Integrative Health Blog

It is more important to understand the patient who has a disease, than it is to understand the disease that a patient has.  ~ Hippocrates

Now that we are mostly through the first stages of the Corona or COVID-19 pandemic, we can appreciate that all the good preventative efforts (masks, social distancing, hand washing, disinfecting, etc.) have slowed the spread, giving our healthcare system “breathing room” to process new cases. 

Of course, as I have often explained, the media and governmental agencies tend to focus only on the virus and not on our innate immunity, which is our best defense system.  However, having slowed the spread of COVID-19, it gives us all time to think about ways to enhance our immune systems, so I will reiterate here some information from my previous articles for two important reasons:

• It looks like COVID-19 will be with us for a long time, and while you may have escaped the first wave, it is a good idea to beef up your immunity now and for a long time to come. Don’t drop your guard.  Just remember the acronym, ABCD and…Z.  Everything that you do to enhance your immune system also helps protect you from cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases.

• The latest research on Vitamin D from 10 countries shows (surprise, surprise) that deaths are much lower in those who have higher vitamin D levels.

Be sure to have your physician test your Vitamin D level, and keep it optimized.  The ideal levels are greater than 50 ng/mL.

Basic Supplements to Support the Immune System

Please contact your integrative physician or pediatrician for your correct dosage.

• Vitamins (A, B, C, D)

• Minerals

1. Optizinc™
2. Copper chelate

If you can find homeopathics such as Virus Combination or herbals such as Viral Combination (available at NuPathways, www.nupathways.com, 800-614-7714[1]) and many outlets, add those to the mix.

Lifestyle Tips to Build Immunity

1. Immunosuppressant Medications

If you are taking immunosuppressant medication such as prednisone on a regular basis, often prescribed for autoimmune disorders, check with your doctor to be certain that you are on as low a dose as possible so that your immunity is not suppressed.  Try to manage symptoms instead with pain medication, anti-inflammatory herbals like turmeric and other supportive care like acupuncture. If you are receiving chemotherapy for cancer, have HIV or suffer from Lyme Disease, or have any condition that adversely affects your immune system, take the information presented here seriously and maintain sensible precautions.

2. Address Inflammation 

Find the root causes of inflammation, such as food allergies.  Knock off wheat and milk products, and eggs, which often are at the top of the list of pro-inflammatory foods.  Food allergy testing is available at NIHA and often covered by insurance plans.

Handle GI inflammation so that your immune system, 70% of which may surround your intestines, is not wasting its precious resources with an unfriendly microbiome bug, such as fungal, bacterial or parasitic micro-organism.  Take probiotics and digestive enzymes to help your intestines function better and avoid junk food and processed carbohydrates.  You probably already know what sets your bowels off, so now is a good time to clean up your diet.  This is covered in more detail in the article Healing the Gastrointesinal Tract to Boost Immunity.

4. Address Chronic Infections

If you have chronic Lyme Disease and/or co-infections, take your prescribed medications and remedies (e.g., homeopathics, anti-Lyme herbals, etc.) to help keep Lyme and any co-infections quarantined, which frees your immune system to be on the lookout for other invaders, such as COVID-19. 

Drink lots of filtered water and get enough rest, all of which helps to detoxify your immune system and rests it to be prepared to go into over-drive should COVID-19 show up.

Meditation, yoga, prayer and contemplation all settle down your autonomic, stressed-out immune system, so that it can be more vigilant.  Stress of any kind, allergic, endocrine, toxic or psycho-emotional, are all immunosuppressive.  Now is a good time to engage in “spirituality” practices that resonate with you.

Fresh air and sunshine help. Take a daily walk and enjoy the sun and fresh air. It clears the mind. Sunshine on the skin activates vitamin D. Oxygen helps kill virus and most micro-organisms, which is why high dose intravenous vitamin C seems to work (turns into hydrogen peroxide).  Studies suggest that hydrogen peroxide kills the COVID 19 virus effectively.[2]  So buy 3% hydrogen peroxide spray bottle ($2-$3), and use it to spray your masks and mouth, lips and throat before going out and coming home.  H2O2 can be used as a disinfectant on surfaces.  Many people now know about this research and you may have to search around to find a store that still has supplies of hydrogen peroxide.

I once had a colleague who somehow got his medical license and probably only knew about 200 English words.  He used to say to smokers, “Ah, you smoke, you die.”  This is much more the case now.  If you smoke, stop.  Use any method available, even one of my books, “End Your Addiction Now” or “End Nicotine Addiction Now,” which has the protocols of amino acids that may help you quit and will make it virtually harder to smoke.  Marijuana, alcohol, other drugs?... Now’s a good time to stop.  Your immune system will appreciate sobriety.

If you are elderly and/or have underlying medical conditions that make you much more vulnerable to COVID-19 (like me), please take all of the measures above very seriously.

If you have HIV, take all of these measures above very seriously, and take your medications.

Be Prepared

We all sometimes take all the blessings of modern life for granted, and often fall into the trap of believing that we don’t need to work to stay healthy. If I get sick, I will just take a drug to fix anything that goes wrong. 

However, life is still fragile and precious, and we can do a lot to strengthen our immune systems. 

COVID-19 has woken us up to these facts and provided us all with a good dose of humility.  In fact, the 2017-2018 influenza killed around 80,000 Americans, now COVIDS-19 has surpassed that, and so let’s transform this global tragedy into a healthy respect for the ravages of mother nature and be better prepared for the next flu season and for any pandemic in the future.

For more information, or to schedule a more in-depth look at what you can do to take charge of your immune health, please call 202-237-7000, ext. 158, or use the online form to request an appointment.

[1] All of these supplements available at NuPathways and many other retail outlets, but a quality mixed homeopathic and a mixed herbal may be much harder to locate.

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/203115/ - Abstract.  The effect of H2O2 on adenovirus types 3 and 6, adenoassociated virus type 4, rhinoviruses 1A, 1B, and type 7, myxoviruses, influenza A and B, respiratory syncytial virus, strain Long, and coronavirus strain 229E was studied in vitro, using different H2O2 concentration and timec of exposure. H2O2 in a 3 percent concentration inactivated all the viruses under study within 1--30 min. Coronavirus and influenza viruses were found to be most sensitive. Reoviruses, adenoviruses and adenoassociated virus were relatively stable. H2O2 is a convenient means for virus inactivation.

Charles Gant MD, PhD,  is a physician, author and teacher and has practiced Integrative and Functional Medicine for over three decades. He specializes in getting to the root cause of health issues to support healing at the molecular level.  Areas of interest include ADHD, chronic diseases, metabolic, hormonal and immune disorders, infectious disease (Lyme and co-infections), genetic testing and more. He is an expert in interpretation of functional medicine testing to diagnose precisely what is deficient in each patient, and then replenish those missing, essential items. 

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