What To Do If You Contract Influenza

With daily news reports warning of a swine flu pandemic, members have besieged our health advisors with questions about what they should do to protect themselves against the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.

The good news is that Life Extension® members obtain a considerable amount of immune support via the supplements they already use, especially those taking high-dosevitamin D.

An important question, however, is what one should do if they develop symptoms of a viral infection? As the days grow colder, the risks of contracting common flu and cold viruses increase. Each year, flu virus infections kill around 36,000 Americans and cause miseries for millions.1 An outbreak of the swine flu virus is expected this winter.

While certain supplements (and drugs) purport to shorten the duration of a viral infection, most of them fail to provide significant relief. Over the past 28 years, Life Extension® personnel have experimented with various nutrients, hormones, and drugs in order to minimize the impact of the common cold and typical flu viruses.

In this article, I will reveal what has worked for me personally to ward off common cold/flu viruses and what has been validated in the scientific literature to be effective.

I will also elaborate on some aggressive prescription drug strategies to consider in the event that you contract a severe form of swine flu or other type of influenza.

Don’t Wait for Full-Blown Illness to Manifest

People often wait until they are very sick before seeking influenza treatment. This delay can preclude rapid eradication of the infectious agent. In some cases, treatment delay can be lethal.

I have found enormous personal benefit by taking aggressive actions upon the onset of the very first cold-flu symptom. I respond to a mild symptom the way some people do after they have suffered days of agonizing flu virus miseries. My strategy is to not let the virus gain a foothold in my cells. Up until now, my approach has apparently succeeded inasmuch as I have not suffered more than a day of significant cold-flu illness since January 1983.

I am going to reveal my personal program in the following paragraphs, but the key point I want to emphasize is to immediately address the very first symptom of a cold-flu viral infection like it is the most lethal agent you have ever encountered. I analogize this approach to dropping a nuclear bomb when conventional weapons might be adequate. While some people wait until full-blown viral symptoms manifest, I don’t have a choice. Life Extension® is a 24-hour/day operation with no room for down time. I don’t have the luxury of calling in sick just because a virus has invaded my body.

If you were to contract swine flu (H1N1) or other influenza types, it is especially critical that you immediately initiate the antiviral drug therapies I will discuss later in this letter. Antiviral drugs can be effective, but only when they are initiated within 24-48 hours of the manifestation of symptoms.

Unleashing the Nuclear Bomb

I typically work an intense schedule with frequent exposure to sick people, yet I have gone 27 years without suffering a serious cold-flu viral infection.

While it would be convenient to credit the supplements I take every day, the fact is that I follow an aggressive protocol as soon as I feel that a viral infection may be taking hold. Scientific studies substantiate the individual components of what I do, but there have been no clinical trials to support the use of this entire protocol. I’ll discuss some of the research that supports my rationale later, but here are the drugs, nutrients, and hormones I take as soon as the first symptom of common cold or flu manifests: