West Nile Virus, although new to the US,
well documented. The Centers for Disease Control
identifies it as a flavivirus, a member of the
Togavirus family. It is closely related to yellow.
fever and dengue fever. This is important because
the Togavirus family are encapsulated viruses,
that is, they are covered with a (fatty) lipid
coating.
This is exciting, because it means that the virus is
accessible to treatment using St.
St. John’s Wort (SJW). Several studies have been conducted
in a variety of encapsulated viruses, including
herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2, parainfluenza
viruses, vaccinia virus, cytomegalovirus and various
retroviruses, including HIV1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10.
Non-encapsulated viruses or “naked” viruses were
also studied for comparative purposes10,13.
SJW was a potent antiviral agent in a variety of
encapsulated virus families, but did not show
activity against naked viruses.
Unlike a vaccine that is specific to each
organism, SJW is active against encapsulated
viruses by a variety of mechanisms, including
activation of light, interference with DNA
transcription, impairing the assembly of intact
viral and lipophilic (fat-loving) particles
nature of ring structures (quinone and
phenolic groups) 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
These ring structures are critical to biology
SJW activity.
From these results, it is reasonable to use high
Pharmaceutical grade SJW to combat
West Nile virus, as they do not exist
pharmaceutical agents.
Quality is essential as the level of hypericin
and pseudohypericin are
key code. I can only recommend the SJW product
produced by Medi-Herb, which is a pharmaceutical product
home in Australia, adhering to the pharmaceutical industry
manufacturing standards. The product is
distributed by standard process through
alternative healthcare professionals, including
doctors of chiropractic, acupuncturists and
veterinarians. SJW is quite unstable and the
Active ingredients degrade on store shelves. Year
independent analysis of 3 products (all of which
were certified to contain 0.3% hypericin) were
proven to be highly variable, with a product of 25%
below the label claims. It is critically important
that the phytochemical integrity of the whole
the plant should be preserved for maximum effectiveness.
References:
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Res 1991; 16 (2): 185-196.
2Lopez-Bazzocchi I, Hudson JB, Towers GHN.
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3 Moraleda G, Wu TT, Jilbert AR et al. Antiviral
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12 Takahashi I, Nakanishi S, Kobayashi E et al.
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