Toxic Mucus – Guest Post by Brian Lamb Medical Herbalist

on May 2020

Part 4
Toxic mucus

We are told that the Covid-19 virus, first of all infects the nose before travelling to the lungs. This explains why some victims experience a loss of smell and taste. However, as stated before, if your immune system is strong AND your diet and lifestyle opposes inflammation, the virus will not seriously bother you. With that assurance, added insurance comes by understanding the role of Toxic Mucus.
New Scientist magazine of January 8th 20201 extolled the virtue of breathing through the nose and said this:

”Beyond your visible nose lies the nasal cavity, a cavernous space the size of a gaping mouth. This is lined with folded membranes designed to warm or cool the air to body temperature, add moisture and trap pathogens in yet more mucus. Your sinuses – air-filled spaces that connect to the nasal cavity – swirl the air around more and add nitric oxide, which kills bacteria and viruses and relaxes the blood vessels in the respiratory tract, allowing more oxygen to pass into the blood”.

This huge cavity is the source of Toxic Mucus which can provide fertile breeding for a secondary, and potential deadly bacterial infection. What is toxic mucus and how can we avoid it?

To answer this we must go back to the Spanish flu’ pandemic of 1918 and a visit to the Pueblo Indian community at Albuquerque, New Mexico by a remarkable physician, D. A. Richardson, MD, where he found the inhabitants in a terrible state: “The following day the deplorable condition at Isleta presented itself in the death of ten Indians. The Pueblo itself, situated in its better portion northward, was in marked contrast to the southerly portion of the Pueblo which older and presented a mere mass of low ceilinged adobes, small doors, virtually no windows, one pigeon hole leading into another, sometimes in long sections, and in all these it was absolutely impossible for the sun to shine. In these rooms, were, in all stages of the Flu, Indians lying dead or dying or advancing well to the conditions which followed the Flu.”

It is well worth reading his typewritten account2. Dr Richardson was clearly a very competent and caring physician who instructed the poor Indians on how to survive the flu’. He noted that those who stayed in bed, drinking abundantly of hot water, taking only liquid food and maintained an ‘open toilet’ (regularity), mostly survived whereas those who got up and ate solid food, mostly died. In his words: “Throughout all the pueblos the same cause of death appears and it is due to the ingestion during the progress of this disease of solid food or of sitting up in an erect posture at times, producing thereby hypostatic congestions or exhaustion.”

How is it possible that eating solid food can cause death? I was reminded of this during my journey in 2013 to the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. On the way, Jan, my Polish friend, introduced me to Ignacy, a remarkable survivor of a ‘death train’ to Dachau extermination camp in early 1945. When I met Ignacy he was 84, tall, upright and still powerfully built, but when he arrived at Dachau in 1945, under a pile of dead bodies he weighed just 39 kg. A few days after his arrival, the Americans liberated Dachau on April 29th and distributed beef steaks to the starving prisoners. In Ignacy’s own words: “The next day, 2,000 died — they could not digest the meat — I ate a little bread and survived”. One can hardly imagine the agony suffered by the Dachau prisoners, so close to liberation but killed by food offered in kindness but of the wrong sort.

So let’s connect this to Dr Richardson and his “hypostatic congestion”. In modern medical terms, he was relating this to pneumonia caused by eating solid food —which could not be digested — plus the exhaustion of getting up too soon.

It is not commonly understood — except by naturopathic practitioners — that when food cannot be digested it puts an enormous strain on the body. Digestion is a demanding process which takes up about 45% of available energy. Undigested food produces inflammation and a fraction of this is admitted to the bloodstream and ejected by the mucous-secreting cells of the nasal cavity. Such toxic mucus can then progress to the lungs to provide an ideal feeding and breeding ground for a pneumonia bacteria. This is exactly what Dr Richardson found.

Bringing this up to the present and relating it to the fact that most deaths from the flu’/covid virus are due to bacterial pneumonia, how can we avoid creating toxic mucus? Since the digestive tract is the source of toxic mucus we do well to give attention to what we eat, when we eat and how much we eat. By all means try to avoid going to bed with a ‘full stomach’, eat lightly and major on vegetables and fruit and be aware of mucus-forming foods such as excess dairy, bread and ‘empty starches’ such as pasta. Also avoid cooking in seed oils — which are highly inflammatory — using only coconut and olive oils.

In conclusion, at the first sign of excess or toxic mucus take note and an avoiding strategy. A ‘heroic’ infusion of dried Dandelion leaf tea (available at the clinic) can abort an incoming virus if caught early enough and will quench toxic mucus as it cleanses the digestive system, liver and kidneys. A short fast coupled with a dandelion infusion can make all the difference.