Shozo Yanagida

Abstract:

About 100 years ago, Chiyozo Makino, a director of Makino Iodine Research Institute (Japan) wrote in the book entitled "Epidemic Influenza" as follows; subcutaneous injection of iodide ion was effective in prevention and healing of Spanish flu, and that patients of tuberculosis (correctly pneumonia) were healed [1]. We now report on the basis of computational theory verification, i.e. density functional theory based molecular modeling (DFT/MM) [2][3] that all living cells become active by antioxidative action of iodide ions on mitochondria(mt) as power plants of living cells, and the patient's respiratory epithelial cells are regenerated by pluripotent stem cells full with activated mt, which means disappearance of the virus propagated in lung epithelial cells.
Influenza virus and mt are both endoplasmic reticulum in living cells, and viral growth in living cells must impair mitochondrial metabolic function. DFT/MM verifies that mt’s energy production by consuming superoxide radical anion (O2.-) stops and the overproduced O2.- reduces hydrogen peroxide (HOOH), which is accumulated in mt of aged cells, into hydroxyl radical (HO.) [4]. Reductive production of HO. and the attack on virus causes oxidative degradation of virus membranes as is validated for oxidative degradation of mt membranes. The theory verification well explains that influenza patients will recover gradually as far as the mt in respiratory cell systems are working with breathing.
I will discuss why iodine therapy works as antiviral agent as ethanol, quaternary ammonium chloride, and hypochlorous acid work as antibacterial agents in the medical field.