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• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder in the U.S. An estimated $1.6 billion is spent on treatments each year

• Common signs and symptoms of IBS include frequent abdominal discomfort, spastic colon, gas, bloating, diarrhea and/or constipation

• About 75% of people with IBS have insufficient levels of vitamin D, and about 70% report improvement when taking vitamin D supplements

• Research looking at gene expression and variations in serotonin pathways also concluded that IBS patients tend to have lower vitamin D levels, and that expression of genetic biomarkers for IBS are modulated by vitamin D

• Nearly 60% of NFL players have low vitamin D, placing them at increased risk for injury; 56% of those with insufficient levels (20 to 31 ng/mL) of vitamin D suffered lower extremity muscle strain or injury

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published February 5, 2018.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder in the U.S. An estimated $1.6 billion is spent on treatments each year.

Depending on the source, data suggests anywhere from 10 to 25% of Americans struggle with this condition.

IBS is completely different from another condition with a similar name: inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which is an autoimmune disease that can have very serious consequences. While it can cause debilitating pain, IBS is a functional bowel disorder, meaning there are no significant physical conditions that contribute to the problem. Common signs and symptoms of IBS include frequent:

• Abdominal discomfort and/or pain

• Spastic colon (spastic contractions of the colon)

• Gas and/or bloating

• Diarrhea

• Constipation

IBS is frequently treated with drugs such as antispasmodics and even antidepressants. While these drugs may help control symptoms, they do not address the underlying problem, which is primarily diet related. Typically, simply avoiding gluten will result in significant improvement. Recent research has also highlighted the importance of vitamin D optimization in this condition.

A recent review

in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition notes that of the seven published studies looking at vitamin D status and IBS prevalence, four observational studies concluded vitamin D deficiency is prominent among those with IBS — with about 75% having insufficient levels — and two intervention studies reported “improvement in IBS symptom severity scores and quality of life” among those given vitamin D supplements. In one, 70% of IBS patients improved on the vitamin D regimen. According to the authors:

“The available evidence suggests that low vitamin D status is common among the IBS population and merits assessment and rectification for general health reasons alone. An inverse correlation between serum vitamin D and IBS symptom severity is suggested and vitamin D interventions may benefit symptoms.”

Lead author Bernard Corfe, Ph.D.,

a senior lecturer in oncology at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told reporters, “It is evident from the findings that all people with IBS should have their vitamin D levels tested and a large majority of them would benefit from supplements.”

Another recent study

looking at gene expression and variations in patients’ serotonin pathways also concluded that IBS patients tend to have lower vitamin D levels, and that expression of genetic biomarkers for IBS are modulated by vitamin D. According to the authors:

“Strikingly, the direction of gene regulation elicited by vitamin D in colonic cells is ‘opposite’ to the gene expression profile observed in IBS patients, suggesting that vitamin D may help ‘reverse’ the pathological direction of biomarker gene expression in IBS. Thus, our results intimate that IBS pathogenesis and pathophysiology may involve dysregulated serotonin production and/or vitamin D insufficiency.”

In related news, other recent research

found nearly 60% of National Football League players have low vitamin D levels, placing them at increased risk for injury. 56% of those with insufficient levels of vitamin D (a serum level of 20 to 31 ng/mL) suffered some form of lower extremity muscle strain or muscle injury while playing, and 73% of those with severe deficiency (a vitamin D level of 20 ng/mL or lower) ended up with muscle injuries.

For comparison, only 40% of those with “normal” vitamin D levels reported injuries, defined here as a vitamin D level of 32 ng/mL or greater. Analysis revealed inadequate vitamin D levels nearly doubled a player’s odds of suffering lower extremity strain or core muscle injury, and raised their odds of hamstring injury nearly fourfold.

Considering the research showing 40 ng/mL is really the cutoff point for general health, and that 60 ng/mL is likely a more ideal level, one wonders if sports injuries might not be reduced even more were the players to maintain levels of 40 to 60 ng/mL. In a hospital news release, Dr. Brian Rebolledo, orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, California, and the lead author of the study said:

“We were interested in vitamin D in this population because it’s been shown to play an important role in muscle function and strength, which is critical to the high-performance athlete. Most of the past research into the harmful effects of low vitamin D has focused on the elderly, but relatively few studies have examined this association in the elite athlete.

This study suggests that monitoring and treating low vitamin D may potentially be a simple way to help prevent certain muscle injuries.”

Getting back to IBS, aside from optimizing your vitamin D level, it would be wise to evaluate your diet a bit further. As mentioned, avoiding gluten is an important first step in treating this condition, but avoiding GMO foods loaded with glyphosate and other pesticides may be equally important. As previously noted by Naked Food Magazine:

“If you … suffer from a chronic digestive issue, then you should know that the food you choose to consume could be carrying a gene that is designed to intentionally cause intestinal rupture. [GMO] foods that contain Bt toxin, a built-in insecticide that inherently works by imploding the stomach of the creature that is feasting on it, could very well be contributing to your intestinal angst.”

Bt plants have been genetically engineered (GE) to be equipped with a gene from the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), allowing the plants to produce Bt toxin internally. Plant-incorporated pesticides such as Bt (both the protein and its genetic material) are actually registered with the EPA as a pesticide,

but the Bt plant itself is not regulated as such, which has resulted in the false claim that Bt plants have reduced pesticide usage.

Importantly, the Bt toxin in Bt plants does not degrade, nor can it be removed or cleaned off the food because it’s integrated into each cell of the plant. The plant-produced version of the poison is also thousands of times more concentrated than the topical spray, making these GE foods a potential cause of significant health problems.

Plant-incorporated Bt toxin in Bt soybeans is also exempt from the requirement of a tolerance level for residues,

both in the commodity and in the final food product. The final rule on this was issued in February 2014. This is truly incomprehensible in light of the potential for harm. Originally, Monsanto and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed the Bt toxin produced inside the plant would be destroyed in the human digestive system, therefore posing no health risk.

This was proven false in 2011, when doctors at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found Bt toxin in the blood of 93% of pregnant women tested, 80% of umbilical blood in their babies and 67% of nonpregnant women.

This study revealed that Bt toxin actually does bioaccumulate in your body, and you can bet it’s not going to do your health any favors.

Research

suggests it may produce a wide variety of immune responses, including elevated IgE and IgG antibodies, typically associated with allergies and infections, and an increase in cytokines, associated with allergic and inflammatory responses.

If you struggle with IBS or any other gut-related issues, avoiding GE foods of all kinds may be a significant part of your answer. Aside from Bt plants, GE plants designed to be herbicide-resistant pose near-identical problems, as they tend to be loaded with toxic herbicides such as glyphosate, which have been shown to take a significant toll on your gut and overall health by destroying your microbiome.

Since GE foods are not required to be clearly labeled in the U.S., your best bet is to eat fresh, organic foods whenever possible and avoid processed foods.

As for vitamin D, the evidence suggests 60 ng/mL may be a more ideal low-end target rather than 40 ng/mL. Hitting 60 ng/mL significantly lowers your risk of all cancers, and for women concerned with breast cancer, having a level of 60 ng/mL can lower your risk by as much as 83% compared to having a level below 20 ng/mL.

For general health, 40 ng/mL appears to be the absolute lowest cutoff point, but most cancers still appear to occur in those with a vitamin D blood level between 10 and 40 ng/mL,

so shooting a bit higher appears prudent.

Regular, sensible sun exposure is the best way to optimize your vitamin D status, but many will need to take an oral vitamin D3 supplement, especially during winter months. The only way to gauge whether you might need to supplement is to get your level tested, ideally twice a year, in the summer and winter when your level is at its peak and low point.

Grassroots Health offers vitamin D testing at a great value through its D*Action study. Also consider eating more vitamin D containing foods, such as beef liver, mushrooms, organic free-range egg yolks, cod liver oil, caviar (fish roe) and fatty fish such as wild Alaskan salmon, mackerel and sardines.

Aside from cleaning up your diet and optimizing your vitamin D, the following strategies may also help improve your IBS symptoms:

• Get checked for parasites — To make sure you’re not struggling with a physical condition that could be simulating IBS, have your stool checked for parasites. Some parasites, such as giardia, can sometimes be a contributing factor that needs to be treated.

• Boost healthy bacteria in your gut — Lowering the amounts of sugar and processed foods in your diet will automatically create a milieu that will support the growth of good bacteria, but you can further enhance that process by eating fermented foods and/or taking a high-quality probiotic supplement.

