Advice from Dr Vadim Dobos

Five rules for overcoming viral infections

Advice from Dr Vadim Dobos, a general practitioner in Sada.

I have been working as a family doctor for several years and I can say with certainty that infectious diseases with low-grade fever or fever, weakness or muscle and limb aches, runny nose or diarrhoea, cough or nausea, etc., have occured massively every month of the year also before the COVID epidemic.

This year is no different.

The only difference is that before the COVID hysteria started the population was able to deal with these infectious diseases according to the severity of the symptoms.

The real virus situation and how to deal with it is no different this year than it was last year or 10 years ago. I would like to help bring clarity on this issue to residents who are willing to think.
(Note: the bracketed numbers at the end of the lines are the numbers corresponding to the medical references at the end of the paper.)

Basic truths

1. Man was created in the image of God: ‘And God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness’. (10)
2. Accordingly, the human organism functions with divine perfection – until we cripple it.
3. Our immune system also works perfectly – even without medical help – protecting our bodies against thousands of different strains of viruses.
4. Fear, worry, anxiety, stress – all of which we are bombarded with every day from the media – weaken our immune system and make us vulnerable to infectious diseases.
5. The vast majority (90-100%) of respiratory or digestive infectious diseases are caused by viruses (1)
6. There are countless strains of viruses on Earth that can make humans sick. Besides the Coronavirus there are other viruses, such as RS virus, influenza and parainfluenza virus, adenovirus, rhino virus, enterovirus etc., with countless strains and sub-strains in each family. (2)
7. There is currently no medicine whatsoever to treat viral infections – we can only rely on our immune system. For example, favipiravir, which has been represented in the media as a triumph, has failed to show clear clinical evidence of efficacy in 18 years.
8. Yet, in 80-90% of the cases, GPs gratuitously prescribe antibiotics for infectious diseases, partly because they do not take the responsibility and partly because they give in to patient demands. (3)
   It is easier and quicker to prescribe antibiotics and antipyretics than to spend a quarter of an hour asking the patient about symptoms and convincing them of the correct treatment and explaining them the reasons.
9. But antibiotics only work for bacterial infections, and then, not always – they do not work at all for viral ones.

It logically follows from the above that

• Antibiotics fail to cure infectious diseases in 90-100% of the cases (4), what is more
• by altering the bacterial composition of the pharynx and the digestive tract, they weaken our immune system, making quick recovrey more difficult.

What is to be done, then, if you have cought a virus?

• Listen to and follow the message of your body instead of trying to impose your will on the body
• help your body, help your immune system to protect you from disease, as it has done for tens of thousands of years
• for any viral infection, follow below five rules (for example in case of COVID, too – I’ve had the opportunity to test them with dozens of COVID patients).

The five rules are

Rule 1 – Rest and sleep (relieving the strain on your body)

In the event of an infectious disease people complain of varying degrees of weakness.

Even so, people still go to work, go shopping, go out, etc. and wonder why they don’t get better.

By feeling a general weakness, our body signals that it needs to rest, needs a relief in order to heal faster.

It is then necessary to reduce movement to a minimum – stay at home, lie down, rest, read, sleep several times a day, so that the body can use most of the daily energy it has available to kill the viruses.

The more we move, the less free capacity we have left to fight infection.

Rule 2 – Fasting (relieving the strain on your body)

Patients with infectious diseases experience varying degrees of loss of appetite.

This is when anxious mothers or grandmothers put together a five-course feast, saying you need to get strong now.

The reality is quite the opposite.
Digestion is a highly energy-intensive business – 30% of our daily energy needs are spent on digestive functions, which translates into a loss of about 600 kcal per day (5).
What do 600 kcal signify? 600 kcal are burnt by jogging 12 kilometres in 1 hour! (6)

If we don’t eat anything, we gain these 600 calories, which our body can use to quickly fight infection.

A sick child refuses food and only wants to drink. A sick dog hides in the kennel and eats nothing for days. Living creatures instinctively behave correctly when sick – they fast.

A sick organism draws much needed healing energy from the body’s own stores.

In ancient times, Hippocrates – the father of Western medicine – considered fasting an important healing tool. Similarly, Paracelsus or Ayurvedic medicine considered fasting an important element of the healing process.

