by what are called Kupffer Cells which are immune system phagocytes that attack the endotoxin.  Phagocytes envelop around a pathogen and remove it – see here.

However, if the thin lining of the intestine where food permeation occurs has loose junctions (loose mortar between the cellular bricks of the gut lining) then leaky gut can occur.  Instead of endotoxins going to the waste canal, they seep through the lining and can cause insidious blood poisoning that is called Sepsis.  Sepsis means septic waste or poop. Oversimplified, Sepsis is poop getting into the bloodstream.  Endotoxins are also called Lipopolysaccharides (lipid=fat; poly=many; and saccharides=sugar; or fat-wrapped sugar molecules). Pathology starts when there is leaky gut, which allows relocation of thin-layered bacteria from the gut into the bloodstream.

Heat stress can compromise the normal impermeability of the gut by exercise intensity, dehydration and oxygen deprivation that shunts blood away from the organs to the outer layers of the skin.  During prolonged intense exercise, the endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide influx can overwhelm the liver allowing them to spill into the central bloodstream. This is why 85% of marathon runners report diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and gastritis.  If you have these symptoms during intense exercise, you should follow first aid protocol for heat stroke: stop exercising, put person in the shade, recline, give them chilled water, put chilled and salted water on hot skin, spray with garden hose or immerse body in water, take Natto kinase blood thinner or Vitamin C if available, and do not take any aspirin, acetaminophen, or ibuprofen which can cause internal bleeding, and seek qualified emergency medical treatment.

Even worse, the spillage into the bloodstream can transport the endotoxin into the lung where it can cause infection. If one eats food at the same time the liver becomes overloaded with infection. This can cause pneumonia to try and flush the toxin out of the lung. This chain of events can activate the production of a storm of inflammatory Cytokines (immune system proteins) and the Tumor Necrosis Factor (where cells start dying from the inside out - turbo cancer?). This “Cytokine Storm” of events can result in blood clotting, cell death from lack of blood flow, and organ failures that often are fatal, called Sepsis.

Monkey studies show that when exposed to heat stress, endotoxins proliferate causing 70% to 80% mortality.  However, if administered antibodies, antibiotics and adrenal steroids beforehand, the monkeys were protected. Monkeys that were given antibiotic pre-treatment survived 5.3 x longer. In humans, the administration of antibiotics as a preventive can be dangerous because any living bacteria can resist the antibiotic resulting in death.  Researchers caution that antibiotics cannot be used as a preventive against heat sepsis because “antimicrobial actions also destroy ‘good’ bacteria”. Another reason is that antibiotics cannot be given unless the type of bacteria is known – - thin walled or thick walled (gram negative or positive) -- and this can be determined only by blood tests in a hospital setting.

Researchers mention probiotics and colostrum from a cow or goat as plausible -leaky gut sepsis preventives.  Aerobic conditioning can also result in higher tolerance to heat stress. 

Moreover, heat stroke can solely be triggered by heat stress, but can also occur “independently by endotoxemia” and inflammation that can result in Sepsis, according to researchers. Put differently, entirely internal pathology can occur due to a leaky gut without exposure to some external pathogen that can mimic heat stress, heat sepsis, and by logical extension, the disease that is being called COVID.