• Boost your fiber intake — Taking additional fiber can also be very helpful to control IBS symptoms such as constipation and diarrhea. Fiber such as organic psyllium tends to be particularly helpful, and is my personal favorite.

  Psyllium is adaptogenic, meaning if you’re constipated it will soften your stool and help increase your bowel frequency, and if you have loose stools and frequent bowel movements, it will help with stool formation and decrease the frequency of bowel movements.

  If you decide to use psyllium, make sure it is organic as the risks of pesticide residue in nonorganic products far outweigh the benefit you would receive from the fiber itself. Another good fiber source is whole, organic flaxseed. You can take few tablespoons of freshly ground flaxseed per day, or better yet, soak the organic flax seeds overnight and put them in your smoothie.

• Address emotional challenges — Last but certainly not least, many IBS sufferers tend to have an unresolved emotional component that contributes to their physical problem. This is one of the reasons antidepressants are frequently prescribed. Meditation, prayer and psychological techniques and tools like the Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT are all strategies you can use to effectively address emotional challenges.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

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• In December 2013, Zaire Ebola hemorrhagic fever broke out in Guinea and over the next three years spread across West Africa, ultimately killing 11,323 people. It was the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history

• According to a paper published at the end of December 2014, the Ebola epidemic was traced back to a 2-year-old boy in Meliandou, Guinea. Supposedly, the boy had come in contact with an infected fruit bat in a hollowed-out tree. However, no Ebolavirus was ever detected in any of the bat samples collected from the area

• The senior author on that 2014 paper was Fabian Leendertz, a renowned virus hunter with the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. Leendertz was also a member of the World Health Organization team that investigated the origin of COVID-19, concluding without evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was of zoonotic origin

• In late October 2022, Sam Husseini and Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., published a new analysis, in which they highlighted the holes in the zoonotic origin narrative and laid out the evidence pointing to a lab leak

• Curiously, many of the same individuals, companies and organizations involved in the Ebola epidemic have also been linked to the alleged creation of SARS-CoV-2

In December 2013, Zaire Ebola hemorrhagic fever broke out in Guinea and over the next three years spread across West Africa, ultimately killing 11,323 people.

While Ebola epidemics occur on a near-annual basis, this was the largest and deadliest in history.

Of the five Ebola viruses known to cause disease in humans, Zaire Ebolavirus, first identified in Zaire in 1976, is the most dangerous, with a fatality rate ranging between 53% and 88%,

depending on the variant.

The virus leads to severe immunosuppression, but most deaths are attributed to dehydration caused by gastric problems. Early signs of infection include nonspecific flu-like symptoms and sudden onset of fever, diarrhea, headache, muscle pain, vomiting and abdominal pains. Other less common symptoms include sore throat, rashes and internal/external bleeding.

As the infection sets in, shock, cerebral edema (fluid on the brain), coagulation disorders and secondary bacterial infections may occur. Hemorrhaging tends to begin four to five days after onset of the initial symptoms, which includes bleeding in the throat, gums, lips and vagina. Vomiting blood, excreting tar-like feces indicative of gastrointestinal bleeding, and liver- and/or multi-organ failure can also occur.

According to a paper

published at the end of December 2014, the Ebola epidemic was traced back to a 2-year-old boy in Meliandou, Guinea, named Emile Ouamouno. Supposedly, the boy had come in contact with an infected fruit bat in a hollowed-out tree.

This, even though no Ebolavirus RNA was ever detected in any of the bat samples collected from the area. Interestingly enough, the senior author on that paper was Fabian Leendertz, a renowned virus hunter with the Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

Leendertz was also a member of the World Health Organization team that investigated the origin of COVID-19.

As you may recall, they also concluded, without evidence, that SARS-CoV-2 was most likely of zoonotic origin and dismissed the lab leak theory as not worthy of further consideration.

However, just as with SARS-CoV-2, suspicions and rumors that the Ebola outbreak was the result of a lab leak were present from the start. Some scientists even suspected the virus might be a weaponized form of Ebola. As noted in a 2014 paper in the Journal of Molecular Biochemistry:

“Another subject that may cause a plethora of arguments is that this virus may be a laboratory generated virus … There is a conjecture that the virus is transmitted to people from wild animals. However, by reason of the high mortality among them, it is impossible that these animals are the reservoir host of EVD.”

In late October 2022, Sam Husseini and Jonathan Latham, Ph.D., published a new analysis

in Independent Science News, in which they laid out the evidence pointing to a lab leak. They also dissect Leendertz December 2014 report, highlighting the holes in the zoonotic origin narrative. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest the outbreak in in Meliandou wasn’t Ebola at all. Husseini and Latham write:

“Chernoh Bah, an independent journalist from Sierra Leone, wrote a book on the 2014 Ebola outbreak and visited Meliandou. Bah found that: ‘Local health workers still think malaria may have been the actual cause of his [Emile’s] death.’

While in Meliandou, Chernoh Bah also interviewed Emile’s father. According to Bah, the Leendertz team (who never claimed to have interviewed the father) made a crucial error: ‘The child was actually 18 months old when he died’ … The age question, it should be noted, is crucial to the entire outbreak narrative. As Emile’s father told Reuters:

‘Emile was too young to eat bats, and he was too small to be playing in the bush all on his own. He was always with his mother.’ Bah also identified another apparent error: that Emile had four siblings who never became sick. These siblings are not mentioned anywhere in the scientific literature …

Further, although some bats appear to carry antibodies against Ebola viruses, only intact Bombali Ebola (a different virus species in the Ebola genus) has ever been isolated from a bat, despite intensive searches … Bombali is a species of Ebola that does not infect humans.

Taken together, this suggests that bats rarely carry Ebola viruses and when they do it is in small quantities. This context makes it somewhat surprising that Saéz et al. ascribed the 2014 outbreak (without supporting evidence) to contact with bats.

Indeed, Fabian Leendertz now doubts that bats are true reservoirs of Ebola viruses.

Given the general want of evidence, one wonders by what exact process such poorly supported claims were transmuted into international headlines.”

As detailed by Husseini and Latham,

“persistent rumors in the region linked the outbreak to a US-run research laboratory in Kenema, Sierra Leone.

This facility studies viral hemorrhagic diseases, of which Ebola is one.”

The Kenema lab, which has been run by the U.S.-based Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium (VHFC) since 2010, is located about 50 miles from the village in Guinea where the Ebola outbreak first emerged.

The founder and president of the VHFC is Robert (Bob) Garry, who was also part of the group of virologists who in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic concocted “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” paper

in which they dismissed the lab leak theory and insisted zoonotic origin was the most plausible, despite the lack of evidence.

As recently as November 2022, Garry still insisted SARS-CoV-2 “emerged via the wildlife trade.”

In that same article, Garry drew parallels to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, claiming that conspiracy pundits were wrong about Ebola being leaked from the Kenema lab, because “we did not have EBOV [ebolavirus] in our laboratory and therefore could not have released or engineered it.”

According to Garry, the Ebola and SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks are both victims of “guilt-by-proximity.” However, in a March 11, 2023, interview on the Decoding the Gurus podcast, Kristian Andersen, vice president of the VHFC’s Kenema lab

and another “Proximal Origin” author, clearly refuted Garry’s claim:

“The problem is that people see these coincidences. One of the new ones is the Ebola lab leak, which also is being blamed on us, because we had been studying Ebola in Kenema in Sierra Leone, and lo and behold Ebola emerged just a few miles from there in 2014,” Andersen said.

So, what do we make of this? Garry claims the Kenema lab didn’t have any Ebola virus and Andersen says they did. Both are top executives at the lab and ought to know what was studied and what wasn’t. So, who’s telling the truth?

According to Husseini and Latham,

there’s good reason to believe the Kenema lab was working with Ebola before the outbreak in Guinea, some 50 miles from the lab. For starters, the Guinea outbreak was the first time Zaire Ebola emerged in West Africa. All previous outbreaks of this most-lethal strain of Ebola occurred in the Congo basin, in the central African equatorial zone, some 3,000 kilometers (approximately 1,864 miles) from Guinea.

“Hence Zaire Ebola’s appearance in West Africa was a striking and very unexpected development,” they write. How did it get there? Ebola is not highly contagious as transmission typically requires direct contact.