Over the centuries, the vast majority of the population followed religious rules and observed Lent, a 40-day fast before Easter that made people much stronger and healthier. It does not take 40 days to fight infection – after just 2-3 days of fasting, most infectious diseases are definitely cured.

Rule 3 – Avoid antipyretics

When I have a patient with a bug come to consult me I always ask if they have had a fever or a low-grade fever. They usually reply they are not the feverish type.

I ask them further, wanting to know what medicines they have been taking.
They reply in the morning they started out with Cataflam, continued with Paracetamols and Neo Citrans, and finished the day with a Coldrex.

Well, with that much medication, no immune system can even come close to a slight fever.

However, fever helps the body recover from infections.
Fever has persisted throughout evolution because it gives the individual a survival advantage.

We weaken our immune systems by following the drug commercials on TV and by stuffing ourselves with all sorts of antipyretics and painkillers. Only to wonder why we have been sick for a week and not getting any better.

The healing power of fever:

• immune responses are boosted by higher temperatures,
• white blood cells multiply faster, move more speedily and kill the viruses and bacteria that have intruded into the body more vigorously,
• already a fever of 38-39 degrees Celsius kills most viruses or at least inhibits their reproduction,
• it increases the excretion of pathogens and toxins.

For all these reasons, avoid taking any antypiratics or painkillers – don’t suppress your immune system – but check your body temperature regularly with a thermometer.

If your fever is close to 39 degrees, you can take a small dose of antipyretics (e.g. half a tablet of Algopyrin), but only enough to keep your temperature below 38 degrees.

It’s better to lie in bed with a fever for half a day and recover quickly than to spend weeks recovering on antipyretics.

Rule 4 – Take hish doses of vitamin C

Our body is not capable of producing vitamin C. Therefore we need to get it into our bodies through diet and supplements.

In the event of an infection, our body’s need for vitamin C increases severalfold.
Adequate amounts of vitamin C can prevent viral illness and greatly speed up recovery from acute viral infections.

How vitamin C to fight infection:

• It has a specific antiviral effect, whereby it inactivates the RNA or DNA of the viruses, or the attachment of viruses (9),
• It stimulates the production of interferon, which helps prevent cells from being infected by a virus,
• It promotes the production and activity of antibodies,
• It stimulates the function of phagocytes, which destroy (devour) viral particles.

There is no need to worry about taking higher doses. Albert Szent-György, our own countryman, who got Nobel Prize for his discovery of vitamin C, took 8,000 mg of vitamin C every day and died at the age of 93 (not from a vitamin C overdose).

I myself have been taking 3,000-4,000 mg of vitamin C daily for over 6 years, which I increase to 6,000-8,000 mg if I happen to be sick which is rare.

Rule 5 – Taking high doses of vitamin D

Vitamin D boosts the immune response to infections at several points:

• It regulates immune function,
• It boosts the activity and the engulfing (destructing) capacity of monocytes,
• It enhances the killing of viruses,
• It boosts acid phosphatase activity,
• It boosts the production of anti-pathogenic peptides, defensins and cathelicidin (8)
• It reduces the level of pro-inflammatory and increases the level of anti-inflammatory cytokines – it works against cytokine storms. (7)

A Spanish study of this year found that 50% of those hospitalised, confirmed Covid patients who were not given vitamin D ended up in intensive care, compared with only 2% of those who were given 20,000 IU (twenty thousand international units) of vitamin D daily.

In short, we are 25 times less likely to end up in IC unit if we take vitamin D! (11)

In case of an infection, at the very least we should double the usual daily sustenance amount of 10,000 IU – we should take 20,000 IU per day.

In January this year, I myself caught a viral infection from the many feverish, coughing patients, I felt very weak and feverish, with a temperature of 38.7 degrees.
Following my own advice, I took 40,000 IU of vitamin D and 8,000 mg of vitamin C daily. On the third day – after 2 days of lying down – I felt strong enough to go out for a run and ran my usual 8 km.

To sum up, I urge everyone to calm down in the event of an infectious disease, forget the scaremongering of the official media and trust your own body:

• move as little as possible – rest, lie down, sleep and
• fast for 2-3 days – drinking only water and teas and
• below a fever of 39 degrees do not take any antipyretics or painkillers and
• take at least 4 x 1,000 mg of vitamin C a day and
• take at least 20,000 IU of vitamin D a day.

We share a common goal – Szada should be the healthiest town in Hungary!

Go Szada!

Medical literature: