Viral Infections

By Charlotte Meschede - Nutritionist

This is indeed a strange and unnatural time for everyone all over the world. Who would have thought that a simple organism such as a virus, in this case an enveloped virus, would be able to hold the entire world hostage, whilst it wreaks havoc on all of our lives?

This isn’t the first time as we all know. The pandemics that have captured the historians over time include these:

AIDS PANDEMIC peaked from 2005 - 2012 although was discovered much earlier.

The total death from AIDS since 1981 has been 36 million. It was first identified in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1976. To date about 5% of Sub-Saharan Africa are infected (approximately 21 million people).

The Hong Kong Flu pandemic in 1968 was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus. Although this virus had a comparatively low death rate, more than a million people died, including 500 000 of the Hong Kong residents at the time.

The Asian Flu (1956-1958) was also Influence A virus (H2N2 from which the above flu developed). It also originated in China and lasted for about 2 years. The WHO estimated the death toll to be approximately 2 million, 68,000 of those being in the USA alone.

The Flu Pandemic of 1918 (Spanish Flu) literally spread across the globe, infecting over a third of the world’s population and causing 20- 50 million deaths. Of the 500 million people infected, the mortality rate was 10-20%. The difference with this virus from others was that it infected young, completely healthy adults, whilst leaving weaker children with compromised immune systems alive.

The first major pandemic in the 20 th century was the 6 th Cholera pandemic from 1910 – 1911. This originated in India and killed 800,000 or more before going to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia.

The worst of all the pandemics was of curse the Black Death or Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe, Africa and Asia from 1346 - 1353. The estimated death toll was 75 – 200 million people having been spread to humans via fleas living on rats.

Boosting Nutrient Intake

By Charlotte Meschede - Nutritionist

How can we as individuals help to boost our essential nutrient intake ?

As anyone who has read my articles before will know that I will always support a healthy diet over millions of expensive pills and potions, which claim to ‘do it all’ and then ignore what one eats. However, we live in a fast world and not all of us have the time and resources to make raw juices, and eat an abundance of fresh food.

Whilst all of us should endeavour to get enough plant foods on our plates, especially those with bright colours such as dark green, orange, red, blue and other coloured vegetables and fruits (as the pigments have the antioxidant compounds that are powerhouses against the fight against oxidative stress), we have at our disposal some very powerful whole food supplements such as AIM BarleyLife, AIM LeafGreens, AIM Just Carrots and AIM RediBeets to mention a few. In addition, there is AIM Proancynol 2000, which contains a formulation of antioxidants that are designed to help boost the essential trace elements in our diets that are often deficient.

CalciAIM is a powder that contains minerals like calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc and vitamin A. None of these wonderful whole food supplements contain any nutrient in excess and they will all, individually or taken in combinations, do much to help support a healthy nutritional status.