Elderberry Primer:
An Answer to Support the Body’s Healthy Viral Defenses
by Melissa Lynn Block - Doctor’s Prescription for Healthy Living article

Cold and flu season is challenging for most of us. Those viruses are lying in wait, bent on transforming us into miserable shadows of our summertime selves—sneezing, coughing, aching, and useless for much more than lying in bed, feverishly clutching a box of tissues.

A virus is so tiny that if you put one virus particle next to a flea, the size difference would be the same as a human being standing next to a mountain twice the size of Mount Everest. Yet, it’s enough to render you completely unable to function for days or even weeks at a time.

Drama aside, a virus doesn’t have malicious intent for the same reason it can’t be killed with any drug: because it isn’t alive. Viruses resemble tiny nanobots that hijack your cells’ DNA and morph it. Viruses are only able to wreak their havoc when they pass into living cells. There, they multiply like mad, and eventually kill the cell, shatter its wall, and send millions more viruses into your bloodstream, where they then infect more body cells. This can happen in a matter of minutes. You feel fine, and suddenly, you have that sinking feeling: Oh, no. I’m coming down with something.

What should you do when you start to get that feeling? You know that nutritional supplements are an important part of staving off these viral infections, or at least in shortening their duration and reducing their severity. But which can you really count on to keep you out of the mucousy clutches of this year’s cold and flu season?

From what we’ve learned here at DPHL, the sooner you can get your hands on some elderberry, the better. Elderberry should be high on your list of antiviral supplements. This deep purplish-blue berry has a history of medicinal use that extends at least as far back as ancient Greece. Modern scientists’ experiments have cemented elderberry as a mainstay of antiviral herbal therapy.

New Chapter (Brattleboro, Vermont) has created a quick-acting, virus-blocking marvel of an elderberry product, Blockade (Immunity Take Care) with ViraBloc, that helps the body to do what it does best when it is healthy: stop viruses before they have a chance to take hold in your body. This elderberry nutriceutical is the product of some very exciting new technological breakthroughs in supplement design. It is a beautiful illustration of the melding of hard science and the gifts of nature—a combination for which New Chapter sets the example in the industry. And once again this exceptional company has created an exceptional health formula.

There is much to say about the science behind Blockade; indeed, this product is so unique that it can only be described as a breakthrough. First, however, we would like to do justice to the plant from which this new supplement is derived: the elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.).

ELDERBERRY PRIMER

Cold, flu, upper respiratory symptoms, and fever have all been treated with elderberry for centuries. It has mild diuretic and laxative properties, meaning that it helps to cleanse the body; and it is a diaphoretic that brings on sweating (just the thing to break a fever). In animal studies of colitis (colon inflammation that usually causes diarrhea), elderberry has shown a healing effect. The flavorful berries have also long been used to make preserves, wines, and cordials.

Elderberry is rich in a number of constituents with health-supportive properties, including flavonoids (hyperoside, isoquercitrin, rutin), lectins, and anthocyanins (chrysanthemin, sambucin, sanbucyanin), as well as vitamins C, B1, B2, and B6. Pharmacologic studies demonstrate that elderberry constituents have powerful antioxidant capacity, matching the power of blueberry to put excess free radicals, which are associated with accelerated aging and chronic diseases, out of commission. Studies demonstrate that elderberry reduces lowdensity lipoprotein (LDL) oxidation—the free radical attacks on “bad” LDL cholesterol that make it even more hazardous to your heart’s health.

The real buzz with elderberry has to do with its antiviral capacity.

Inhibition of viral replication, stimulation of general immunity and antibody production, and enhanced production of cytokines (immune system chemicals associated with targeting and eliminating pathogens) round out elderberry’s antiviral activity. Test-tube studies find that elderberry inhibits the replication of four type-A human influenza viruses, in addition to three type- B human flu bugs and three type-A animal flu bugs. This herb even completely inhibited the replication of HSV-1—a strain of the HIV virus—in other test-tube studies.

Elderberry has remarkable effects against colds and flu:

• In one randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled human study—the gold standard for nutritional supplement research—elderberry performed spectacularly. It involved 27 subjects aged five through adulthood; 93.3 percent of those who took elderberry when flu symptoms set in had significant improvement within two days, with complete resolution within two to three days; 91.7 percent of those taking placebo did not show improvement until day six! Assays from subjects taking elderberry found enhanced levels of anti-influenza antibodies.
• In a second randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled human study, 60 adults began to take elderberry within 48 hours of symptom onset, and kept taking it or a placebo for five days. Most of those who took the elderberry had pronounced improvement in their self-evaluated symptom scores after three to four days of therapy; it took twice as long— seven to eight days—for placebo subjects to report the same level of improvement. More of the patients in the control group turned to cold and flu medicines to try to get relief.