There were no outbreaks between the Congo basin and Guinea, which you’d expect if it was spreading naturally from person to person. Equally mysterious is the fact that genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed only a single jump from animal to human. Husseini and Latham explain:

“Zoonotic outbreaks, including most past Ebola outbreaks, typically feature multiple jumps to humans from an animal source. Single jumps, however, are consistent with lab origins and are often considered a red flag for that possibility.

The reason is that researchers often work with a single isolate, perhaps one that they have found is particularly easy to replicate in the laboratory, whereas natural populations are typically diverse. This difference provides a genetic signal for distinguishing natural origins from laboratory ones.”

Zaire Ebola is also the preferred species used by research labs studying Ebola-type viruses, as it’s the most lethal and therefore has the greatest biowarfare potential. Husseini and Latham continue:

“Noting the gap between the weakness of the Leendertz account of the outbreak origin … and the forcefulness with which the Emile narrative was asserted by western scientists and western media, [journalist Chernoh Bah] wrote:

‘it is difficult not to interpret the ‘zoonotic origin of the West African Ebola epidemic’ narrative advanced by Fabian Leendertz and his team as part of a cover-up or obfuscation of the actual chain of events that laid the foundation for the West African Ebola outbreak’ …

In 2011, three years before the West African Ebola outbreak, Reuters profiled the research in Kenema at length.

Readers were told that a ‘laboratory in southeastern Sierra Leone is an outpost of the U.S. government’s ‘war on terror,’ funded by a surge in bio-defense spending … [By] the fiscal year 2007 the NIH was requesting more than $1.9 billion.’ Reuters concluded that the Kenema labs’ share of that allocation was $40 million.

On August 25, 2013, just months before the Ebola outbreak, the VHFC posted on its website an article titled: ‘Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute make major advances in the fight against Ebola virus.’ This article was later removed but its existence is verifiable using the WayBackMachine.

Nevertheless, the title alone raises some key questions: Why did the VHFC post about Ebola if it wasn’t working on it at the time? In particular, what Ebola variant was being studied? What was the nature of the experiments? Why remove the post? …

We do know that Ebola was important to the VHFC and its partners and a primary interest for at least some of its members.

Indeed, all the leading US-based researchers of the VHFC, Robert Garry, Kristian Andersen, Erica Ollmann Saphire and Pardis Sabeti have published multiple original research papers on Ebola virus.

An Ebola focus also accords with US biosecurity research priorities under whose auspices the Kenema lab is largely funded …

In 2013 Robert Garry co-authored a paper

on a novel treatment for Zaire Ebola. All eleven other authors were from USAMRIID, aka Fort Detrick. This site is the largest ‘biodefense’ facility in the world and Garry’s company, Zalgen, is located close-by.”

Husseini and Latham point out that in 2014, when the Ebola outbreak occurred, Metabiota was a VHFC partner. As detailed in “Evidence of Pandemic and Bioweapon Cover-Ups,” Metabiota was hired by the WHO and the local government of Sierra Leone to monitor the spread of the Ebola epidemic, but clearly were not up to the task. A 2016 CBS News report detailed Metabiota’s bungled response.

2014 was also the year when Metabiota was entrusted with the operations of U.S. biological research labs in Ukraine, with funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and:

• Pilot Growth Management, cofounded by Neil Callahan. Callahan is also a cofounder of Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and he sits on Metabiota’s board of advisers

• In-Q-Tel, a CIA venture capital firm that specializes in high-tech investments that support or benefit the intelligence capacity of U.S. intelligence agencies

• Rosemont Seneca,

  an investment fund co-managed by Hunter Biden

Metabiota’s founder, Nathan Wolfe, is also tied to EcoHealth president Peter Daszak, Ph.D., a prime suspect in the COVID pandemic who worked closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, where SARS-CoV-2 is suspected of having originated. Wolfe has also received more than $20 million in research grants from Google, the NIH and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, just to name a few.

Of all the scientists, companies and organizations involved in this kind of research across the world, how is it that the same short list of names pop up both in the Guinea Ebola case and COVID-19?

Aside from the Kenema lab’s obvious biowarfare connections, and the possibility of Ebola being experimented on there, several Ebola treatment trials were also taking place in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, about 190 km (118 miles) from Kenema, right around the same time that Ebola broke out in Guinea.

“From the limited descriptions available, one of these trials fits the timing required for it to have triggered the 2014 Ebola outbreak but none of them fits the location,” Latham and Husseini write.

“However, the data is incomplete; for his book, Constantine Nana corresponded with the lead investigator in the Port Loko Phase II trial, Dr. Peter Horby of the University of Oxford. Horby told Nana ‘he had no information as regards the results of the Phase I trial.’ To lead a Phase II trial and know nothing about that product’s Phase I trial is indeed mysterious and rather strange.”

Latham and Husseini also review the lackadaisical approach to biosafety at the Kenema lab, despite working with extremely dangerous pathogens:

“In the U.S., using live filoviruses requires biosafety level four (BSL-4) facilities, where researchers wear positive pressure ‘space suits.’ But in Kenema … according to Reuters, biosafety ‘measures include goggles, gloves and masks.’ The article quoted VHFC member Matt Boisen, a U.S. scientist from Tulane, now with Zalgen: ‘Certainly we have less safety, less containment, but we do have the ability to do a lot more in the same amount of time’ …

Others have corroborated this laxity. In the 2014 outbreak, the earliest emergency responder was the medical non-profit Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who were called in for their extensive Ebola experience. MSF’s emergency response coordinator was Anja Wolz. She was highly critical of the biosafety measures used by Metabiota at Kenema.

Having seen how they visited suspected Ebola cases, she told AP: ‘I didn’t go inside the Metabiota lab … I refused because I had already seen enough.’ A CDC official, Austin Demby, later sent to investigate, reached similar conclusions.

In an email about the Kenema lab he wrote: ‘The cross contamination potential is huge and quite frankly unacceptable.’ Thus, there seems to have been a pattern at Kenema of lax biosafety procedures both before and during the outbreak.”

Another oddity that doesn’t fit the nature of a natural outbreak was the fact that hotspots were broadly spread out. There was no epicenter. Moreover, according to WHO Ebola coordinator Philippe Barboza, Metabiota staffers were “systematically obstructing any attempt to improve the existing surveillance system.” MSF also complained they got no cooperation from Kenema.

“Given the intentionality imputed by many of these witnesses to the failings in Sierra Leone, were they deliberate? If so, were they intended to divert attention away from the Kenema lab?” Latham and Husseini ask.

Latham and Husseini then delve into the genomic testing results, which suggest there was a “hidden” or unreported outbreak in Sierra Leone, which only later spread into Guinea. That doesn’t prove it came out of a lab in Sierra Leone, however. But unique features in the Makona strain of Ebola that caused the Guinea outbreak suggest the virus may have undergone some form of manipulation. Latham and Husseini explain:

“The Makona strain of Ebola is not a standard or known strain, nor is it similar to any published strain. It is novel, having approximately 400 mutations that are not found in any previously known Ebola strain. Hence, for the 2014 Ebola outbreak to have begun in a lab, the Makona strain must either represent the escape of an unpublished strain, perhaps one collected during fieldwork in central Africa.

Alternatively, Makona could be a radically manipulated derivative of a known strain–either through genetic engineering or passaging. A combination of these two possibilities should also be considered.

Of these two alternatives, we know that Ebola and other viruses were being sought from wild animals in the Congo basin at the time as part of USAID’s PREDICT project. The chief actors in this were the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Metabiota, which, at the time, was at the time a partner of the VHFC …

[One] possibility is that Metabiota, or other collectors, used the VHFC lab at Kenema as part of a cold chain for the preservation of samples brought from the Congo basin …

The Kenema lab may also have been used for initial screening or testing of such samples. A third possibility is the formal or informal sharing of samples or strains with VHFC contacts or colleagues at Kenema, perhaps to help in the development of commercial treatments or diagnostic tools …

Given these potentialities it is remarkable to discover that, in July 2014, during the epidemic, the VHFC wrote a brief report in which they accused Metabiota of an activity that would be riskier still.

The VHFC accused Metabiota staff at Kenema of culturing cells from Ebola patients, which they insisted was dangerous and should ‘be stopped immediately.’

Metabiota issued a qualified denial, but the allegation is highly credible since the two organisations shared the same site; moreover its implications are very great. It suggests, first, that Metabiota had an interest in culturing novel strains of Ebola, second, that they had the technical capability and the personnel competent to do so at Kenema, and third, that they were willing to take exceptional risks …

The allegation therefore raises, in a very concrete way, the question of what Metabiota might have been doing in Kenema prior to the outbreak … given the research interests and the capacities of the VHFC lab in Kenema and its collaborators, it is a relatively simple matter to theorise how a novel strain of Ebola, like Makona, might have reached Kenema and then spilled over there during routine research activities.

Interesting too is the dual role of Metabiota. Besides collecting samples from the wild, Metabiota was also the company that, at least according to MSF and the WHO, obstructed or mishandled testing and diagnosis at Kenema and that Sylvia Blyden alleged ‘messed up the whole region.’

If a research error on the part of Metabiota was the source of the strain (and Metabiota’s incompetence has been widely alleged

), or even suspected to be, they would have had a strong incentive to also ‘bungle’ the identification of early cases and so obfuscate the origin.”

While the case for the worst Ebola outbreak in history being the result of a lab leak is still based on circumstantial evidence, that evidence is compelling, and made even more so by the absence of evidence for a zoonotic origin. The same can be said for SARS-CoV-2.

Additionally, of all the scientists, companies and organizations involved in this kind of research across the world, how is it that the same short list of names pop up both in the Guinea Ebola case and COVID-19?

The take-home message here is that there is no possible way to guarantee containment of viruses in any of these laboratories, not even biosafety level 4 labs. And a pathogen doesn’t have to be developed as a bioweapon in order to act like one.

If gain-of-function research on lethal viruses is allowed to continue, the whole world will remain at risk, and I don’t think its hyperbolic to say gain of function research poses an existential threat to mankind. So far, we’ve been lucky in that escaped pathogens (suspected or confirmed) have not decimated the global population, but our luck may someday run out.

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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.

The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

• Lunchables, made by Kraft Heinz, will be available to students at U.S. schools beginning in the 2023 to 2024 school year

• By securing a regular spot in the lunch line, Kraft Heinz gets a guaranteed boost in profits, but the children receive more ultraprocessed junk food in lieu of real food

• Kraft Heinz, which has partnered with the School Nutrition Association, appears to have plans to get even more of its products into school lunches, via their KH K-12 Portfolio, which includes pictures of junk food such as CapriSun juice boxes, ranch dressing, pizza and chicken nuggets

• In the U.K., ultraprocessed foods in primary and secondary schools represent 72.6% and 77.8% of calories, respectively

• Efforts to improve school lunches are underway, including Eat REAL, a nonprofit group that offers a certification program for schools that commit to using minimally processed, locally sourced ingredients and more

For the first time in history, students will be able to get Kraft Heinz’s Lunchables directly from their school at lunchtime — marking a major victory for Kraft and a tragedy for the students who eat them. By securing a regular spot in the lunch line, Kraft Heinz gets a guaranteed boost in profits, but the children receive more ultraprocessed junk food in lieu of real food.

“The politics of school lunch just took a turn for the worse,” Robert Lustig, professor emeritus of pediatrics, division of endocrinology, at UCSF, posted on LinkedIn. “Are you sure you want Kraft Heinz (home of the high-fructose-corn-syrup ketchup) dictating your kid’s nutrition?”

Lunchables will be available to students at U.S. schools beginning in the 2023 to 2024 school year. Kraft Heinz told CNN Business the highly processed “meals” would be available throughout the U.S. to “all school administrators” to offer to students either for purchase or at no cost via the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).

To get an idea of the potential scale of this rollout, nearly 30 million children in public and private schools and child care institutions receive lunch from NSLP daily.

It appears the products had to be reformulated to meet NSLP guidelines, and Kraft Heinz set up a new website dedicated to promoting their Lunchables that are “built for schools.”

The site — Kraft Heinz Away From Home — includes sell sheets and “nutrition” advertisements for its two cafeteria-geared products — turkey and cheddar cracker stackers and extra cheesy pizza. “Fuel your school with new Lunchables, now available for the 2023-2024 school year!” one ad states.

“They meet the NSLP requirements with 1.5 ounces of meat and 1 ounce of whole grain — and are a good source of protein. They’re always refrigerated and never frozen for great-tasting flavor.”

Kraft Heinz, which has partnered with the School Nutrition Association,

a nonprofit group that represents school food workers, also appears to have plans to get more of its products into school lunches, via their KH K-12 Portfolio. It includes pictures of their processed junk food such as CapriSun juice boxes, ranch dressing, pizza and chicken nuggets.

“Children need nutrients so they can grow, develop and focus on learning instead of thinking about the food they need. Ultimately, they need to be able to concentrate in the classroom so they can succeed in school and be prepared to enter the workforce as adults,” the Kraft Heinz propaganda reads. “Kraft Heinz recognizes this, and has a vast portfolio that will help meet all of your menu needs whether for breakfast, snack, lunch, supper feeding, or, after school programs.”

U.K. researchers set out to quantify the amount of ultraprocessed food in school meals, noting that “as school meals are publicly funded, they should contain minimal quantities of food products known to be harmful to child health.”

While this seems obvious, the close ties between Big Food and public health agencies ensures that junk food remains front and center in school lunches.

For instance, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND),

the U.S. “authority” on food policy, which influences the development of U.S. dietary guidelines, has particularly close ties to the manufacturers of some of the unhealthiest foods you can eat. This includes not only Kraft but also Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Mills, among others.

U.S. Right to Know previously revealed a symbiotic relationship between AND, the AND Foundation (ANDF) and such corporations, which assist AND and its foundation with financial contributions. Not surprisingly, AND acts as a pro-industry voice as a result,

one that cannot, in this capacity, represent the best interests of public health.

For the U.K. study, researchers found that the ultraprocessed food content of school lunches was high for both primary and secondary schools, representing 72.6% of calories and 77.8% of calories, respectively.

Packed lunches contained even more ultraprocessed foods, suggesting that parents are relying heavily on junk food when they pack lunch at home. Children in secondary school and those from low-income households were also more likely to have higher intake of ultraprocessed foods.

But not every school lunch program appears as dismal as those in the U.K. and U.S. “In Brazil,” the researchers noted, “a school feeding program in public schools requires that 75% of the food purchased must be minimally processed and 30% must be supplied from local sources. Evidence indicates that this policy is associated with a lower intake of UPF foods, better diet quality and lower obesity.”

Ultraprocessed foods are among the worst things you can eat, and children, in particular, may be sabotaging their future health by consuming them. In the U.S. and the U.K., more than half of daily caloric intake comes from these junk foods.

What exactly are ultraprocessed foods (UPFs)? Imperial College London researchers defined them as:

“… foods that are industrial formulations made by assembling industrially-derived food substances and food additives through a sequence of extensive industrial processes. UPFs contain little or no whole foods and are often energy dense, high in salt, sugar and fat, low in fiber, and liable to overconsumption.

They are aggressively marketed with strong brands to promote consumption and are gradually displacing traditional dietary patterns based on fresh and minimally processed food.”

Consuming heavily processed junk food takes a toll on your whole body, including your brain. Research published in JAMA Neurology demonstrated that consuming UPFs such as breakfast cereal, frozen foods and soda could lead to cognitive decline and increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

UPFs are also linked to early death. One study estimated that if ultraprocessed foods made up less than 23% of adults’ daily calories, about 20,000 premature deaths could be prevented each year.

Yet, among Americans, ultraprocessed foods make up about 57% of daily calories, on average.

Mental health is also affected by diet. Higher levels of sodium in the urine can be an indication of a diet high in sodium, such as ultraprocessed foods and salty snacks. A low level of potassium, meanwhile, is indicative of a diet lacking in fruits, vegetables and other healthy potassium-rich foods.

In a study on teens, higher sodium and lower potassium excretion rates were associated with more frequent symptoms of depression at follow up 1.5 years later.

“Given the substantial brain development that occurs during adolescence, individuals in this developmental period may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of diet on the neural mechanisms underlying emotion regulation and depression,” researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham wrote.

In addition, poor diet could influence depression by disturbing the gut microbiome, which could further influence brain function.

Past studies have also confirmed the diet-depression link among children and teens. When researchers systematically reviewed 12 studies involving children and adolescents, an association was revealed between unhealthy diet and poorer mental health, as well as between a good-quality diet and better mental health.

The consumption of junk food has also been associated with psychiatric distress and violent behaviors in children and adolescents, which includes worry, depression, confusion, insomnia, anxiety, aggression and worthless feelings, as well as physical fighting, being a victim and bullying.

Lustig is chief scientific officer of Eat REAL, a nonprofit group founded in 2012 that’s raising awareness of the value of real food in schools. With a team of experts in health, nutrition, education, the food system and more, Eat REAL has brought its Eat REAL Certification to more than 500 partners across the U.S.

“Everyone, check out Eat REAL (full disclosure, I’m chief science officer). Real food increases cognition. Real food reduces irritability. Real food reduces violence. Call your congressman. Get Kraft Heinz out of your kid’s school,” Lustig says.

The program aims to improve children’s health with the simple solution of offering real food. According to Eat REAL:

“Today, kids aren’t eating enough real foods, hurting them and our planet. Food related disease is the #1 cause of early death globally … Unhealthy and highly processed food is putting our kids’ lifespans and healthspans at risk.”

The Eat REAL Certification involves 10 standards that are modeled after the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building certification program. They include the following:

• Encourages cooking from scratch using whole or minimally processed ingredients

• Discourages consumption of added sugars

• Encourages consumption of unadulterated fresh fruits and vegetables

• Encourages sustainable produce sourcing and the use of seasonal ingredients

• Encourages sourcing of ingredients to maximize animal welfare

According to EatReal’s 2021 Impact Report, they’ve improved 70 million meals annually, positively influencing 213,000 students:

“Our core program, Eat REAL Certification, continues to have a waitlist. The program has proven its ability to support school leaders to make their food programs more delicious, culturally relevant, healthy, and sustainable.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, which include some positive moves in the right direction, particularly in their recommendation to limit added sugars.

However, the proposed changes fall far short of what’s needed to protect children’s health. A more significant overhaul would take steps to eliminate ultraprocessed foods from school lunches — a necessary step to reduce the intake of toxic industrially processed seed oils, often referred to as “vegetable oils.”

These oils are high in linoleic acid that, when consumed in excess, triggers a catastrophic cascade of health declines rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction and insulin resistance. The requirement to include less than 10% of calories from saturated fat

is also harmful to children, who need healthy animal fats in their diet. The guidelines are such that whole milk is not allowed in schools but fat-free chocolate milk is.

Other simple interventions to bring more real food to school cafeterias should also be explored, like school gardens. The Garden to Cafeteria program is one such option, which teaches students how to grow food, which is then used in salad bars in school cafeterias.

In Denver, this program has been in place for years, resulting in more than 5,000 pounds of produce that have been enjoyed by students in about 250 schools.

Such programs can even be self-sustaining, with proceeds going back to support the program, and can be implemented throughout the U.S.

In the immediacy, if you have the resources, send your children to school with a lunch made from real food. If they’ll be eating a school-provided lunch, teach them how to choose the least processed options available, avoiding ultraprocessed junk food like Kraft Heinz’s Lunchables.

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• Mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells, producing a majority of the energy generated in your body. They also coordinate apoptosis, or programmed cell death — an important process that ensures the death of malfunctioning cells that might otherwise turn into cancer

• Your brain, being the most energy-dependent organ, is particularly susceptible to impaired energy production due to faulty mitochondria, and researchers now suggest this is what makes the human brain susceptible to age-related diseases in the first place

• In older individuals, mitochondrial genes related to energy generation become progressively less active. The mitochondria tend to be less dense and more fragmented, and generate much lower amounts of energy

• Free radicals formed at the level of the mitochondria are typically extremely harmful, which is why you need to minimize them. Effective strategies include cyclical ketosis, calorie restriction (fasting), meal timing, exercise and EMF avoidance

• Supplements that help optimize mitochondrial function include CoQ10, PQQ, berberine, magnesium, nontimed-release niacin and D-ribose

Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published July 12, 2018.

In recent years, it’s become increasingly apparent that most of what we refer to as health and disease really links back to the function of your mitochondria — tiny organelles inside your cells that play an important role in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), required for all biological functions.

If your mitochondria are not functioning well, your risk for chronic degenerative diseases will radically increase. Not surprisingly, optimization of mitochondria is also vital for life extension strategies.

Your brain, being the most energy-dependent organ (consuming up to 20 percent of the energy used by your entire body

), is therefore particularly susceptible to impaired energy production due to faulty mitochondria, and researchers now suggest this appears to be what makes the human brain susceptible to age-related diseases in the first place. As reported by Salk News:

“Salk researchers used a new method to discover that cells from older individuals had impaired mitochondria — the power stations of cells — and reduced energy production. A better understanding of the effects of aging on mitochondria could reveal more about the link between mitochondrial dysfunction and age-related brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

The research

in question, published in the May issue of Cell Reports, supports “a bioenergetic explanation for the high susceptibility of the brain to aging.” With age, your mitochondria tend to decrease both in number and function, and this age-related dysfunction is caused by impaired ATP production and an increase in oxidative damage. According to the authors:

“Mitochondrial dysfunction is characterized by the loss of the mitochondrial membrane potential, which is directly linked to a loss of energy generated through the electron transport chain that performs oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS); the failure of OXPHOS is believed to set the stage for the development of age-related disorders.

Interestingly, inherited mitochondrial diseases that can be caused by mutations in genes encoded on the nuclear DNA, which encodes the vast majority of mitochondrial genes, or in genes that are encoded in mtDNA are often associated with neurodegenerative phenotypes, indicating a particular vulnerability of brain neurons to mitochondrial defects.

Similarly, the human brain is an organ that is strongly affected by aging, and advanced age is by far the strongest risk factor for most neurodegenerative disorders.”

While most investigative methods employ chemical stressors on cells to simulate cellular aging, the Salk group, led by Rusty Gage, a Salk Laboratory of Genetics professor, used a novel method previously developed by Gage that directly converts skin cells into neurons, referred to as “induced neurons” or iNs. These iNs allowed them to observe the effects of natural aging on mitochondria.

For the featured study, the team collected skin cells from individuals ranging in age from newborn to 89, and then created iNs from each donor. They then studied the mitochondria within each set, using a variety of different methods. Interestingly, while the mitochondria in the skin cells showed few variations between age groups, once the cells were converted to neurons, significant differences emerged.

In the iNs of older individuals, mitochondrial genes related to energy generation were turned down. The mitochondria were also less dense and more fragmented, and generated much lower amounts of energy. The mitochondrial membrane potential was on average 43 percent lower in old iNs compared to young iNs.

“Pretty much every area we looked at — functional, genetic and morphological — had defects,” Jerome Mertens, a Salk staff scientist and co-corresponding study author said.

The authors also noted that the differences in susceptibility to mitochondrial aging between various cell types appears to depend on the level of oxidative phosphorylation the cell in question performs, and that “the metabolic profile of neurons might render them particularly vulnerable to mitochondrial aging.” As reported by Salk News:

“The researchers hypothesized that the reason the mitochondria of iNs were more impacted by aging than the mitochondria of skin cells was that neurons rely more heavily on mitochondria for their energy needs. ‘If you have an old car with a bad engine that sits in your garage every day, it doesn’t matter,’ Mertens says. ‘But if you’re commuting with that car, the engine becomes a big problem.’

The finding shows how aging can impact organs differently throughout the body. The researchers next want to begin to apply their method to study age-related diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In the past, mitochondrial defects have been implicated in these diseases.

By collecting skin cells from patients and creating iNs, the team can look at how neuronal mitochondria from patients with those diseases are different from neuronal mitochondria from unaffected older individuals.”

Aside from turning the food you eat into energy, your mitochondria also have other radically important functions. For example, they act as the coordinator for apoptosis, or programmed cell death — an important process that ensures the death of malfunctioning cells that might turn into tumors lest they be cleaned out.

Over the course of a cell’s life, damage will inevitably occur. Once that damage reaches a certain threshold, signals are sent to the cell with instructions to self-destruct.

Your mitochondria determine whether that threshold has been reached, and are the initiators of the subsequent cell suicide program. If your mitochondria are not functioning well, they might not be able to make a proper determination of when the damage threshold has been reached, and/or may not give the damaged cell the signal for apoptosis. The result is obvious: You end up with severely damaged cells hanging around, accumulating and contributing to further dysfunction.

Moreover, in order for the apoptosis cascade to happen, energy input is required. So, even if your mitochondria are able to make the determination that the threshold has been reached and are able to signal apoptosis, if there’s insufficient energy, defective cells will still survive and multiply. This, in a nutshell, is how dysfunctional mitochondria end up causing cancer.

While your mitochondria can be damaged in a number of ways, much of it stems from superoxide free radicals — created when electrons leak out of the electron transport chain (ETC) and react with oxygen. This is a normal and healthy process, but when superoxide is created at higher levels than healthy, it will damage the DNA in your mitochondria.

What causes excess leakage of electrons out of the ETC in your mitochondria? In short, not being metabolically flexible and burning a higher percentage of carbohydrate than fat, which leaks far more of these electrons that combine with molecular oxygen to form superoxide.

With a name like superoxide, you would think this molecule would be really damaging and dangerous but it is relatively benign. It was thought that its conversion to hydrogen peroxide and combining with iron (Fenton reaction) to form hydroxyl free radical caused most of the damage.

However, this view has radically shifted this century. It is now appreciated that while hydroxyl radicals are damaging, they don’t travel very far, only the distance of one protein, and their damage is relatively restricted. The major problem with generations of excess superoxide is that it is available to combine with nitric oxide to form what is likely the most dangerous molecule in your body, peroxynitrate.

I just concluded hundreds of hours of reading thousands of pages on this topic and finished writing a 30-page paper for a peer-reviewed publication that extensively details the concept of how one can use molecular biology to understand and remediate most chronic disease. I hope to publish it on the site later this year, once it is accepted for journal publication.

But briefly, the perfect storm of DNA, cellular protein and membrane destruction is created when you aren’t burning fat for fuel and creating excess superoxide and then get exposed to electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

This causes a radical increase in nitric oxide release that nearly instantaneously combines with superoxide to create enormous levels of peroxynitrate, which triggers a cascade of destructive events to your cellular and mitochondrial DNA, membranes and proteins.

Although all biologic damage is of concern, it is the DNA strand breaks that are most concerning as they will lead to a radical increase in inflammation and virtually all degenerative diseases. Thankfully, your body has the ability to repair this damaged DNA with a family of enzymes called PARP (poly ADP ribose polymerase). It is a very effective repair system and works wonderfully to repair the damage as long as it has enough fuel.

And what is that fuel? It is NAD+ that you might have heard a bit of in the news recently. When excess peroxynitrate activates PARP to repair the DNA damage, it consumes NAD+ and if you run out you can’t repair the damage, which is likely the central cause for most of the diseases we are seeing in the modern world now.

I have previously written extensively about EMF and how you can mitigate your exposure. The key here is to understand that it is the combination of EMF exposure and the inability to burn fat as a primary fuel that causes the domino cascade of biologic destruction that we are currently observing.

Improving NAD+ levels is a very complex topic and really requires a book to carefully explain, which I am actually in the process of writing. But optimizing NAD+ levels may be the single most important strategy for improving your mitochondrial health.

The first step is to reduce NAD+ consumption by the correct diet, along with EMF avoidance. Then there are inhibitors of inflammatory pathways, like CD38, that consume NAD+ that can also increase NAD+ levels. Finally, there are strategies to convert NADH to NAD+, which is the beneficial form of NAD.

There is one simple inexpensive supplemental strategy to increase NAD+ from a biological precursor. There are four primary ones that will not be reviewed here but the least expensive one is simple nontimed-release niacin (vitamin B3) — yes, the same vitamin used to cure pellagra and improve heart disease for the last 50 years. Although niacinamide works, evidence suggests it is not as effective, and additionally suppresses important and beneficial sirtuins.

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is one of the most important biomolecules in your body. It’s involved in the conversion of food to energy, maintaining DNA integrity and ensuring proper cell function. Together, these functions help protect against or delay aging and virtually all chronic disease.

NAD+ also acts as fuel for longevity proteins called sirtuins. Sadly, NAD levels dramatically decline with age, contributing to aging and chronic disease states. NAD is also used up by DNA repair enzymes and enzymes involved in inflammation and immunity, such that chronic inflammation, or acute illness in old age, can rapidly result in depletion.

To restore NAD_, you need to fix the root cause for NAD+ depletion, which primarily involves addressing the decline in the NAD salvage pathway. By increasing enzymes in that pathway, which decline with age, your body can recycle NAD_ like it did naturally when it was younger. For more information, please review my fantastic interview with molecular biologist Nichola Conlon, Ph.D.

The best way to supplement niacinamide is by taking a very low dose of 50 mg three times a day. This is an order of magnitude less expensive than taking NAD precursors like nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide to increase NAD+ levels. Please do NOT take high doses like 500 mg or even 1,000 mg, because taking more is not better and will be highly counterproductive as higher doses will impair your sirtuin longevity proteins.

You can purchase a niacinamide powder and take one-sixty-fourth of a teaspoon three times a day or take a 50 mg niacinamide tablet three times a day. Because a 50 mg niacinamide tablet currently is not being made commercially, we will be launching one very soon.

So, hopefully, you are now even more motivated to optimize your diet by what I just shared. The central theme of my book “Fat for Fuel,” details strategies aimed at minimizing the production of excess superoxide by teaching your body to burn fat as a primary fuel.

What we’re now finding is that it’s the divergence from our ancestral diet — the massive prevalence of processed, unnatural foods and excessive amounts of added sugars, net carbs and industrial fats — that causes a majority of the damage.

High-carb, processed food diets prevent your body from efficiently burning fat as its primary fuel, and burning fats and ketones is far more efficient, inducing far less oxidative stress, than burning carbs. So, a foundational dietary strategy to optimize your mitochondrial health is to eat the right fuel.

Once you become an efficient fat burner, you automatically minimize the oxidative stress placed on your mitochondria, which is key. Other effective strategies include calorie restriction (fasting) and exercise (see section below).

Meal timing is another important factor. One of the worst things you can do to your mitochondria on a regular basis is eating shortly before going to bed. Ideally, you would eat your last meal at least three hours or more before bedtime.

By supplying your body with food at a time when your body needs it the least (since you’re sleeping), excessive amounts of free radicals end up being formed, which then spill out and damage mitochondrial DNA. Excess carbohydrates, in particular, result in a backup of electrons that causes the production of superoxide.

What’s more, should you happen to have high iron levels — which is far more common than low iron — combined with high superoxide, then hydroxyl free radicals are produced, which are among the most harmful. The chemical reaction that creates these hydroxyl free radicals is known as the Fenton reaction.

While you certainly need enough iron, having too high an iron level can cause severe damage, and this is one way in which it does that. To learn more about the hazards of high iron, and simple ways to screen for and lower it, please see “Why Managing Your Iron Level Is Crucial to Your Health.”

Thanks to living in a toxic environment, feeding your body inappropriate fuel, eating at the wrong time and not exercising enough, most people have less than optimized mitochondria. The good news is there are many ways to improve your mitochondrial function. The two best and most researched ways to optimize mitochondrial function are exercise and calorie restriction.

Exercise upregulates genes like PGC-1 alpha and nuclear gene factors like Nrf2. These genes help your mitochondria become more efficient. They also boost mitochondrial growth and division, so that you end up with a larger number of mitochondria. In simplified terms, the reason exercise benefits your mitochondria is because it places an increased energy demand on your cells.

In response, free radicals signal that you need more mitochondria. So, over time, your body adapts to higher levels of physical activity by triggering the creation of more mitochondria, and improving their efficiency.

As your fitness level improves, each individual mitochondrion is placed under considerably less stress (since there’s more of them), and as a result, fewer free radicals are generated. As noted by Dr. Lee Know, author of “Mitochondria and the Future of Medicine,” this is “one of the reasons why physically fit individuals have a lower risk of pretty much all degenerative diseases, including cancer, as well as a longer life span.”

Molecular hydrogen acts as a selective antioxidant, meaning it doesn’t indiscriminately suppress free radicals. Rather, it’s unique in that it helps your body make its own endogenous antioxidants. This is important because excessive use of antioxidants can be counterproductive, while molecular hydrogen serves as a redox regulator.

Hydrogen gas is particularly useful for non-ionizing radiation and neutralizing the peroxynitrate that is produced when exposed to EMF. This is important as peroxynitrate causes most of the dangerous free radicals from EMF exposure. Hydrogen also stimulates many other important endogenous antioxidants like glutathione to further reduce oxidative stress.

The H₂ molecule is the smallest in the universe, which allows it to diffuse through all cell membranes, including the blood-brain barrier and subcellular compartments, and into the mitochondria. According to Tyler LeBaron, Ph.D., it’s been shown to have therapeutic benefits in more than 170 different animal disease models.3 While there’s no risk of overdosing on molecular hydrogen, intermittent exposure produces the best results.

In addition to diet, meal timing and exercise, certain dietary supplements can also be useful. The following are particularly beneficial for optimizing mitochondrial function throughout your body:

• Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) or its reduced (and more absorbable) form, ubiquinol, if you’re over 40. CoQ10 is intimately involved in the energy production process, and having an excess amount of CoQ10 is by many considered an effective therapeutic strategy to ensure well-functioning mitochondria. CoQ10 also acts as a signaling molecule and helps protect cell membranes from damage.

• Quercetin, an antioxidant that belongs to a class of water-soluble plant substances called flavonoids, which are present in certain fruits and vegetables. Aside from antioxidant properties, quercetin is known to have anticarcinogenic and anti-atherogenic capabilities, but for purposes of this discussion in can also increase NAD+ levels.

• Pau D’Arco has been used for centuries to treat cancer and malaria. It is loaded with flavones, quercetin, alkaloids and other nutrients that can increase NAD+ levels.

• Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ), a vitamin-like substance and a cousin to CoQ10, helps with mitochondrial biogenesis. The greater number of mitochondria you have, the more energy your cells are able to produce, and the better they function overall. So, having sufficient amounts of PQQ encourages the proliferation of mitochondria.

  Both animal and human studies using doses between 10 and 20 milligrams (mg) of PQQ shows significant improvement in mental processing and memory. The best results are obtained when you take PQQ in combination with CoQ10. PQQ has also been shown to protect against the development of alpha-synuclein, a protein associated with Parkinson’s disease, and beta-amyloid, associated with Alzheimer’s.

• Berberine also benefits mitochondrial function and is a powerful AMPK activator, thereby stimulating mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy) and mitochondrial biogenesis. It also helps protect against the type of oxidative stress that leads to Parkinson’s disease.

• Magnesium also plays an important role in the production of ATP, and is a required cofactor in the mitochondrial repair process. To learn more about how magnesium impacts your mitochondrial health, see “Magnesium — A Key Nutrient for Health and Disease Prevention.”

• D-ribose is a five-carbon sugar required by ADP. While being a sugar, it has no impact on your blood glucose, so it’s safe to consume even for diabetics. Ribose enters cells and converts into the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) base required for the creation of ADP and ATP.

  While your body produces D-ribose on its own, it’s a very slow process. According to Know, D-ribose is often a rate limiting factor in recovery for patients with cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack and chronic fatigue.

  It’s nontoxic and is virtually impossible to overdose on, and if you’ve suffered a stroke, heart attack or struggle with chronic fatigue, it’s a really important supplement to include in your regimen. Taking D-ribose prior to cardiac surgery can also help minimize damage associated with reperfusion injury. Since most people have some degree of mitochondrial dysfunction, it may also be helpful for general health, especially if you exercise regularly.

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The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.

If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.

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• Three large banks failed in a single week in March 2023, and the ripple effect could easily take down the entire banking system. The cascading bank failures began March 8 with the shut down and liquidation of the crypto bank Silvergate Capital. It had invested deposits in Treasury bonds, which lost value as interest rates were hiked to stem inflation

• March 10, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed. It too was invested in government bonds, which again became a problem when customers began making large fear-based withdrawals. This was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, and the largest since the financial crisis in 2008

• Spooked by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank customers withdrew more than $10 billion in the days that followed, resulting in the shutdown of Signature Bank on March 12

• Government regulators have promised to make customers of the two banks “whole” by insuring all funds, not just the first $250,000. Only select “too big to fail” banks will be eligible for this kind of special treatment. Small local banks will not be eligible

• The most likely outcome of this bailout system is a consolidation of banks until we’re left with just a small number of mega-banks. This consolidation, in turn, will facilitate the rollout of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), as the banking industry will be a tight-knit monopoly

Three large banks failed in a single week in March 2023, and the ripple effect could easily take down the entire banking system, although government officials insist the banking sector “remains strong” and that the problems faced by these banks “do not appear to be widespread.”

The cascading bank failures began March 8 with the shut down and liquidation of the crypto bank Silvergate Capital.

As reported by Government Executive:

“During 2022, Silvergate’s deposit base grew dramatically, almost doubling its assets to $210 billion. But the bank did not have either the administrative capacity or market demand to lend out all of the money, as banks normally do.

So, it invested the excess deposits in Treasury bonds and mortgage investment products. But the bond purchases became a problem as the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates to address inflation.”

Two days later, March 10, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — the 16th largest bank in the U.S.

— failed. It too was invested in government bonds, which again became a problem when customers began making large fear-based withdrawals. This was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, and the largest since the financial crisis in 2008.

Allegedly “spooked” by the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank customers then withdrew more than $10 billion, resulting in the shutdown of Signature Bank on March 12, making it the third-largest bank failure in history.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) took control of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature, and government regulators have promised to make all customers “whole” by insuring all funds, not just the first $250,000. In other words, government is bailing out the banking system yet again, on the taxpayers’ dime.

Within a week, Signature was bought up by Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp (one of the largest banks in the U.S.).

According to the FDIC, anyone who had deposits at Signature Bank will automatically become a client of Flagstar Bank, except for crypto banking clients, as Signature’s digital banking business was not included in Flagstar’s bid.

The FDIC is also left holding $11 billion-worth of “toxic waste debt” in the form of commercial real estate loans for rent-regulated buildings, as this debt portfolio was also rejected by Flagstar.

The FDIC is still looking for a buyer for Silicon Valley Bank.

President Joe Biden’s comments shortly after the three bank failures was that “Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe” and that “Your deposits will be there when you need them.” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also insists the U.S. banking system “remains sound.”

Should we believe them? Probably not. Within days of those statements, the contagion had already spread to Credit Suisse, the largest bank in Switzerland. After government initially stepped in to cover some of the losses, the Swiss banking giant was sold to the UBS Group.

The acquisition was announced March 19.

It’s hard to believe the ripple effects of bank failures of this magnitude can really be stopped. The question is, should we even try? As reported by Government Executive,

government has no obligation to step in and bail these banks out under current banking regulations.

What’s more, the biased bailout system now being put into place will virtually guarantee further bank consolidations and the widespread rollout of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). As reported by Newsweek March 16, 2023:

“During a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Yellen was grilled by Oklahoma GOP Senator James Lankford over the Biden administration’s handling of the banking crisis, which saw the federal government offer a multibillion-dollar bailout to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) after a bank run left it without enough cash to back up hundreds of millions of dollars of its clients’ deposits. Most of those deposits were not insured.

To address the crisis, U.S. bank regulators announced a plan last weekend to fully insure all deposits at SVB as well as the crypto-friendly Signature Bank.

This would cover all deposits above the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s insured limit of $250,000. Federal officials said the plan would be paid for by a special fee levied on all FDIC institutions.

While all banks would be required to pay for the plan, Yellen said under questioning Thursday that it would not apply to every bank. She said the federal government would extend the privilege only to troubled banks whose failure would have a profound impact on the U.S. financial system.

Uninsured deposits, Yellen said, would be covered only if a ‘failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences,’ which would be decided by a supermajority of the FDIC’s board members, Yellen, and the President …

In further questioning, Lankford asked Yellen whether that policy’s implication would be that small banks would become less appealing to depositors with accounts exceeding the FDIC’s $250,000 insurance threshold …

Amid the sharp increase in bank mergers over the past decade, Lankford expressed concern that the trend could only accelerate under current policy, causing the U.S. banking system to become less resilient.

“I’m concerned you’re … encouraging anyone who has a large deposit at a community bank to [hear], ‘We’re not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole,'” Lankford told Yellen. Yellen replied, ‘That’s certainly not something that we’re encouraging.'”

And yet that’s exactly what this policy will be encouraging. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case, the outcome of this policy is quite clear, regardless of what Yellen is saying.

To recap, the FDIC will only insure deposits up to $250,000 if your money is in a small bank, but if your money is in a big bank, uninsured deposits over that amount will be covered as well, should the bank fail.

Adding insult to injury, while the system is clearly biased and won’t protect everyone, all banks (and hence account holders) will be forced to pay this “special fee” to the FDIC that will, supposedly, insure all these uninsured deposits at preferred banks.

