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These multiple "causes" as well as the many types of pneumonia -- viral pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia, fungal pneumonia, etc -- have led me to conclude that pneumonia is not really a disease, or at least not an infectious disease that doctors say it is.
Rather, pneumonia is a condition. It is a condition in which the lungs have weakened considerably, to the extent that lung tissues degenerate.
Symptoms of pneumonia include difficulty in breathing, lungs filled with fluids and overall extreme weakness. This is dicussed more fully in my other article on the causes of pneumonia.
This article looks at the causes of pneumonia from a different angle, in terms of what factors bring about this dreaded disease, or condition. This angle is seldom considered by the medical profession, which is sattisfied with thinking in terms of bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc, being the causes. So you won't get official medical explanations here. You need to search for clues...
Clues to causes of pneumonia
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Pneumonia from drugs
One of the causes of pneumonia that is seldom mentioned in the medical literature is the side effects of drugs. Even drugs for minor problems like indigestion can increase the risks. The Journal of American Medical Association (Oct 27, 2004;292) reported that acid-suppressing drugs for acid reflux and heartburn significantly increased the risks of pneumonia. Researchers analysed the health records of 364,683 subjects, of whom 5,551 had pneumonia for the first time. They found that the incidence of pneumonia in those who took drugs for acid-reflux and heartbuarn was 2.45 out of every 100 people a year. Among those who did not take such drugs, the incidence of pneumonia was 0.6 per 100 people per year. Also, within medical records of some 500,000 patients, researchers found that those using drugs to treat heartburn and indigestion were four times more likely to have pneumonia than nonusers. |
Looking deeper, we want to know what causes the immune sytem to weaken to that state. Here, some clues come from the groups of people who are most likely to develop pneumonia. They include:
What do these people have in common?
First, they have some other illess that already weakened them. Second, they all received medical treatment.
Side effects of drugs
It is well known that many different types of drugs -- from common antibiotics and painkillers to powerful drugs used in chemotherapy treatment -- suppress the immune system. While this may not directly cause pneumonia, it certainly makes a person prone.
Then there are drugs whose side effects include pneumonia. The website WrongDiagnosis.com has a "partial" list of 45 such medications and substances.
The list consists of drug names, most of which are unfamiliar. But one highly recognisable name is Tamiflu, the drug most widely used to treat the flu. More information comes from the drug information portal, www.DrugLib.com, which publishes details of 90 cases of death where the suspected cause of death was Tamiflu. Seven of the 90 cases were due to pneumonia.
This is ironical because Tamiflu is supposed to treat the flu. Yet it is one of the possible causes of pneumonia, which is a complication of the flu that can result in death.
Treatment approach
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How high is high fever?
Normal body temperature is about 37.0 deg C / 98.6 deg F. We are told we might have the flu if our temperature goes above 38.0 deg C / 100.4 deg F. A fever starts to become dangerous only after it exceeds 39.0 deg C / 102.2 deg F. Above 41.0 deg C / 105 deg F, death will likely occur. |
In general, suppressing the symptoms of disease will lower the body's immune response, since the body is "tricked" into believing that it is not so sick after all.
In particular, suppressing a fever could well make a flu worsen into pneumonia. Because fever is the body's natural way of killing bacteria as well as preventing the spread of viruses.
According to some reports, viruses that replicate or "reproduce" themselves in our cells cannot leave the cells and spread to other parts of the body when the body temperature is around 39.0 deg C / 102.2 deg F.
By suppressing a fever, we actually make it easier for viruses to replicate and spread throughout the body. And when the viruses attack the lungs, pneumonic develops.
A tricky balancing act is needed here, because 39.0 deg C / 102.2 deg F is also the borderline temperature beyond which a fever might become dangerous, causing problems like dehydration and even brain damage. So we should not let the fever rise too high. But pushing the temperature down with the help of drugs is not a good strategy either. It could contribute to pneumonia.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we see that the causes of pneumonia are a lot more complex than what they seem at first.
If we simply accept the medical explanation, catching pneumonia is more a matter of "chance" -- if we are unlucky enough to come into contact with the virus, bacteria, fungi, protozoa or unknown causes that "cause" penumonia, then too bad, we might die from the disease.
If we examine the issue deeper, we find that medical treatment and drugs are, in fact, often the causes of pneumonia. Yet the medical establishment has a way of brushing this aside and not taking responsibility for it, by describing the situation as being due to "complications".
When you hear or read that someone has died from "complications" due to the flu or cancer or some other disease, chances are that the person actually died from pneumonia -- caused by medical treatment.