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1)   Hibiscus
2)   Anthocyanins
3)   H5N1 Avian Flu
4)   Vitamin E
5)   St. Johns Wort
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St. Johns Wort

An antiviral herb with promise backlinks print pdf
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I have been thinking about St. Johns Wort as I knew it had major antiviral properties, but wasn't digging too deeply. Just wasn't sure if it would be specific to avian flu. Then I came across this:

22 June 2005] Preliminary field and laboratory tests have shown that hypercin, a compound extracted from the medicinal herb St John's Wort can be used to treat poultry infected with bird flu.

Liang Jianping, of China’s Lanzhou Institute of Animal and Veterinary Sciences said the compound could kill 99.99% of H5N1 and H9N2 virus in vitro within 10 minutes.

Adding that field tests in Vietnam in April had been satisfactory, Professor Liang said in one poultry farm in Hanoi, more than 70% of 4,000 ducks were infected with H5N1, but after they were administered hypercin, deaths tailed off dramatically.

The day after they received the drugs, 37 ducks died; on the second day the toll was 17 and on the third day, three. On the fourth day, none died.
The team conducted another field test in Ha Tay Province. Professor Liang said that while the epidemic raged on neighbouring farms, not one of the 3,000-plus chickens given hypercin on the test farm had died.

http://asiaagri1.pnpsolutions.net/herbprt/


OK, that's not a great write up from a scientific standpoint - were there any controls, do we know that the hypericin was responsible for saving thousands of ducks, or could it be a mild strain of the virus?? But it bears discussing.

When I had a family crisis in 2000, I took St. Johns wort everyday for a year and half, and was free of colds that entire time (which was remarkable, as I was teaching at a university and had dependably caught a cold every year for the previous 5 years). I know that colds are caused by rhinoviruses, not influenza viruses. But SJW has demonstrated antiviral properties and blocks some inflammatory cytokines.


Antiviral Effects of Saint Johns Wort




Some of the antiviral effects of SJW/hypericin require ultraviolet light; the UV light activates the hypericin and makes it more reactive. It is not clear that a flu virus in the lungs would be directly inhibited by this mechanism of SJW, although this is not the only mechanism.

Effects of SJW on Cytokines



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