COVID-19 Update 03.16.2020

For those who've been following us for the last six weeks, you've been seeing how we've been tracking coronavirus from China to Iran, Italy and now to the United States. One of the focuses have been just to keep people informed because we're talking about how this might be something important and now it is. So the focus has changed now that coronavirus is here. We've been talking about data, how we can prepare things you can do to improve your health. But while I've been doing that, we get lots of, lots of really good questions on social media and they've been too much for us to actually deal with on a day to day basis. So what we're going to start to do in addition to the live Facebook and social media gatherings is also do some Q and A sessions where the questions that are answered after the sessions that are answered on social media, we ask those. We've literally gotten hundreds of questions and so we've tried to boil down what appeared the most pertinent questions and we're going to answer those. Ultimately, I feel like this is something I can offer, you know, as a physician, a clinician, a clinical researcher, as well as a functional medicine practitioner, I feel like this is what I can offer people out there, good quality information, what you can do for yourself, as well as how to answer your questions. So that's my attempt. So the questions I'm answering now are ones that have been asked over the last 24 to 48 hours. And as more questions come in, we'll compile them. Feel free to ask and interact on social media, Facebook and Instagram. And what we'll be doing is compiling those. We've been getting literally hundreds of questions a day, so it's just too much to keep up with. So hopefully this will help you to keep you all informed. Answer the questions you want to know at the same time, help us be informed and make really good decisions. So anyway, one of the first questions is why is zinc only recommended for people over 60 years of age? The reason I recommend Zinc Only for 60 is because that's where most of the data is as far as deficiency. If you're zinc sufficient, there's no literature that actually will help fight off any virus, including the COVID 19 virus. Those over 60 have the highest incidence of zinc deficiency, ranging from 40 to 60%. The average American has about a 15% chance of being zinc deficient. So over 60, you definitely, you most likely need it. But on the side note, most of my patients with dermatitis and IBS Issues, particularly my pediatric patients with those issues also have zinc deficiencies. But my recommendations are blanket recommendations for the population in general. So I had to pick a safe number, and that was 60. Can you advise about COVID 19 germs lingering on clothes? If so, how long? Someone said you should immediately remove and wash after you've been out in public. Since so much various information is floating around, I'd like to appreciate your knowledge. Okay, so the COVID 19 virus, there's a lot of conflicting information out there. You'll see ranges almost like the incubation period. You'll see two to three days, up to 14 days. But the reality is most virus spread occurs in the first seven days. So there's always a range with any of this data. But the reality is within 24 hours, if you've gotten the COVID 19 virus on your clothing, that's about how long it can carry around some objects. Three days. There's some interesting data, five to six days on metal objects, which is the reason why everybody's wiping everything down. But with this virus, usually for clearly 24 to 48 hours is about the time frame. So if you're out in work, I'm a physician in office. So basically when I come home, I come home through a different door, take my clothes off, and take a shower before I come back with my family. So you basically have to realize if you're out in public, if you're out there like I am, then you're going to get exposed. They'll be on your clothes. And that's actually how sometimes I get my family sick during a typical flu season, is I bring things back in my clothing. One anecdotal story about my physician growing up as a child is the wife actually used to take the vacuum cleaner from the doctor's office and take it back to her home and vacuum their house. And during flu season, everybody in the house would get sick just from taking the dust from the doctor's office back to their house, which was about 200ft from the office. The point is, we just want to minimize risk. And it's one more thing you can do. The biggest thing is social distancing. The biggest thing is social distancing. Everything else is secondary after that. Well, everything else and sleep is secondary after that. There are a lot of questions about elderberry causing cytokine storm. Can I reiterate my stance on that? Cytokine storm is more of a theoretical risk based on our understanding of Th1 and Th2 immune system. Th1 being your innate and Th2 being your acquired immune system. That does not take into account your Tregs, your Th17, the effect of TG8 beta 1, other cytokines. There's really a balance between Th1 and Th2 and Tregs in different part of your, your immune system. So the concept of the herbs being purely TH1 or purely TH2 is a little erroneous the way I tend to think of them. They're more balancing, they tend to bring in balance if you're off. And even with autoimmune diseases, some are TH1 dominant, some are TH2 dominant and some are a little bit of a mix. Typically with your elderberry and other herbals that balance your immune system. There's something you take acutely, even something like astragalus, which is been shown to actually lengthen telomeres, you only take that for about three months, then you have to take a rest. Same thing with elderberry. It's not something you're supposed to take the entire season. Usually take it for a time frame. Typically if there's a lot of things going in the community, I'll do it with my family for four, maybe five weeks. We're going to be here for a while, maybe 812 weeks. Some of the data from England suggesting it might be 10 to 14 weeks out before they hit their peak, which means it might be that plus here. So you don't want to be taking something for three or four months and then when you need it, it doesn't work. So hold onto it, use it when you think you have a high risk, but it's not a long term preventative like D and C and NAC and zinc and the other things I've already talked about. This was actually a great question that's popped up a lot in the last 24 hours. Can I discuss at some point what I'm seeing in terms of NSAIDs not being recommended for this particular infection? I think that question is being spurned. The head of Canadian health made a recommendation, I believe this morning to not use NSAIDs for people with the COVID 19 infection. So the information about anti inflammatories and even Tylenol and the interesting thing was that the Canadian. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, French, French Minister of Health said that they recommend using paracetamol, which is Tylenol. When I was in medical school, there was literature back in 1996-98 that if you're in the intensive care unit with sepsis and you used Tylenol to lower your fever, you had A decreased risk of leaving the hospital alive. So we've known for a while that Tylenol can actually and really sick, this is really sick people not have a wolf fever. And the reason for that is that Tylenol actually lowers your body's glutathione levels. If you have Tylenol toxicity or poisoning, you'll use nac, which is one of the things I recommend based on the data, as an antidote for that. The thing about anti inflammatories and NSAIDs, they actually suppress your body's inflammatory response. Fever is actually a good thing to a point. When your body temperature goes up, you actually slow viral replication and you actually boost your body's cytokine response. That's your body trying to control, actually kill the viral cells, the viral infected cells, and control your inflammation. So you actually don't want to suppress it. The concern with the fever is if you get 105 or 106 fever, you might potentially have a seizure. Or if you're a kid and the fever jumps quickly from 98 to 102 or 3, you might induce a febrile seizure. That's more common in young kids. Doesn't really tend to occur after six. So the general rule if you're an adult and you can tolerate the fever is just to kind of let it ride. If you have to use anti inflammatories, I would probably go more, to be honest with you, with an NSAID like ibuprofen over a Tylenol, because Tylenol lowers your glutathione levels and that's your body's primary antioxidant. But in general, if you can tolerate the fever, you just want to let it roll because that's your body's natural response. Our bodies were made designed to have a fever, to actually suppress bacterial and viral replication and to boost our immune systems. And so if you're really, really sick, that's something you probably don't want to suppress. I know it's our response to want to do something, not just sit there. But sometimes the best thing to do is sit there and do nothing. First and foremost, do no harm. I took a note to do that. And sometimes do no harm means doing nothing. Sometimes doing no harm means separating yourselves and social distancing. Okay, note to go and order supplements. Okay, so on Friday, I was trying to order some supplements for my family because I was out of zinc and some other things and vitamin D and fullscripts and Emerson, which is where I get mine off of our practice website. Was out of many, many things. If you do link in there, you'll note that some things will be coming back in stock in a week or two. The reality is things have not even started here yet. Yes, the estimates of those maybe 50,000 to 100,000 cases of COVID 19 already here in the United States. But we have not seen the massive uptake and we have not had our surge quite yet. That could be 10 to 14 weeks away. If you have to wait one to two weeks, that's okay. A lot of local stores are already out of these things as well. The best thing might be to do is just look and see will it come within a week or two and order it. Because the reality is a lot of things like toilet paper supplements strangely enough are also been bought up like crazy. So you might just have to be a little patient with getting that. The other option is to buy things off of Amazon, but I've actually put some information on my website about buying supplements on Amazon and you don't always know what you're getting. A lot of times the manufacturers are false manufacturers. They're actually made in different countries, not the actual manufacturer. So I just tend to recommend getting these from a reliable source local compounding pharmacy. If there's one in your local area, you might try them. However, my patients were telling me this past weekend that our local compounding pharmacy was already at a lot of these things as well. So those are the biggest answers or questions I've heard over the last 24 to 48 hours. Probably every several days, three to four days depending on how many questions we get. We'll try to do a brief video about those answers. Feel free to ask them. And then we'll probably do another live on Wednesday. Not quite sure when yet. Just to kind of give more of a summary of what's been going on and updating people on the virus, how it's spreading and what's going on in the United States. Follow us on social media and putting articles out there. Just some snippets about self care, things you can do. The biggest thing now is now it's here to watch your local community right now in Richmond. There's been three cases in the Richmond area. We know it's here, we just not have seen the uptake yet. And within next week we have about 1.1 to 1.4 million test kits that are being distributed through the United States. So probably in the next three to ten days we'll see things uptick, expect that, but also help. You know, if this is really in your environment and in your community. So hope you all have a great, great day. Great night. It's night right now while I'm recording. And just be aware, stay informed, find reliable sources of information and stick with them. And just be careful about the noise. There's a lot of noise out there, a lot of panic, and you want to make wise, careful decisions. And right now, the best thing we can do is social distance and wait to see when it comes to our communities. Thank you.