1) Eat to optimize your gut microbiome.  Bad outcomes from Covid  are linked with high levels of chronic inflammation, and inflammation levels are mediated by gut bacteria. A whole food plant based diet (emphasizing beans and greens) encourages the growth of gut microbes that down-regulate inflammation in the body, while consumption of animal protein encourages the growth of microbes that up-regulate inflammation. (1) (2) (3) (4) (22)

2) Avoid fever reducers -- especially Tylenol. Fever is adaptive, boosting our metabolism and giving our immune system an advantage against invading microbes. But artificially lowering a fever handicaps the immune system. Tylenol may be additionally harmful in the case of COVID-19, because it has been shown to reduce levels of glutathione, an important antioxidant, that protects the liver and lungs and may mitigate COVID-19 harms. Low levels of glutathione have been linked with more severe COVID-19 outcomes. In fact, Tylenol sales skyrocketed from the pandemic and may turn out to be a big reason why so many people have died from this virus. (5) (6) (7)(14)

3) Taking NAC may be beneficial. N-Acetyl Cysteine has been shown to increase levels of glutathione in the body. NAC is used to save people who have overdosed on Tylenol. Studies suggest it may be helpful in preventing some of the more serious manifestations of COVID-19.(8) (9)

4) Make sure you have optimum levels of Vitamin D. Low levels of vitamin D have been linked to worse outcomes from COVID-19. Get your vitamin D levels tested. If low or unknown, 2500 iu of vegan D3 daily is probably safe for most people. (10) (11) (41) (42)

5) Quercetin, Zinc and Vitamin C may be protective. These three nutrients may prevent  COVID-19, or may make the disease more mild for those who do get it. (12) (13) (40)

6) Avoid meat, dairy, eggs. A variety of compounds present in them (endotoxin, Neu5Gc, AGES, Saturated fat, Cholesterol) contribute to inflammation, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance/ diabetes, which are well established  co-morbidities that increase the odds of death or long-term harms from COVID-19. (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22)

7) Eat sugars, salt and oils very sparingly.  Excessive amounts of highly processed carbs like sugar and flour, oils and even too much sodium in the diet have been variously linked with insulin resistance, inflammation, or high blood pressure, all of which make one more vulnerable to harm if they get COVID-19 (22) (23) (24)

8) Seasonal flu shots may increase COVID-19 risk. A number of studies have suggested that influenza vaccine may make one more likely to become infected with other respiratory viruses -- including Coronaviruses.  Yet more and more institutions are mandating flu vaccines for school attendance, or employment. This could increase deaths from COVID. (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31)

(Update: And since first writing this -- a new study was published suggesting that getting a flu shot is correlated with an increased risk of dying if one then gets COVID-19.) (39)

     While the above information may empower you to fare better in the current pandemic -- It can prevent FUTURE pandemics. COVID-19 is just the teaser for what is likely coming if we continue on our current path of using animals for food and research.  It's not just a "personal choice" to consume meat, dairy and eggs. Doing so puts everyone at increased risk from future pandemics, and the next one could be more deadly than COVID!

       Most people know that emergent diseases like Mad Cow Disease, Ebola, Campylobactor, Listeria, E coli 0157, and Salmonella, come to us from animals, but did you realize that most infectious diseases that spread human to human, originated from humans hunting, farming, eating or using animals in some way? It's not just modern factory farms that put us at risk either. The Influenza pandemic of 1918 predated modern industrial agriculture. Measles, Tuberculosis, H. Pylori, Pertussis and many other pathogens that have plagued us since long before the era of large intensive farms, we got from exploiting non-human beings.  Some cancers are linked with by viruses in dairy cows and a variety of zoonotic diseases occur at higher levels in those involved in meat and dairy production. (32) (38)

References:

 (1) Tao, W. et al. (2020). Analysis of The Intestinal Microbiota In COVID-1 19 Patients And Its Correlation With The 2 Inflammatory Factor IL-18 And SARS-Cov-2-Specific IgA. medRxiv preprint.

(2) Tomova A, Bukovsky I, Rembert E, et al. The effects of vegetarian and vegan diets on gut microbiota. Front Nutr. Published online April 17, 2019.

