Coronavirus Conversations: Day 6 - COVID-19 Treatments, Produce Cleaning and More

Hello everybody, Dr. David Perlmutter here. Here we are. This is our 6th installment of the coronavirus update and looking forward to sharing a lot of information today. Some actually good information. I mean, in terms of being positive, taking us in the right direction. I'll be announcing it later on in the program. Some national television appearances that will begin for me answering questions. That'll, I think, begin this evening, and then we'll see. We're going to be doing another one on Thursday, and then see where we go after that. It might be actually more frequent. It was a really rock and roll day, wasn't it? Looking at further. Shutdowns of activities and, you know, ways that people can interact, trying to limit that. Obviously, that's a good thing. Really watching some real good leadership things now start to happen with people being very bold in what they are recommending. I want to start off— I'll take a few questions to start off with, and then we're going to move to the news. Some very, very exciting news, I think, at least stuff to think about how positive it's ultimately going to turn out to be, we will see. Hi Helen of Vancouver Island, love Vancouver Island, our plan was to circumnavigate Vancouver this summer, we'll see where that goes. Alright, do we disinfect fresh vegetables from the grocery store that people touch? I think it's a very good question, I would say the answer is Yes, or simply handle them with the plastic bag in which they came and then cook the vegetables, cook the greens. You know, it's a little bit unusual to cook lettuce, I get that, but if you're buying kale or other types of vegetables, right into the wok it goes. So there you go. Should kids be training for swim team in pool together? I don't think there's a huge issue being in the pool, but it's getting out of the pool, being next to each other, sharing towels and all that. That could be an issue. Can I speak to Hashimoto's? Again, you know, an autoimmune condition, that might be an issue in terms of increased risk for complication. So anyway, we're going to move on to the news and I'm then going to finish off with some questions and then a little poem that I'm going to read for you as well. So deep breath in, deep breath out. Ah. Here we go. So we've been talking about Remdesivir. Remdesivir is a product made by a company named Gilead, and Remdesivir was originally created in response to the Ebola issue and is now being tested in both Japan as a way, and also in the United States, as a treatment for coronavirus. The initial reports out of Japan I talked about yesterday and posted a link to that, looked good, looked promising. The drug has now been used in the United States in a compassionate way in one patient, and the results were really quite phenomenal in terms of that patient's recovery. I will say, however, and this was published in Science magazine, I will say, however, that this is an N of 1, and it's really quite challenging to think that we can extrapolate from an N of 1 when we're used to, you know, with drugs having the luxury of being able to look at large populations. But nonetheless, it is something to think about. I just posted the link. Please take a look at that. We've also talked about the idea of the various drugs and vaccines that are in development. And I think there's a really good overview that's very up to date from yesterday that looks at the status of the idea of various vaccines and what can be done in terms— what is being done. And we're going to have a discussion about that because interestingly, since this information became available, we were— you will see in this link that I've just posted about vaccines, that one of the companies is called Moderna. They're a company in Massachusetts, and their vaccine has already achieved Phase 1 trial. And the information that I prepared for today talks about this mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate and how it got approved, at least for Phase 1 study, in just 4 months. 42 days after they were able to sequence the coronavirus. So that's pretty incredible. But the really incredible news is it has actually been injected into somebody, I think today, and apparently 45 more people are going to be injected with it as a trial, with another injection coming in 1 month's time, and then an assessment as to what their risk is in terms of their Did what percentage of the group develop the coronavirus or not? So pretty exciting. We're going to look at that. It's a synthetic strand of what's called messenger RNA that really tricks the body in— well, it doesn't trick the body, it allows the body to produce antibodies against the coronavirus. Super cool idea. It's a relatively new company founded in 2010. They've not had any approvals for anything from the FDA yet to begin any research, but now they have this Phase 1 trial approval. I'm real excited about that. One of the things we talked about yesterday was the idea of harvesting plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus, using their plasma that is ostensibly rich in antibodies, and then giving that plasma to other people who are in the throes