Jonathan Collin, MD

The Maker of Hostess Twinkies Purchased for $4.6 Billion

You may remember that in 2012, Hostess declared bankruptcy for a second time and Twinkies, CupCakes, and other snacks disappeared from grocery shelves for about eight months. For those who had to have their Twinkies, there was a mad rush to stock up. But in 2013 Hostess sold their brand to a private equity firm and the sugary treats made their way back on the shelves. Of course, one cannot fix a bankrupt business without taking drastic measures to improve profitability. According to the Wall Street Journal the investment firm cut 34,000 unionized jobs to 19,000 and over the next seven years to 3,000.¹ Instead of 14 bakery plants Twinkies were made in three. The Twinkie cake, itself, was streamlined, with computerized machines ensuring that the “vanilla” filling for the yellow cake was even more uniform.

Additionally, instead of each bakery making deliveries to thousands of stores, several warehouses created distribution centers like Amazon to enable sales not just to grocery stores but convenience stores and gas stations—dramatically increasing sales. Warehousing a snack cake could only be done by increasing its longevity from a pre-bankrupt life of 26 days to a current 65 days. Manufacturing food science tweaking moisture-restricting capabilities to avoid mold gave Twinkie its extended life. Over the past five years the private equity doubled its profits enabling it to sell the brand to Smucker, the jelly and jam company. From a Wall Street viewpoint, it’s a great fit bringing together these two snack corporations.

The pandemic shifted working at the office to the home and our appetite for snacks has never been greater. Of course, we have had a sweet tooth for more than 100 years—Twinkies was invented by James Dewar during the Depression. The cakes originally had a strawberry or banana filling but changed to a vanilla one during WWII when bananas were hard to come by. At that time, you could get two of the cakes for a nickel. WSJ estimates that 50% of us eat snacks three times daily, not just Twinkies and other sugary confections, but also salty chips. Concurrently we have a craze right now to be prescribed Ozempic® or a similar drug to lose weight. Needless to say, the folks who enjoy Twinkies are not abiding by a keto or paleo diet. Sugar addiction remains our number one health concern. Much of what the pharmaceutical industry engages in seeks to overcome the damages incurred by feeding that addiction. Undoubtedly, the nutritionist’s greatest achievement is enabling the patient to overcome that sweet tooth.

Understanding the Pathology of Mycoplasma and Bartonella Infections by Stephen H. Buhner

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an herbalist who is renowned for his lectures and writing on the treatment of Lyme disease. In 2013 he authored the book, Healing Lyme Disease Coinfections: Complementary and Holistic Treatments for Bartonella and Mycoplasma. Earlier texts have included Healing Lyme, The Secret Teachings of Plants, and The Transformational Power of Fasting. Why read a book published a decade earlier? First, a book focused on the bacteria Mycoplasma deserves a read if for no other reason than it is a mysterious organism which has a paucity of information compared to most bacteria. Second, Bartonella, also a Lyme disease coinfection, shares a similar pathophysiology to Mycoplasma, causing a great deal of overlap in their symptomatology. Diagnosis for a Mycoplasma infection is difficult, and Bartonella diagnosis is also quite challenging.

Buhner’s book is brilliant for his detailed but very understandable discussion of the disease-causing cytokine cascade seen with both organisms. Even more valuable is a review of the most important herbals and nutraceuticals needed to address the disease process involved with Mycoplasma and Bartonella. Of course, Buhner’s text is now 10 years out of date but as Dr. Jonathan Wright has often quipped, there is valuable information to be gleaned in reading articles from the past.

We generally separate bacteria into gram-positive and gram-negative organisms based on the lab staining technique known as the “gram” stain. Gram-positive bacteria like Staph have a single cell wall while Gram-negative bacteria like E. coli have a double cell wall. Mycoplasma lacks a cell wall entirely. Given the role that a cell wall plays in protecting bacterial functioning, Mycoplasma has successfully adapted with no need for a cell wall barrier. Indeed, absence of a cell wall has enabled it to more readily penetrate tissues throughout the body. The simplicity of the Mycoplasma organism with a very small genome forces it to acquire its nutrient needs by parasitizing the cells it occupies.

The capability of Mycoplasma to fend off the body’s immune system is formidable; indeed, Mycoplasma can direct white blood cells to assist in overtaking other elements of the body’s immune system. Buhner’s discussion of how Mycoplasma is capable of easily disrupting the cellular cytoskeleton and the endoplasmic reticulum suggests an “intelligence” of this bacteria unexpected in such a “simple” organism. Indeed, why shouldn’t the body’s innate and adaptive immune system easily overcome the Mycoplasma’s invasiveness?

Mycoplasma is not easy to study; it is quite difficult to grow the organism in laboratory cultures. Identification of different Mycoplasma organisms remains an ongoing challenge for bacteriologists. Mycoplasma pneumoniae, an organism that favors infection of the lungs, is quite different from Myoplasma genitalium, a newly emerging organism causing sexually transmitted disease in men and women. Mycoplasma haemohominus only discovered in 2011 has a predilection for attacking red and white blood cells.

Like most infectious disease Mycoplasma infections are typically addressed with antibiotics. Doxycycline is often employed as a first antibiotic for a Mycoplasma infection. However, Buhner emphasizes that a thorough understanding of the symptomatology and its cytokine cascade (NF-KB, TNF-alpha, TNF-B, IL-6, IL-1B, for example) offers a strategic approach to employing herbal medicine. Because Mycoplasma infection causes an obligatory depletion of nutrients, it is critical in treating Mycoplasma to ensure adequate dietary fats and proteins as well as vitamins and minerals. Buhner touts the role of herbs in inhibiting the cytokine cascade. Among the herbs thought to offer “primary” cytokine cascade inhibition are Cordyceps mushroom, Chinese skullcap, and nutraceutical NAC. His review of the in-vitro and in-vivo studies that document the effectiveness of each herb inhibiting the infection’s cytokine cascade is insightful.