The most likely outcome of this bailout system is a consolidation of banks until we’re left with just a small number of mega-banks. We’re already starting to see the early phases of this, with “the big three” — Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — reporting

a deposit spike in the wake of the SVB collapse and Yellen’s announcement that only certain preferred banks will be covered above FDIC insurance limits.

This consolidation, in turn, will facilitate the rollout of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), as the banking industry will be a very tight-knit monopoly. Let’s say there are only half a dozen banks in all of America. All they have to do is make the switch to CBDC as a group, and anyone with a bank account in America will be automatically trapped in the new system. As reported by News Punch:

“What we are seeing is a push towards Global Government that is being camouflaged and cloaked in humanitarianism, multiculturalism, as well as manufactured threats such as global warming and pandemics in order to condition the population into accepting globalization and a One World Government.

In order for this to occur the elite are planning to create a global financial crisis the likes of which the world has never seen. Out of the ashes of this financial crisis will rise the phoenix of is a New International Economic Order. The public will be told that the new order is the only way to stabilize the world economy and save what little remains of their wealth …

People often ask why the globalist elite would collapse the world economy. Wouldn’t that mean they destroy their own wealth in the process? The answer is no. The elite have been consolidating their wealth in order to protect it for centuries … When the world financial system finally crashes the elite will be positioned to buy what’s left for pennies on the dollar.

Where does this leave the rest of the world financially? The answer is in bondage to a Techno-Communist World Governmental System led by the World Economic Forum in Davos and the hidden hands that control the public face of that cabal. If you pay attention now you can see that everything around you is being engineered towards this one goal …

The globalist elite are also forcing their vassal states to move towards centralizing currency in the form of a … CBDC, which by the way, is not currency at all – it is software designed as a tool of total social control … If they can cancel out your bank balance with a single keystroke, then you have no freedom, no autonomy. You are a slave …”

The fact that CBDCs are intended as financial shackles to control you within what amounts to an open-air prison is also noted by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem

in the Fox News interview above.

She highlights a proposed Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) update that seeks to redefine “currency” to exclude decentralized crypto currencies, effectively putting the government on the path to a CBDC monopoly. Noem vetoed the bill and is urging other states to reject it as well.

The UCC Code is a set of laws that govern commercial transactions in the U.S. While not a federal law, it’s a set of laws that states agree to adopt in a uniform fashion to facilitate interstate business.

So, it appears they intend to begin the financial takeover by rolling out the CBDC on the state level first, and legislators who believe in freedom must denounce all such plans.

According to News Punch,

the destruction of Silicon Valley Bank was intentional. While I cannot vouch for that, it’s interesting to note that SVB was in relatively good shape before it went kaput overnight.

As explained by the Sovereign Research and Advisory Group in an article titled “If SVB Is Insolvent, So Is Everyone Else,”

the 2008 banking crash occurred because Lehman Brothers and other banks had used depositors’ money to buy extremely risky no-money-down mortgage bonds.

While the economy was good, banks earned hefty profits from these toxic assets, but as soon as the economy downshifted, these toxic securities plunged in value and wiped them out.

This time, however, the toxic asset is not mortgages obtained by people with no job, income or history of paying their bills. No, this time, it’s U.S. government bonds that are sinking banks, and these bonds are supposed to be the safest investment there is. Sovereign Research and Advisory Group writes:

“Silicon Valley Bank was no Lehman Brothers. Whereas Lehman bet almost ALL of its balance sheet on those risky mortgage bonds, SVB actually had a surprisingly conservative balance sheet.

According to the bank’s annual financial statements from December 31 of last year, SVB had $173 billion in customer deposits, yet “only” $74 billion in loans. I know this sounds ridiculous, but banks typically loan out MOST of their depositors’ money.

Wells Fargo, for example, recently reported $1.38 trillion in deposits. $955 billion of that is loaned out. That means Wells Fargo has made loans with nearly 70% of its customer’s money, while SVB had a more conservative ‘loan-to-deposit ratio’ of roughly 42%.

Point is, SVB did not fail because they were making a bunch of high-risk NINJA loans. Far from it. SVB failed because they parked the majority of their depositors’ money ($119.9 billion) in US GOVERNMENT BONDS. This is the really extraordinary part of this drama.

US government bonds are supposed to be the safest, most ‘risk free’ asset in the world. But that’s totally untrue, because even government bonds can lose value. And that’s exactly what happened.

Most of SVB’s portfolio was in long-term government bonds, like 10-year Treasury notes. And these have been extremely volatile. In March 2020, for example, interest rates were so low that the Treasury Department sold some 10-year Treasury notes at yields as low as 0.08%.

But interest rates have increased so much since then; last week the 10-year Treasury yield was more than 4%. And this is an enormous difference.

If you’re not terribly familiar with the bond market, one of the most important things to understand is that bonds lose value as interest rates rise. And this is what happened to Silicon Valley Bank.

SVB loaded up on long-term government bonds when interest rates were much lower; the average weighted yield in their bond portfolio, in fact, was just 1.78%. But interest rates have been rising rapidly. The same bonds that SVB bought 2-3 years ago at 1.78% now yield between 3.5% and 5%, meaning that SVB was sitting on steep losses.”

According to the SVB’s 2022 annual report published January 19, 2023, they had $16 billion in capital and $15 billion in unrealized losses on their government bonds. So, they were ripe for a wipeout.

The problem is, if SVB, with its conservative loan-to-deposit ratio ended up insolvent due to government bonds tanking, then that likely means that everyone else is insolvent as well, including state and local governments, large corporations of all kinds, and the Federal Reserve. Anyone holding government bonds is sitting on huge losses as interest rates rise.

“Even the FDIC is suffering unrealized losses in its insurance fund, which is supposed to bail out banks that fail from their unrealized losses.” ~ Sovereign Research and Advisory Group

According to FDIC estimates, the unrealized losses of U.S. banks is approximately $650 billion and rising. Meanwhile, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund (DIF), the fund that’s supposed to cover insured deposits (accounts up to $250,000), has a balance of just $128 billion.

See the problem? What’s worse, the DIF money doesn’t just sit there. It too is invested — in U.S. government bonds! As noted by the Sovereign Research and Advisory Group:

“So even the FDIC is suffering unrealized losses in its insurance fund, which is supposed to bail out banks that fail from their unrealized losses. You can’t make this stuff up, it’s ridiculous!”

And it’s only going to get worse if the Federal Reserve continues to increase interest rates. The problem is, interest rates need to be raised to curtail runaway inflation, but if they go up, more banks will sink due to their holdings in government bonds.

There’s just no way out.

Add to this insurmountable problem the fact that President Biden’s 2024 budget will raise the federal debt to $50.7 trillion by the end of 2033. It’s currently $31.459 trillion.

That’s a staggering amount of debt.

From a household perspective, you have no choice but to file for bankruptcy once your income cannot even cover the interest payment on your debt, and that’s basically where we are on a national level. As noted by The Balance:

“Most creditors don’t worry about a nation’s debt, also known as ‘sovereign debt,’ until it’s more than 77% of gross domestic product (GDP). That’s the point at which added debt cuts into annual economic growth, according to the World Bank. At the end of the second quarter of 2021, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio was 125%. That’s much higher than the tipping point …”

All of this is why it’s so important to prepare and become as independent as possible. The things we’ve taken for granted our entire lives may soon vanish, and what’s coming to replace them are not in your best interest unless you’re part of the globalist cabal that will exempt themselves from the slave system.

Becoming more resilient in the face of these changes could include moving cash into things that have a greater chance of withstanding inflation, such as precious metals (the actual metals, not the paper) and land, for example, and/or tradeable items. Shelf-stable foods may also be a wise investment, as could securing a private well or building a rain catchment system.

Also remember that artificial intelligence is the “beast” that drives the coming slave system. A formula created by the World Economic Forum’s philosophical guru, Yuval Noah Harari, describes the technocrats’ ever-growing ability to hack humans: B x C x D = AHH.

B stands for biological knowledge, C is computing power, D is data and AHH is the level of ability to hack a human being. AI needs massive amounts of up-to-the-minute data for the control system to work, so “starving the beast” also needs to be on your list.

That means eliminating apps and devices that collect your personal data, Google and Facebook being two of the biggest data miners. It also means rejecting CBDCs, as it’s not really a currency but a tool for population control, and digital identity, which will track everything you do, both online and in the real world, and will strip you of basic rights and freedoms based on your social credit score.

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