of the infection. And see how effective that might be. That's not new technology. You know, that was actually done back in 1918 when blood products were used as an attempt to reduce the mortality rate in what was the Spanish flu at that time, killing 40 million people. And indeed, though it was a crude attempt, it did— it was associated with a reduction in risk of death by some 21%. Our technology now is much more advanced. The ability to take plasma from blood is— and purified— is much more advanced and actually a lot easier. And it is something that is very, very scalable. It means we can ramp that up very, very quickly. It's been estimated that to treat a patient, it would take about 300 cc's of this plasma derivative, which would be about as much as you could get from one person. So one person with the disease could be treated by one person from the plasma from one person who's recovered. But to inoculate people as a preventive measure, it might be that only 5 cc's was necessary. Therefore, one donor might be able to provide enough of this material to treat up to 60 people. So that's super cool. Now, we mentioned yesterday the idea of using malaria drugs like chloroquine, and that's being done experimentally and coupled with HIV drugs. And we're waiting to see results of that. But I did find a recent review that it looks at the activity of a form of chloroquine that's called hydroxychloroquine in the actual coronavirus SARS-CoV coronavirus type 2 or -2. And this is an in vitro study, in other words, petri dish study. But the authors. did extrapolate this research to what they felt would be appropriate dosages in humans and found that in terms of effectiveness of clearing the virus, that the hydroxychloroquine was significantly more effective than the standard chloroquine. So this is going to be information that I'm hopeful will get spread around because it means that maybe instead of chloroquine, using the hydroxychloroquine might be a better choice. Just saying, that's what the research is showing. I'm going to post that link to the study at this time. I promise I'm going to take questions momentarily. The next question that I've been asked quite a bit has been about cancer patients, and you know, the National Cancer Society, American Cancer Society, has responded to this, and I want to read what they said. The new coronavirus, COVID-19, is front and center in many people's minds. I don't think there's probably very many people who are not thinking about it. This is likely to be worrisome for many people, especially for cancer patients and their families. Cancer patients are among those at high risk for serious illness from an infection. Why? Because their immune systems are often weakened by cancer and its treatments. Cancer patients who finished treatment a few years ago or No long— or have immune systems that have likely recovered, but each person is different, meaning if you're a few years out from your cancer treatment, then likely you're better off. It's important that all cancer patients and survivors, whether currently in treatment or not, talk with a doctor. Okay. But the point I am making though is that what the American Cancer Society is saying, and it, with all due respect, is probably to some degree speculative. That is, a few years out from your cancer treatment, probably you're better, you know, you're in pretty good shape. I'm going to give you the link to that right now, what we're being told by the American Cancer Society. Now, I want to tell you my views on a subject that are going to run counter to perhaps some of the things That you're being told. And here goes. First, it was don't go to any event with more than 250 people. And then now we're being told, at least from New York, that we shouldn't go to any event that has 50 people. My concern with this recommendation is, what is it based on, number one? And number two, that means going to an event that has 49 people is a good idea? I don't think it is. That's the message that we're getting and I think that is worrisome. 250 people getting together over a 1-mile stretch of the beach doesn't seem to me to be a big risk in comparison to being in an elevator with only 10 people and guess what? The person in the back is sneezing. You know what I'm saying here is it's about the concentration, not so much as the number. You take 250 people, which was the old number— when I say old, as in yesterday— and put them on a football field or at the beach, as I mentioned, versus, you know, 5 people sitting around a conference table. So I think what we need to— I'm not going to say those recommendations are wrong, far be it from me, but what I would emphasize is beyond the number of people, I think we should be paying strict attention to the concentration. How close are you? To that next person, because that's when issues are— become worrisome. And I think that social distancing that we're hearing about isn't magically going to happen if we happen to be in a group less than 50 people. So it's the proximity to people, I think that's very important. I want to tell you all that I will be now beginning this evening answering questions on national television. I'm going to be on the Christian Broadcast Network. I've, as many of you know, have appeared on CBN over the years talking about brain health, talking about Alzheimer's prevention, talking about the various books that I've written, including the new book written with Austin Perlmutter, MD, which is Brainwash, and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But I'm going to post a link to the Christian Broadcast Network interviews that I'll be doing with regularity. Answering questions, and I'll post that now. And I want to just say that interestingly, one of the questions that I was asked today on CBN was, you know, if the if the flu is so much more deadly, why all the excitement about the coronavirus? Well, look around you. I mean, that's an interesting question, but there's a lot going. What's going on? And the answer to the question is twofold. Number one, it's now recognized that the transmissibility or infectivity of the coronavirus is actually a lot greater than the influenza virus. So even if they were the same, it would still be a big problem, but we now know that the infectivity— we know that influenza virus is transmitted from one person to about 1.3 other people. Whereas coronavirus is transmitted, it's not exactly known, but somewhere between 2.5 to 3.5 people from an individual. So it's far more transmissible and maybe as much as 10, or in some estimates, 20 times more lethal. That's what the big deal is. And you know, when we hear that some movie stars and other popular people are now reporting that they're testing positive for coronavirus, like Tom Hanks and others, somebody on the Today Show set we just read about. Understand that most people are going to get this. The CDC tells us that between 40 and 70% of Americans are going to get that. That means between 40 and 70% of the people that you know and And, you know, follow or whatever in Hollywood, etc., are going to get this. So, you know, what's going to happen is, you know, people testing positive and posting on Instagram, suddenly this notable person is testing positive. Don't be surprised because chances are we're going to get this. And again, the purpose of our getting together mostly is to allow each and every one of you To do your best to be in the top 30% and maybe not get it. That's the goal, or at least prolong the time that you do get it until such time as we have some kind of meaningful treatment. That's why we get together every single day at five o'clock. So I just posted the link. Oh, I didn't hit the sorry. Give me a moment here. I'll just hit the return key, and that should do this for us. And give me a second. All right. Not seeming to post. All right, so here is the post. Did it go out? I guess. Okay, I'm not— I hit the emoji key, so I'm not going to put an emoji on it. Anyhow, I'm hoping that that goes out because then— okay, well, you know what, I'll just try it again somehow. Anyway, I'm going to hit this as a reply or maybe not. All right. So anyway, so go to Christian Broadcast Network, CBN, and they will have the latest questions. Now, let's move on to some other things I wanted to bring to you today. Lots of questions every single day about elderberry. And, you know, it would be great if indeed We had some science indicating that elderberry worked and was an effective prophylactic or treatment for coronavirus. I'm going to tell you that— wouldn't we love that? We have elderberry here because there is good research that it is effective in shortening the symptomatic phase of the common cold, and I'll post a couple of randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials on elderberry As it relates to the common cold, rhinovirus infection, both as well, influenza A and influenza B. Now, is that translatable to our current situation? We don't know the answer to that yet. It might be, and we need to find out about that, but there's your information on elderberry. Seeing a lot of questions about glutathione as well. You know, I've been talking about glutathione, as you probably, many of you know, for the past at least 15 to 18 years, especially as it relates to neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's. We actually published an interventional trial on glutathione and Parkinson's. Glutathione is involved in regulating our immune systems, that's a good thing, and it's also involved in helping Reduce inflammation, and it might be a good thing that, that to reduce inflammation in this situation. How about I post a link to that? This is specifically lung inflammation, but I'm going to tell you a caveat, and that is that we've just seen some data out of France that people may have a worse outcome if they are taking ibuprofen. Ibuprofen we like because it's an anti-inflammatory and it helps with pain as well, but the reports today out of France indicate that perhaps ibuprofen may be associated with a worse outcome. They're recommending in France paracetamol, and that is— in our country, that is acetaminophen or Tylenol. To use a brand name. Acetaminophen is virtually— is the same thing, you don't have to get Tylenol brand. So, that said, some interesting information, we know that the progression of certain human diseases is seen to be associated with lower levels of glutathione. Does that