(3) Plant-Based Diets and the Gut Microbiota by Carrie Dennett, MPH RDH, CD, Today's Dietitian, Vol 20, No 7 P.36

(4) David, L., Maurice, C., Carmody, R. et al. Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome. Nature 505, 559–563 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12820

(5) https://www.pnas.org/content/115/22/E5243

(6) Polonikov, Endogenous Deficiency of Glutathione as the Most Likely Cause of Serious Manifestations and Death in COVID-19 Patients, ACS Infect Dis, May 28, 2020

(6) Polonikov, Endogenous Deficiency of Glutathione as the Most Likely Cause of Serious Manifestations of Serious Manifestations and Death in COVID-19  Patients, ACS Infect Dis, May 28, 2020

(7) Dimova S, Hoet PH, Dinsdale D, Nemery B. Acetaminophen decreases intracellular glutathione levels and modulates cytokine production in human alveolar macrophages and type II pneumocytes in vitro. Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2005;37(8):1727-1737. doi:10.1016/j.biocel.2005.03.005

(8) Jorge-Aarón, Rangel-Méndez, and Moo-Puc Rosa-Ester. “N-acetylcysteine as a potential treatment for COVID-19.” Future microbiology vol. 15 (2020): 959-962. doi:10.2217/fmb-2020-0074

(9) https://drjewilliams.com/glutathione-and-nac-reduce-the-severity-of-covid-19/

(10) Meltzer DO, Best TJ, Zhang H, Vokes T, Arora V, Solway J. Association of Vitamin D Status and Other Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(9):e2019722. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.19722

(11) Biesalski, H, Vitamin D deficiency and co-morbidities in COVID-19 patients - A fatal relationship?
Nfs Journal, Aug 20, 2020, pp 10-21

(12) Biancatelli, R., Quercetin and Vitamin C: An Experimental Synergistic Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of SARS-C0V-2 RElated Disease (COVID-19) Front Immunol, 2020; 11: 1451.

(13) Wessels, The Potential Impact of Zinc Supplementation on COVID-19 Pathogenisis, Front, Immonol, 2020; 11: 1712.

(14) https://hbw.pharmaintelligence.informa.com/RS149912/JJ-Producing-Tylenol-247-As-US-OTC-Sales-Jump-35-On-PandemicDriven-Stockpiling

(15) Tall, Alan R, and Laurent Yvan-Charvet. “Cholesterol, inflammation and innate immunity.” Nature reviews. Immunology vol. 15,2 (2015): 104-16. doi:10.1038/nri3793

(16) Padler-Karavani V, Yu H, Cao H, Chokhawala H, Karp F, Varki N, Chen X, Varki A. Diversity in specificity, abundance, and composition of anti-Neu5Gc antibodies in normal humans: potential implications for disease. Glycobiology. 2008 Oct;18(10):818-30.

(17) van der Lugt, Timme et al. “Dietary Advanced Glycation Endproducts Induce an Inflammatory Response in Human Macrophages in Vitro.” Nutrients vol. 10,12 1868. 2 Dec. 2018, doi:10.3390/nu10121868

(18) Erridge C, Attina T, Spickett CM, Webb DJ. A high-fat meal induces low-grade endotoxemia: evidence of a novel mechanism of postprandial inflammation. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov; 86(5):1286-92.

(19) Erridge C. The capacity of foodstuffs to induce innate immune activation of human monocytes in vitro is dependent on food content of stimulants of Toll-like receptors 2 and 4. Br J Nutr. 2011 Jan; 105(1):15-23.

(20) D Estadella, C M da Penha Oller do Nascimento, L M Oyama, E B Ribeiro, A R Damaso, A de Piano. Lipotoxicity: effects of dietary saturated and transfatty acids. Mediators Inflamm. 2013; Epub 2013 Jan 31.

(21) C J Nolan, C Z Larter. Lipotoxicity: why do saturated fatty acids cause and monounsaturates protect against it? J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2009 May;24(5):703-6.

(22) Giovana Jamar, Daniel Araki Ribeiro & Luciana Pellegrini Pisani (2020) High-fat or high-sugar diets as trigger inflammation in the microbiota-gut-brain axis, Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, DOI: 10.1080/10408398.2020.1747046

(23) R J Suckling, F J He, N D Markandu, G A MacGregor. Dietary salt influences postprandial plasma sodium concentration and systolic blood pressure. Kidney Int. 2012 Feb;81(4):407-11.

(24) G A MacGregor, N D Markandu, F E Best, D M Elder, J M Cam, G A Sagnella, M Squires. Double-blind randomised crossover trial of moderate sodium restriction in essential hypertension. Lancet. 1982 Feb 13;1(8268):351-5.

(25) Wolff GG. Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017-2018 influenza season. Vaccine. 2020;38(2):350-354.

