Dr. Peter D’Adamo, gives us some Deep Insights into COVID-19 and which Natural Strategies can be Beneficial with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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4:45  The Spanish influenza of 1918-19 came in the spring of 1918, faded in the summer, raged even worse in the fall, and then the following summer it just went away. But that’s because close to 80% of people were infected and 50 million people died and it created a herd immunity. On the other hand, viruses tend to mutate to become less deadly because it is better for the virus is if doesn’t kill the host.  So this virus may become less deadly over time. 

7:11  We should be asking how can we modulate the situation so that we can improve our chances besides staying home and doing nothing and going to the hospital when you are really sick? What can we do to increase our chances of having a favorable outcome if we do get infected, so we don’t end up in an Intensive Care Unit at a hospital?  Our health care system isn’t designed for prevention or to help us develop some strategies for strengthening our immune system, unless its been shown in a double blind, placebo controlled trial, which can take years. A lot of the clinical trials going on in China now are including antiviral drugs plus vitamin C or antiviral drugs plus Chinese herbs. But that does not seem to be happening here in the US.

11:10  There are a lot of crazy ideas on social media these days, such as that elderberry could cause a cytokine storm because it is an immune stimulating herb, which is really ridiculous.  If Elderberry was a strong enough immune stimulator to produce a cytokine storm, it would be a great anti-cancer nutrient.  But in fact, it’s immune strengthening properties are not strong enough to cause a significant release of interleukins and cytokines.

14:12  This may be similar to the fears among oncologists that taking antioxidant vitamins will interfere with chemotherapy. Dr. D’Adamo pointed out that this concept really started with a letter to the editor from Dr. Robert Watson of Watson and Crick who figured out the structure of DNA who argued that since chemotherapy kills cancer cells partially by inducing free radicals, then taking antioxidants like vitamin C would block the chemo effectiveness. But this may be partially because Dr. Watson was very competitive with Linus Pauling, who pioneered the benefits of vitamin C, since Pauling was working on a different model of DNA from the model that Watson developed. The idea that some vitamin C will uncouple the effectiveness of powerful chemotherapeutic drugs like Cisplatin or Taxotere is like thinking that putting your lunch on the train tracks will cause the train to derail.

17:28  Older folks are more affected by COVID-19 than younger and it is typically attributed to the fact that older people tend to have a weaker immune system but Dr. D’Adamo thinks it is more related to a drop in antioxidant function. The coronavirus has a spike protein that interacts with the ACE2 receptors, which are part of the renin system that regulates blood pressure and controls the vasculature. There is a separate gene known as TMPRSS2 that’s related to the effectiveness of the SARS COVID virus to activate the ACE2 receptor and to reproduce. TMPRSS2 is affected by our internal antioxidants, including SOD and catalase, as well as affected by sulforaphane, which comes from cruciferous vegetables, esp. broccoli sprouts.  Sulforaphane dampens the capacity of this TRMSS2 thing to participate in ACE2, so we should increase our consumption of sulforaphane whether throug...

Dr. Nalini Chilkov, a Chinese Medicine and Integrative Cancer expert provides a Unique Perspective on COVID-19 and what to do about it with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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3:25  Dr. Chilkov has been studying what has been happening in China and they have been using a lot of traditional Chinese herbal medicine, with over 90% of COVID-19 patients having received herbal medicine. In fact, there were two studies that demonstrated that there were front line clinicians in two different hospitals that did not get sick in the midst of treating patients because of the Chinese herbs they were taking.  Simply giving our caregivers masks and protective equipment is not enough to take care of them.  And we need to think about the arc of the journey that COVID-19 patients go through and how to address them at different phases of that journey, as is often done in Chinese medicine.

5:30  We need to think about how our most vulnerable citizens are protected and it is different in the US as compared to China.  In China the most vulnerable are the elders and men, which is partly because men in China tend to smoke, while women generally do not, so their lungs are vulnerable.  In the US, the age disparity is not as significant and we are seeing more patients in the 30-50 range who are being hospitalized. You are more vulnerable if you are over 80 and somewhat in the 60-80 range but in the US we have such an epidemic of obesity and diabetes and metabolic syndrome that most patients have some risk factors.  Patients with obesity have the worst outcomes.

7:48  The biggest risk to death is not having the infection but when the virus gets into the lungs and stimulates an excessive immune response and creates a cytokine storm that tends to lead to death.  Having diabetes leads to more inflammation, more oxidative stress, and more kidney damage and the kidneys are one of the organs targeted by this disease, along with the lungs and the heart.  The complications of COVID-19 are lung fibrosis, myocardial damage, kidney nephron fibrosis, and disruption of the gastro-enterologic tract.  Patients with autoimmune diseases are more vulnerable since they have upregulated immune systems, so they tend to have ratcheted up levels of inflammatory cytokines.  And we have cancer patients who vulnerable because they either are immunosuppressed due to their chemotherapy treatments and we have leukemia patients who already have elevated levels of white blood cells.  And COVID-19 patients who get hospitalized often have lung fibrosis, many have kidney damage, and possibly myocardial damage and damage to the neurons of the brain, so these recovered patients really can benefit from Functional Medicine to help repair them and restore their full function.

