Diarrhea After Influenza
  Diarrhea after influenza and intestinal discomfort are the most common side effects of heavy vitamin C dosage. Blood-clotting problems and vitamin C dependency followed by withdrawal reactions are still other potential side effects about which there is much speculation but little knowledge.
Until such information is developed and until you are assured that none of vitamin C and eliminate excess amounts from their bodies routinely, some serious side effects are at least theoretically possible among the minority who cannot regularly clear large amounts of the vitamin from their systems. When such people take large doses of vitamin C, they may experience an accumulation in the kidneys of one of the waste by-products of the vitamin, oxalic acid, which may promote the formation of kidney stones. The possibility also exists that gout and these dangers apply to you; it seems reasonable to accept the medical consensus:
Get your vitamin C in normal quantities from a balanced diet, and do not attempt to forestall or cure colds with extra-large doses. The lack of enthusiasm for vitamin C among scientists seeking a cold cure is balanced by their hopes for several other biological and synthetic chemicals that have the potential to block viral reproduction or spread. Among these substances, interferon is perhaps the most promising.
Interferon was discovered in 1957 by the British virologist Alick Isaacs and his Swiss colleague, Jean Lindenmann. Through a chance conversation at London ‘s National Institute for Medical Research, the two specialists discovered that they shared a mutual fascination with a scarcely understood phenomenon known as viral interference: Victims of one kind of viral disease seemingly became immune at the same time to any other viral disease, even when they were exposed to potent viruses. The two scientists joined forces for a series of experiments in which they infected membrane cells in chicken eggs with influenza viruses and then added a second batch of a different virus to the culture. True to expectations, the originally infected cells proved invulnerable to the second wave of attackers. This is definitely a cause of diarrhea after influenza.
Delving further, Isaacs and Lindenmann identified the interfering agent as a substance produced in minute quantities by cells that have been infected by a virus. This agent prevents viruses reproduced within an infected cell from taking over nearby healthy cells and spreading further. As the victim cell begins making duplicate viruses under orders from the invader, it also begins setting up a resistance movement in the form of this mysterious substance, which Isaacs and Lindenmann named interferon. The interferon is released into fluid surrounding the infected cell, where it apparently acts as an intercellular alarm, alerting potential victim cells to impending attack.
The warning which takes place when the interferon makes contact with receptors in the walls of these as yet healthy cells triggers the production of antiviral proteins, or AVPs. These substances, working in A man-made substance that could prevent colds ways not fully understood; ultimately provide protection, preventing the cell from submitting to the orders of the original virus’s offspring. Most important, the AVPs set off a general alert, blocking the effects of not only the original viral type but also of virtually any other virus circulating in the system at the time. Though the problem of diarrhea after influenza can be easily treated it must not be taken lightly. |