(26) Rikin S, Jia H, Vargas CY, et al. Assessment of temporally-related acute respiratory illness following influenza vaccination. Vaccine. 2018;36(15):1958-1964.

(27) Kelly H, Jacoby P, Dixon GA, et al. Vaccine Effectiveness Against Laboratory-confirmed Influenza in Healthy Young Children: A Case-Control Study. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2011;30(2):107-111.

(28) Cowling BJ, Fang VJ, Nishiura H, et al. Increased risk of noninfluenza respiratory virus infections associated with receipt of inactivated influenza vaccine. Clin Infect Dis. 2012;54(12):1778-1783. doi:10.1093/cid/cis307

(29) Dierig A, Heron LG, Lambert SB, et al. Epidemiology of respiratory viral infections in children enrolled in a study of influenza vaccine effectiveness. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2014;8(3):293-301. doi:10.1111/irv.12229

(30) https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2010/04/new-canadian-studies-suggest-seasonal-flu-shot-increased-h1n1-risk

(31) https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES2015.20.4.21022

(32) Buehring, Gertrude Case et al. “Exposure to Bovine Leukemia Virus Is Associated with Breast Cancer: A Case-Control Study.” PloS one vol. 10,9 e0134304. 2 Sep. 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134304

(33) Johnson ES. Poultry oncogenic retroviruses and humans. Cancer Detect Prev. 1994;18(1):9-30.

(34) Johnson ES, Griswold CM. Oncogenic retroviruses of cattle, chickens and turkeys: potential infectivity and oncogenicity for humans. Med Hypotheses. 1996 Apr;46(4):354-6.

35) Gandhi S, Felini MJ, Ndetan H, Cardarelli K, Jadhav S, Faramawi M, Johnson ES. A pilot case-cohort study of brain cancer in poultry and control workers. Nutr Cancer. 2014;66(3):343-50.

(36) De Roos AJ, Stewart PA, Linet MS, Heineman EF, Dosemeci M, Wilcosky T, Shapiro WR, Selker RG, Fine HA, Black PM, Inskip PD. Occupation and the risk of adult glioma in the United States. Cancer Causes Control. 2003 Mar;14(2):139-50.

(37) Johnson ES, Zhou Y, Sall M, Faramawi ME, Shah N, Christopher A, Lewis N. Non-malignant disease mortality in meat workers: a model for studying the role of zoonotic transmissible agents in non-malignant chronic diseases in humans. Occup Environ Med. 2007 Dec;64(12):849-55.

(38) Johnson ES, Yau LC, Zhou Y, Singh KP, Ndetan H. Mortality in the Baltimore union poultry cohort: non-malignant diseases. Int Arch Occup Environ Health. 2010 Jun;83(5):543-52.

(39) https://peerj.com/articles/10112/

(40) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7482607/

(41) www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602030296X

(42) febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/febs.15495
       A slightly condensed printer-friendly PDF of this article is available for download HERE

     On June 26th I saw the above article linked to on the main page of CNN's website where the first paragraph begins like this:
                                                                          (click, "read more" to continue)   ---->

     My first exposure to Nina Shapiro was when I stumbled upon an article of hers featured on Forbes where she argues that the right to have or refuse an abortion IS a valid personal choice, but the right to have or refuse other medical interventions -- with documented risks is not. She thinks having an abortion which can be definitively linked with ending a specific life is acceptable while refusing a vaccine which has  only a theoretical possibility of preventing a disease which if not prevented has only a theoretical chance of hurting someone is not acceptable.  Here is a screen shot of the headline of her article:

      Could a medical doctor who graduated from Harvard really be THAT ignorant?

      Tetanus is not a communicable disease.
     
     The vaccine for Diphtheria is a toxoid --- so there is not even a theoretical basis to suggest that it can  prevent the spread of the organism that causes diphtheria.

     And the published science on the Pertussis vaccine not only provides ZERO evidence that this vaccine prevents the spread of the disease --- in fact it is well documented that people properly vaccinated for pertussis can have and spread the illness -- and often don't show any symptoms!

     I notice a disturbing double standard by some of my scientist and doctor friends when it comes to medical information like this.

     When I share information that challenges their perspective (particularly on the subject of vaccines) many look at it only long enough to find a single detail they can point to, to discredit the entire article -- even when the detail might not be central to the evidence being presented. But they take the opposite approach to sources that support what they already believe....like this one I just deconstructed by Nina Shaprio.

(Links to the proposed legislation are  HERE and HERE.)