Many other studies from all parts of the world back up elderberry’s wonderful health-promoting effects when used to supplement the body’s already healthy antiviral protection. Think of elderberry as giving your body just a little better hammer to smash those invaders that cause colds and flu to linger.

It’s no drug or cure, of course; that would require tons more studies at the very least, but the herb seems to help the already healthy immune responders and defenders of your body to do their job even better. New Chapter saw this, and took it a big step further, harnessing the power of elderberry with technology that is revolutionary in the nutraceuticals industry.

BLOCKADE (Immunity Take Care): PIONEERING SCIENCE YIELDS A SUPERIOR NUTRACEUTICAL

Blockade (Immunity Take Care) is lab tested and obtained with supercritical extraction methods that bring out the full symphonic effect of the herb. Lab studies show up to 100 percent inhibition of enveloped viruses like influenza by ViraBloc. And because Blockade is a whole food supplement, it contains the full spectrum of nutrients and accessory chemicals found in the whole food. That’s a good indicator of where its health benefits lay.

While some immune-enhancing nutrients and herbs boost resistance to colds or flu by revving up the immune system’s power, elderberry has a unique and specific effect at the cellular level—as revealed by in vitro research done at such esteemed institutions as the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, HerbalScience LLC (Naples, Florida), and the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa, Florida.

Human cells have receptor sites where nutrients and other bioactive chemicals can dock and pass into the cell to do their work. When you are exposed to a virus, it passes into your nose or mouth and into your circulation. Viruses are enveloped in sugars, which enable them to escape detection by the immune system; and, they have the ability to dock on receptor sites to get into the cells—a sort of Trojan horse approach.

Elderberry constituents literally “coat” the virus, preventing it from attaching to receptor sites. The virus ends up bouncing off. Once coated, the virus can be more easily detected by the immune system, which then can dispatch it.

When you take the enveloped virus and add elderberry, you get up to 100 percent inhibition, depending on the concentration of the bioactives in the mix. For New Chapter’s ViraBloc, researchers did assays on a number of different chemistries from elderberry, and determined the ones that are key; then, they determined the level of concentration needed.

What exactly are bioactives?

In answering this question, you’ll see more clearly what’s special about Blockade. New Chapter employs a technology that creates a “fingerprint” of various substances in real time which allows formulators to look in an extremely detailed way at over 1,000 constituents of elderberry, and to determine which of those constituents possess viral-blocking properties. This is a highly scientific process, where researchers and formulators can absolutely and thoroughly understand the unique chemistry of a plant.

The company also used these technologies to determine how high the concentration of those constituents would need to be in the supplement, and how much would have to be included in each dose for optimum effect.

The ability to identify all of these constituents and their relative concentrations in the whole plant enables New Chapter to craft its herbal nutraceuticals to extremely concise standards—what some experts might argue are similar to the same standards used by the pharmaceutical industry. As a result, the company can guarantee, on its label, dose-to-dose reliability: Each dose contains exactly the same constituents as the others in the package. Only the best and most precise companies can make that claim.

Blockade (Immunity Take Care) is sold as a package of naturally blueberry-flavored lozenges that are dissolved under the tongue. This is the fastest way to get the antiviral power of elderberry into the bloodstream. Tests show that elderberry constituents are absorbed rapidly into the blood vessels beneath the tongue, and begin to have their antiviral effects at the cellular level within minutes. (When swallowed, as it was in the double-blind, placebo-controlled human studies described earlier, it takes 90 minutes to two hours to start blocking viruses.)

Just keep in mind that this wonderful health aid is a dietary supplement and its use should not replace reliable medical attention and whatever your doctor prescribes, if necessary. But also keep in mind that when the body is under attack, a key concept of the use of a dietary supplement is that it supports what is working at the time in the human body, and little by little, this health support surely aids in recovery; with elderberry we've seen it time and time again.

Health-conscious shoppers should welcome Blockade, since it helps to set the standard that only the elite companies featured in this magazine can.

Resources

Each Blockade lozenge contains 175 mg of elderberry extract. Suggested use: Take one lozenge daily for general viral protection, or two per day when you are entering a germ-filled environment, or when you know your immune system needs extra support. For more information, Click Here.

Note: Statements in this article have not been evaluated by the FDA. This information is for informational and educational purposes only. We make no medical or curative claims. If you are dealing with any health condition, it is advised to see your health care practitioner.