mean it's going to be effective here? Who knows? This gets back to— Just posted on that. Gets back to some of the comments about upregulating the NRF2 pathway with various nutritional supplements to enhance glutathione production. So we don't necessarily know that to be true, but I will say that the anti-inflammatory effects of things that upregulate NRF2 like turmeric and broccoli and sulforaphane that you can buy as supplements Seems to be a good thing to do in terms of enhancing immune function. I also want to say that I'm going to— and I'm going to give you right now information from the CDC in terms of what we as doctors are being told to do in terms of testing people, and I think you need to see this. This only went out to doctors, I guess. And it's how we should triage people to determine who should be tested and who should not be tested. And interestingly, you know, one of the main things they're talking about, and I'll read it to you because I think it's very important, it has to do with— I'll read it to you. Any persons, including healthcare personnel, who within 14 days of symptom onset had close contact with a suspect or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 patient Or have a history of travel from an affected geographic area. Folks, the United States is an affected geographic area. So the idea of, oh, people came from South Korea or China or now Italy or wherever, I think it's interesting, yeah, but the United States is an affected area. 3,000, close to 3,000 people now. Have been tested and confirmed. Who knows how many thousands of us are infected? So I would say that that's an interesting— and I get what the CDC is trying to do. They're trying to triage as best they can because we have a limited number of test kits available. I get it. I'm not being critical, but I am saying that we should understand that coming from a country that is affected, That would include the United States of America. And I fully recognize that many of you are watching this from around the world. So, you know, look at all the countries now that have been affected. The American Medical Association, the AMA, has published also some recommendations to us as clinicians in terms of what we should do to— and I'll read to you— prepare your practice, protect yourself from infection, and diagnosing patients with suspected I would like each and every one of you to have this information. In other words, what the AMA is recommending for doctors in order to, in order to protect ourselves and to be the very best we can in terms of treatment. I'll try to get that to you in a minute. All righty then. Let me move on to some questions that you guys have posted. Okay. Okay. Tell them to look at South Korea churchgoers spread the virus dramatically. Yes. We've seen even here that an individual who attended a pharmaceutical meeting actually may have actually spread. Right. To more than 100 individuals. But these numbers in terms of the spread, the ability of a person to spread the virus to others, is an average. That's the average. You know, we talk about how long you're infectious. That's also an average. So the average is somewhere between 2.5 and 3.5 people. Will there be outliers? Of course there will be. Will some people self-quarantine and spread it to nobody else? Yeah. So they get a zero. So, the average is weighted towards 2.5 to 3.5. Great. All right. Randomized study of the efficacy and safety of oral elderberry extract. Yeah. Good. I published that and that's what you should look at. Church services are being canceled. I think a good thing. Pray at home. If people, you know, want to do the best thing for yourselves, I think it's important to realize and to understand that failure to plan is planning for failure. So we've got to make some plans now and make decisions that are not easy. These are not easy decisions. We've never been in this situation before. You know, the Spanish flu was, I think, probably the best Example of this type of an event, but we didn't have air travel back then. People being you know spreading this virus around the world in in just a few days. Okay, how do you get access to all your links? Great question. Thank you for that, Stephanie. No, that wasn't Stephanie. It was Anna Harris, Andrea Lucas, Poesisa, and I would say that we are putting all of these on DrPearlmutter.com. Right now they're in the Learn section under Science under Coronavirus, but the landing page of drperlmutter.com will have a link to Coronavirus probably by later this evening. Our team is working on that diligently. Okay, thanks for addressing the ibuprofen issue. Again, early news. I would have been— I stocked up on ibuprofen and probably would have been taking it. I'm going to think twice about it now. Vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin C, I think good recommendations. Okay, everyone, your comments about the church situation. Yeah. Should I take it to help with RA? I'm not sure what you're referring to. Steroid treatment. So certainly the idea of steroids, I'm not sure what you mean, but steroids would be something you would not want to take unless you have to take Steroids for some inflammatory condition, or you may be on steroids for some autoimmune or inflammatory condition, in which case you've got to double up on your efforts because you don't want to get this virus because you are, with all due respect, immunocompromised. Steroids will compromise your immune system. Good. We're hearing that the ibuprofen may not be valid, so we're going to have to watch that. I'm only telling you what we learned today. I'm hoping that it's not validated. We'll have to follow that tomorrow and certainly I'll get back to you. But ACE inhibitors for those who have high blood pressure, I read that these can cause worsens or outcomes. Well, here's why that's a very interesting question. People may be taking what are called ACE inhibitors that— because what we know is that the virus binds to the cell and then does its dirty work. by binding to the ACE2 receptor. And as such, there's been some discussion, well, maybe then ACE2 blockers or ACE2 inhibitors that people may be taking for their blood pressure, because that's what it can do, might be helpful. And it turns out thus far not helpful. No protection whatsoever in these individuals, and actually they may be doing worse possibly Because of just their underlying hypertension, which is a risk factor for worse outcome. Right, Johns Hopkins says that we're up to 4,287. These numbers are going to go up dramatically. Take a deep breath. That's what's going to happen. You know, when we talk about this in comparison to the flu, it's about right now. Yes, 40,000 to 60,000 Americans die of the flu, and look, Only 4,287 people have even been diagnosed with coronavirus. Well, that's today. We have good data that would allow us to recognize that this is going to surpass the flu in the coming days. That's what's projected. It's what the whole hullabaloo is about. Great to hear you. Great to see you or hear you. What are the most important canned vegetables that we should be trying to be hoarding right now— what a word— to compensate for not being able to get fresh and maybe even frozen vegetables? Thank you. I'm going to try stock up on canned marinated artichokes, for example. I don't know that it really would be a huge issue if you can't find any specific canned vegetable. I mean, certainly if you can get artichoke hearts, that's great. But asparagus, broccoli, I've not, I don't think I've seen it, I've seen it frozen but not canned. Look, peas and carrots, whatever you can find at this point, I think is going to be a good choice. I got a lot of refried beans, black beans, bean paste, you could say what you want about the carb content right now, I don't think having extra calories around as a backup plan is, carb calories, is necessarily the worst thing we could do though. We still want to focus on keeping our diets As anti-inflammatory as possible. And bringing it up, you want to make sure you're connecting with nature every day. All the things we talked about in our book Brainwash are really important because they allow you to reconnect to the good decision-maker part of your brain. I've been seeing a lot of comments about Brainwash because of that. It's about calming down. And getting away from making decisions from a fear perspective. That's what brainwash is all about. Talking about meditation, making sure your sleep is adequate, eating an anti-inflammatory diet. These are the times to focus on those things to get us through and to make good decisions. All right, let me continue. Would it be wise— Joy Hancock, South Carolina, one case in their county as of yesterday. Would it be good, wise to work from home? Absolutely, even small company. I would think that this is the time to limit your contact with other people. Now, somebody says, oh, I'm concerned about coronavirus, I want to come and bunk up with you and ride it out in your house. Great idea, but we don't know where that person has been, what their contacts have been, and understanding they could look great, no fever, not coughing, perfectly fine, not necessarily a great idea to say, sure, come on in, we'll have dinner together and we'll wash the dishes and do all those things, because that person could be not manifesting yet but still carry the infection. There are a lot of people out now who carry the infection. So if it's important to have that person, maybe it's a relative, maybe it's somebody you want to have at your home, which is a great thing, but they've got to be on their own for 14 days in a room. Let them— people can go outside, walk around, but that person doesn't need to be in the kitchen handling the utensils and sharing meals with you. You need to limit the exposure to people who are potentially at risk. Am I sounding like a germaphobe? No. I sure hope so. Thank you for informing public. Great. All right. Thank you for putting this on and helpful information. Great. Hi, Brenda, for joining. Thank you. Red snapper, vitamin C in the bloodstream, it can help. Is it true? Don't know yet. Waiting for results of that study. And those studies are underway, at least one study with 12.5 grams twice a day of vitamin C for 12 days. Oh gosh, good for you. What about meditation, breathing exercises? That's really powerful. You want to talk about some powerful medicine to increase your immune system function and balance? Meditation, prayer, good night's sleep, reconnect with nature, exercise. Yes, exercise, eating a low inflammatory diet, and connecting with people. These days, not necessarily in the physical way, patting each other on the back. Do the best you can to connect, and now let's use social media for a really good cause, connecting with people, having conversations, listening to people's ideas as well. You know, some people have different ideas about this. So let's at least be good listeners. Might visit the Desiderata. There's a great line in the Desiderata about listening to other people's opinions. And again, here's a nice quote. Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. Alan Lakein, an author. Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now. That is really helpful for us. Think about the future and think about where we are today. Let's remember where we are today with how this has spread and think about how— think about today a week from now. That's just a week in the future where we're going to be. Let me take a few more questions and then we'll move on. Some evidence that steroid use— yes, I would expect that— in inpatients is worsening the outcome. We saw that in previous similar infections, so that is not a surprise. You used to be on our scientific advisory board talking about NRF2 activators and immune function. That's correct. We've talked about that quite a bit. Who wrote my books? I did. Anyway, and, you know, there was a comment there saying, not such great stuff about the American Medical Association. I think they're doing their best. I don't want to be involved in conspiracy theories. There's plenty of information out there if that is what people want to do, have at it. I mean, there are plenty of social media sites, plenty of people talking about all kinds of things. You know, that's people's opinions and they're certainly entitled to them. I think it's valuable to think about planning for the future, and it's why I choose to spend time with all of you. I don't know if Trileptal as an anticonvulsant should be considered as an immune suppressant. I do know that drugs of that kind can have an effect on the white blood cell count, so I would say think about what the white blood cell counts have been because I'm certain that, you know, that's been checked if your son is taking that medication. Any statistic on smokers? Don't have any that I can quote right now. Smokers are at risk for developing lung disease, and that would certainly increase their risk. I'm going to take a couple of questions, and then we're going to close. How about L-lysine to shorten the duration? L-lysine is not something I would think would be valuable here. L-lysine Uh-huh. Competes with L-arginine, and that has been used to— and L-arginine is required for replication of DNA viruses, specifically the herpes-type viruses, which are DNA viruses, not an RNA virus, single-stranded, like the coronavirus is. So arginine is needed for the replication of herpes virus. It's the reason that people take L-lysine if they don't want to— they want to reduce the risk of fever blisters, etc., and they go on a low arginine diet. Blessed to be working from home. As am I, and I think it's awesome. I was able to interface with network television today, Christian Broadcast Network, and they said that we're all good here, and so I can stay with you on that forum as well. Again, I don't know when that's going to be posted. We're going to do quite a bit of that. I'm going to answer your question. What type of zinc is best? At this point, I would say any zinc that you can get would probably be worthwhile. I tend to like zinc picolinate in terms of its absorption. Any links to causing eye issues like macular degeneration? Actually, no. That I'm aware of. I mean, you certainly can overdose and have a problem, but in the AREDS study of macular degeneration, zinc is one of the components of the group of supplements that were added to that study that proved effective as it relates to macular degeneration. Okay, everybody, give me a second, Dr. Perlmutter. Oh, good. So I am— it looks like they are posting I'm going to close today with something I'd like you all to listen to, and I'll look for some responses. Everybody ready? This is a poem by Edwin Morgan, and it's called Strawberries. I'm going to read it to you. There were never strawberries like the ones we had that sultry afternoon, sitting on the step of the open French window, facing each other Your knees held in mine, the blue plates in our laps, the strawberries glistening in the hot sunlight. We dipped them in sugar, looking at each other, not hurrying the feast for one to come. The empty plates laid on the stones together with the 2 forks crossed, and I bent towards you, sweet in the air, in my arms, abandoned like a child. From your eager mouth, the taste of strawberries in my memory. Lean back again. Let me love you. Let the sun beat on our forgetfulness one hour of all the heat intense and summer lightning on the Kilpatrick heels. Let the storm wash the plates. Just to get away from this for one moment, take a deep breath. And be grateful for all that we have. I will talk to all of you tomorrow. Bye for now.