Buhner details the herbal antibacterials that he employs with Mycoplasma infections. He prefers the use of Isatis, Houttuynia, olive oil/olive leaf, berberine, and pomegranate. Buhner details the role of herbs necessary to protect and restore organ functioning as well. He cites the role of Sida for protecting red blood cells, Japanese knotweed to support the endothelium, Bidens (herb unrelated to the President) to maintain the lungs, motherwort for ensuring mitochondrial health, greater celandine to ensure brain functioning, and red root to safeguard the spleen and lymph system. Buhner further details herbs that offer specific symptom support.

Bartonella is known for being an important Lyme disease co-infection and the etiologic agent for cat scratch fever. However, being scratched by a cat is hardly the only reason for a person to develop Bartonellosis. Indeed, the organism is conveyed through not just tick bites, but also by mosquitos, fleas, flies, and by animal species as well. Bartonella is hardly just a human disease; bartonella infection is frequently found in cats, dogs, cattle, rats, mice, rabbits, monkeys, even in deer and whales.

Bartonella is a small, slow-growing, gram-negative bacteria that is hard to culture. It is difficult to estimate the prevalence of Bartonella infection; there is a noted incidence of seropositive Bartonella antibody found in blood donations. Buhner makes the case that Bartonella is not being adequately diagnosed and frequently goes untreated. One very concerning factor about Bartonella is its ability to share DNA segments with other bacteria, especially that DNA conveying antibiotic resistance.

Bartonella enters the body though bites, scratches, and ingestion and is very successful in surviving in both the vector and host. The primary tissue that Bartonella targets is endothelium. For the louse eating a blood meal from an infected host, the endothelium of the gut is the primary site for the Bartonella to reproduce, forming biofilm and endothelium tissue proliferation. The lice excrete feces laden with Bartonella as it bites to take a blood meal. After experiencing itching, a person scratches the skin enabling the Bartonella-laden feces to enter the bloodstream through the scratch-created wound. Once inside the bloodstream, Bartonella is very successful in infecting endothelium throughout the body. Ticks transmit Bartonella directly through bites as do flies.

Bartonellosis symptomatology is widespread, including lymphadenopathy, eye and ear inflammation, neurologic abnormality, fever, liver/spleen disease, kidney dysfunctioning, bone involvement, dermatitis, respiratory infection, cardiovascular inflammation, reproduction failure, and more. Diagnosis of Bartonellosis is easier than diagnosing Mycoplasma infection. Antibody testing, while easy to study, is somewhat variable in results. PCR testing for Bartonella DNA is more sensitive and reliable. Conventional treatment for Bartonella infection is the use of antibiotics with telithromycin shown as being most effective although doxycycline has also been employed.

Like Mycoplasma, Bartonella poses a pathophysiology causing dramatic cytokine cascade abnormality. Bartonella penetration of CD34+ pluripotent stem cells lead to overproduction of IL-8, enabling the organisms to enter endothelial cells and form intracellular vacuoles where the Bartonella is able to replicate and thrive away from the body’s immune system. The endothelium is forced to transform, enabling Bartonella to adhere to the surface as well as vacuolize the cell. Bartonella stimulates a large number of cytokines, including IL-8, NF-KB, TNF-alpha, IL-1B, MMP-2, MMP-9, VEGF, and many more. The intensive cytokine production facilitates further Bartonella invasion in endothelial cells throughout the body. Bartonella also targets red blood cells to scavenge the blood cell heme.

Much like the approach in treating Mycoplasma, Buhner believes that the core protocol requires disruption of the cytokine cascade, protection of the organs, enhancement of immune functioning, and antibacterial assault. He definitely does not focus on an antibiotic approach as the primary treatment. Cytokine cascade intervention employs Japanese knotwood, EGCG, Cordyceps, and Chinese skullcap. If these herbals are used as tinctures, Buhner suggests mixing them in pomegranate juice as it hides the bitter taste and has its own effective activity against elevated cytokines. For organ protection, he recommends the use of Sida, hawthorne, milk thistle, red root, and EGCG. Immune support is provided by rhodiola and ashwagandha. He also strongly advises the use of L-arginine.

Typically, treatment of Lyme disease and its co-infections has focused on antibiotics. Buhner makes the case that a thorough understanding of the cytokine cascade incurred with Mycoplasma and Bartonella infection is effectively addressed with herbals.

Managing Long Covid by Michael Gonzalez

If you are to believe the news media, the folks who have long covid are suffering mightily because the medical profession does not have a good protocol for treating the condition. Part of the reason why university specialty clinics devoted to post-covid syndrome offer so little is that the pharmaceutical companies have yet to invent the perfect drug. Of course, because academic medicine has a disdain for vitamin and mineral supplementation, most long covid clinics do not recommend supplements and intravenous nutritional treatment. This is truly a travesty as high-dose vitamins and minerals would benefit most of these patients.

In this issue Michael Gonzalez, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, and colleagues,
Jorge Miranda-Massari, Charles Simone, Jose Olaide, Miguel Berdiel, Jorge Duconge, Lourdes Amadeo, and Jaime Claudio propose “An Orthomolecular Protocol for Long COVID.” I recognize that this treatment plan is “preaching to the choir” as our readership is familiar with implementing intensive supplementation to treat chronic illness. We need to share this protocol with our patients and colleagues and with conventional docs who are open to naturopathic and orthomolecular medicine. We should also share on social media.

Reference

1. Newman, J. Why the Twinkie is now worth billions. WSJ, Sept. 15, 2023.

Published October 21, 2023