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Giardia and its Complications to Coronavirus

This week is National Hygiene Week. Susan Koten, author of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Giardia  explains how important it is to keep washing your hands or you could get giardia as well as coronavirus…

Giardia is a very common microscopic parasite that can affect the general health of the recipient in a short space of time by interfering with the whole digestive system.

This in turn gradually weakens the body and lowers the general immunity. The signs and symptoms of an infection are varied but diarrhoea and/or constipation, lethargy, bloating, nausea, headaches, and iron-deficient anaemia are but a few of these markers.

This makes those infected very vulnerable for other pathogens to invade the body and respiratory diseases are no exception.

In my book Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Giardia, I mention that the key herb for treating this parasite is Artemesia annua, (Qing hao) (sweet wormwood), a Chinese herb which in ancient times was used to treat fever, and has been used for centuries in the treatment of malaria. Not only is it effective but it has shown few adverse reactions in toxicology studies in long term use.

Covid-19 patients were reported to have a very high iron content in their cells[1]. The Artemesia annua-derivative, artemisinin, takes advantage of the fact that infected cells accumulate iron in large amounts – artemesinin is sequestered in cells where iron is high and this releases two oxygen molecules forming free radicals which kill the cell, leaving normal cells intact.

Cancer cells also have a high dependency on iron for growth and accumulate large amounts of iron. Artemisinin is used in the treatment of all cancers[2] and it has the effect of destroying cancer cells leaving normal cells untouched.

An infection of Giardia can create iron-deficient anaemia; by treating it with sweet wormwood, as described in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Giardia, the patient’s health can return back to normal.

Iron appears to be a very important element to consider in any inflammatory condition and looking at the way sweet wormwood is attracted to these sites of excessive iron and destroys them this herb is definitely one to review.

 

[1] Cavezzi A, Troiani E, Corrao S. COVID-19: hemoglobin, iron, and hypoxia beyond inflammation. A narrative review. Clin Pract 2020; 10(2): 1271.  doi: 10.4081/cp.2020.1271

[2] Zhang Y, Xu G, Zhang S, Wang D, Prabha PS, Zuo Z. Antitumor Research on Artemisinin and Its Bioactive Derivatives. Nat Prod Bioprospect 2018; 8(4): 303–319. doi: 10.1007/s13659-018-0162-1