Report on molybdenum and a currently circulating GI virus

Wednesday morning at about 3 am, my five-year-old came to my room saying, "Mommy, my tummy really hurts." I invited her to snuggle in bed with me, hoping that she was just cold and would fall asleep with me. I was probably in groggy denial. About two minutes later, she started to vomit, so I grabbed her to me and got her to the bathroom, where she vomited in the toilet and then had a severe bout of diarrhea. Within just a few minutes she went from normal to looking as though she was on the verge of dehydration. I was momentarily frightened, but molybdenum had proven itself in the past, so I calmly cleaned up her, me, and the bathroom, after which we went down to the kitchen and I gave her some molybdenum (1000 mcg of powdered molybdenum glycinate for nausea/vomiting) and zinc (30 mg of powdered chelated zinc for the diarrhea, a use which is well-supported by research--https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3113371/). She then cuddled up on the armchair in the family room under a couple of blankets, and I gave her a container to vomit into should the need arise. Within half an hour, she reported that her tummy only hurt a little, and not much after that she fell asleep. Once she looked deeply asleep, I went back to bed. I woke at 9 am the next morning to hear her loud, chipper voice carrying through the house; she was already totally over the virus.

Because these stupid gastrointestinal viruses are so contagious, I gave everyone in the family 500-1000 mcg of molybdenum on Wednesday morning (after I woke up). Then on Thursday, close to bedtime, I noticed my teenager curled up on the family room floor. She was so out of it from a virus, probably the same one, that she didn't even fully realize she was sick. So I gave her 1000 mcg molybdenum and 30 mg zinc and sent her to get ready for bed. An hour later she complained that her stomach was still hurting, so I gave her 1000 mcg more and she went to sleep after that. The next morning (today, which is Friday), she said her stomach still hurt, so I gave her 1500 mcg more of molybdenum, after which she ate a banana. By lunchtime, she was happily serving herself turkey, stuffing, rolls, gravy, etc. from the Thanksgiving leftovers. She's recovered after just a few hours discomfort and never even vomited.

If this is the same stomach bug other local people have been telling me about in the recent past, my children should have suffered for days, not just a few hours.

I don't think molybdenum directly affected the virus because I don't know by what mechanism it could do that. But supplemental molybdenum does seem to greatly reduce the duration of a GI illness in addition to relieving the vomiting and nausea caused by it. Perhaps it does so because freeing the GI tract from a burden of excess sulfite, via support of sulfite oxidase function, somehow permits other immunity-related resources to more quickly expel the virus from the GI lining or at least protects the lining from sulfite-induced vulnerability. Some things to research next week when the holiday is over.

(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)