Surviving COVID-19 Once Society Reintegrates

Eventually we are all going to come out of hibernation from our extreme social distancing efforts which are diminishing the spread of COVID-19.  How and when we end social distancing is still uncertain.

One certainty is that when we do reintegrate with society, the virus will still be out there, just as contagious, and just as dangerous.  Our best protection will be a strong immune system that is able to respond briskly and efficiently when we are exposed.

The good news for those of you who have heeded my advice over the years is that you have already started the process of protecting yourself.  The habits you have developed to reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and dementia all target strengthening your immune system.  A healthy immune system is our core mechanism to prevent all diseases.

Impactful efforts include fasting, exercise, sleep, promoting oral and gut health, detoxification, and others.

A high functioning immune system lies quietly ready to attack enemies like infections, cancer cells, and toxicity from our environment.  It mounts a vicious attack on the invaders through a process called inflammation.  Therefore, acute inflammation is actually a good thing, created to protect us.  Cytokines you hear about in discussions about COVID-19 are the bullets of inflammation that kill our enemies.

The reason that people with underlying high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, obesity, and autoimmune conditions are at increased risk of COVID-19 complications is that each of these conditions cause chronic inflammation.  With these, your immune system is constantly turned on and does not react appropriately when true invaders enter our world.

This immune dysregulation makes it more difficult for your body to respond when needed.  More so, with COVID-19, our immune system appears to react overzealously when eliciting the needed inflammation to fight coronavirus.  That’s the “cytokine flare” that occurs in high risk individuals several days into the illness and leads to rapid worsening.

I strongly believe that the reason some young and middle-aged people who are seemingly “healthy” experience severe complications of COVID-19 is that they have an unrecognized chronic inflammation not yet causing significant symptoms or testing abnormalities.

Therefore, pharmaceutical medications alone are not adequate to treat chronic diseases like high blood pressure and high blood sugar.  Medications might improve your numbers, but do not address the underlying inflammation causing your blood pressure and blood sugar to rise in the first place.

The key to nurturing a high-functioning immune system is to address the underlying causes of inflammation like inflammatory fat, poor oral and gut microbiome, and toxicities from food and our environment.

The time to act is now.  The exciting news is that it does not take long to turn around the ship of inflammation.   In my motivated patients who diligently launch into lifestyle improvements, I frequently need to reduce blood pressure medication, sometimes within 2 weeks.  They have quickly reduced their inflammatory burden, and so can you!

Perfection is not necessary.  Every effort helps, but there is no single magic bullet, a comprehensive effort is optimal.

To learn how you can start to tune up your immune system today, see Dr. Whitney’s COVID-19 post-hibernation survival guide.