11:34  Fibrosis can result from patients going through a lot of oxidative stress and inflammation once they recover.  One strategy to combat this fibrosis is by taking a nutritional supplement, Modified Citrus Pectin.  Dr. Chilkov talked about certain Chinese herbs that can help with fibrosis, including Chinese red sage, dan shen, salvia miltiorrhiza, white peony, Bai Shao, and peony alba.  N-AcetylCysteine can be helpful since it helps to produce glutathione to quench oxidative stress and NAC can thin mucous secretions in the respiratory tract and it can be nebulized. 

13:43  Intravenous vitamin C is being used in hospitals in China and in some hospitals in New York City to quench the cytokine storm.  Quercetin can also help in this way. Some of the Chinese herbs have large amounts of quercetin, as well as resveratrol, and berberine.

Dr. Geo Espinosa provides a Men’s Health Approach to the COVID-19 pandemic with Dr. Ben Weitz.

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Podcast Highlights

2:24  Dr. Espinosa provides a men’s health perspective on how to protect oneself from the Coronavirus.  Men are twice as likely as women to die from the corona virus.  Men were two to three times more likely to die from the 1918 influenza.  Men were also more likely to die from SARS and MERS. If someone is male, over 60, and smokes, they’re in trouble.  Men are more likely than women to smoke and less likely to wash their hands. Testosterone has an immuno-weakening component to it compared to estrogen.  While there is a tendency for men to want to have as high a testosterone level and as low an estrogen level as possible, Dr. Espinosa likes his male clients to have an estrogen level of between 20 and 30 and not less.  Estrogen has immune stimulating benefits, which is why women are less likely to succumb to infections and more likely to suffer with autoimmune diseases. 

9:05  One other reason that men are more prone to infections is because the X chromosome is involved in the processing of T cells and B cells while men have one X chromosome, women have two.

13:23  The coronavirus tends to target certain organs, including the lungs, the heart, and the kidneys.  Some patients end up with a myocarditis, which is why they may succumb. A percentage of patients get GI symptoms. Some of the symptoms are typical cold and flu symptoms. Some patients have a loss of smell and taste. They may get a rash around their eyes. Most patients get a fever.  Since testing is not widely available, if you have the symptoms, you should assume that you have it until proven otherwise.

20:20  Some of the most important things we can do to strengthen our immune system include making sure that we get

*  Quality sleep

*  Melatonin has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties

*  Vitamin C–500 mg every 2 waking hours, which works out to a total of 4-5,000 mg per day.  The importance of vitamin C is often under appreciated.  IV vitamin C should be used in the more critical phase of the viral infection.

*  Water

*  Spray botanical mixtures with echinacea and other herbs that you spray into your throat throughout the day

*  Moderate levels of exercise

*  Eating healthy, which means avoiding refined carbohydrates and sugar, which which weaken your immunity.

*  Intermittent fasting and the fasting mimicking diet both stimulate immunity.

44:00  The World Health Organization (the WHO later reversed its position on this) and the French health minister have both recommended that we avoid using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) because they may increase the ACE2 receptors where the coronavirus attach to the cells.  And NSAIDs are often used to lower fever, but we should really let the fever stay, since this is how the body is fighting the virus, unless the fever gets dangerously high.  It is recommended that if a medication is needed to lower the fever that acetaminophen (Tylenol) is recommended. And of course the downside to taking acetaminophen is that it inhibits glutathione production, which is super important for immune function and acetaminophen can also be liver toxic.

50:40  Other nutraceuticals to consider taking to strengthen our immunity include the following:

*  Selenium is immunomodulatory and has antiviral properties. 200 mcg per day is recommended. Selenized yeast is preferred.

*  Zinc up to 60 mg per day,

Dr. Allison Siebecker discusses clinical guidelines for treating patients with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth with Dr. Ben Weitz as part of the Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting.

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Dr. Allison Siebecker is a Naturopathic Doctor and Acupuncturist and she is very passionate about education.  She specializes in the treatment of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and she teaches advanced gastroenterology at the National University of Natural Medicine. She has the most incredible resource of research articles and information about SIBO on her website, siboinfo.com. Dr. Siebecker has an excellent course for practitioners to learn more how to treat patients with SIBO, the SIBO Pro Course.  If you use the discount code “ben” you can save $700.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111 or go to www.drweitz.com. Dr. Weitz is available for consultations via video or phone.

 

Podcast Transcript