I had discussed briefly in my last article some basic concepts around boosting the immune response during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to offer just a few more of my thoughts in this post and discuss a bit more about why a shelter-in-place-only approach is potentially harmful in the long run. Though important to potentially starve the virus of hosts with which to spread, I find the approach of simply sheltering in place to be short sighted and not giving justice to the abundant literature that is already published around optimizing immune function. Remember, sheltering in place only helps people avoid exposure to the virus. It does nothing to help a person have a more robust immune response. And it is a healthy and robust immune response that we want to not only fight off this virus if infected, but to provide a person and the community at large a natural immunity to the virus. There are concerns about a possible coming of a second wave of COVID-19 cases. This could very well happen if we don’t all take measures to strengthen our immune systems during our shelter in place order. These are some of the concepts I want to address in this article.
Keeping our Immune Systems Strong
It is a widely accepted that Americans haven’t had access to adequate testing for this illness. This has had many consequences but one that really stands out in my mind is that it allows for some wildly misrepresented data which is then used to drive policy. In essence what we are being told so far is to completely avoid the possibility of infection until a vaccine can be created, at which point we will all be safe again.
I am not here to argue that we should all go out and expose each other to this virus, but I can say a few things about how isolation might not be helping as much as we think it might. The immune system literally requires exposure to microorganisms to function properly. This comes in the form of bacteria, virus particles, fungus/mold, and even a healthy level and diversity of beneficial bacteria living in our intestines. A strong immune system is one that is constantly being stimulated to respond. The less we get exposed to microorganisms in the long run, the weaker our immune responses tend to work! This is true regarding the ability to fight off an infection, but it is also true regarding our ability to not attack our own organs.
The immune system literally requires exposure to microorganisms to function properly
When the immune system isn’t regularly “primed” through exposures to the environment, immune regulatory control goes down and allows for problems like food sensitivity and autoimmunity to increase. So, isolate too much and you end up getting sick more easily, while at the same time increasing the tendency towards attacking the wrong things with potentially very serious consequences.
I keep waiting for someone, anyone, from our government medical team, or any number of medical professionals being interviewed, to address at least one strategy that can help build immune responses. After two months of patient waiting and careful listening I have still to hear one thing mentioned other than to isolate and wait longer. This is not due to lack of medical evidence as we are led to believe. If you look, there is plenty of research proven to optimize immune function. My only thought here is that by omitting these concepts as a part of our official national strategy, the fear, the isolation fatigue, and the desperation increase, driving our acceptance and willingness all the more to inject ourselves with the next new vaccination in hopes that this will finally offer us the cure.
I am not sure that there is so much of a conspiracy here, but there is certainly momentum in the financial windfall, should a vaccine for COVID-19 become compulsory. Why treat the relatively few sick among us when we can vaccinate the entire world!?! The trouble with vaccines are that they are filled with toxic ingredients, they aren’t required to pass the same safety testing that all other medications are required to pass, and they don’t offer the same kind of immunity that a “wild-type” infection offers. So how about we broaden the conversation a little?
Immune System Stressors
There are plenty of factors that actually weaken the immune system. Blood sugar imbalances, stress physiology, poor quality sleep, to name just a few, all wreak havoc on the immune system. These types of conditions impact many millions of Americans, but not everyone. One thing that we are all subject to at the moment however is some form of quarantine. In the field of scientific animal studies, a preferred method to cause stress in the animal is to socially isolate them from the group. The results of isolation are increased stress hormones, increased inflammation, and weakened immune function. This is a predictable and reproducible effect in all animals.
Isolation from friends and loved ones damages the immune system
Remember the “cytokine storms” they are telling us about? That is when inflammatory molecules called cytokines go crazy. It is the occurrence of these cytokine storms in people that cause them to die. Cytokines inflame tissues in the lung and other organs, they can lead to clots, and they can send a person down the road to critical health and eventual death. Social isolation makes this response worse. The stress of isolation literally primes the system towards inflammation so if an infection were to happen the person will tolerate the infection much more poorly.
I hear a lot about trusting science regarding this pandemic. It all seems to be so black and white. The polarizing impact of social media has blinded us to the middle ground. I can tell you nothing is ever black and white. But in keeping with this mantra of “trusting science” I hope that we can all trust this piece of medical fact as well. Isolation from friends and loved ones damages the immune system. If nothing else is being done to act as a countermeasure to this, we are left weakened. We are left weakened and waiting for a vaccine to save humanity.
It is one thing to have a family or a housemate to quarantine with, but we need more socialization than that to remain optimally healthy. Think about the millions of people who live alone. We haven’t even begun to consider the impacts that an open-ended quarantine has had on this population. There are studies that show improved immune activity simply by seeing the face of a person you are fond of seeing. This has been taken away without any suggestion about possible countermeasures. If you can’t see people in person right now, please consider a video chat from time to time with friends and loved ones if you have that capability. It is the little things that can make a difference right now.
Serological COVID-19 Antibody Testing Now Available
One good thing that is happening right now is that antibody testing is starting to become much more available. I now have the ability to order these tests through Lab Corp. There are actually two kinds of testing used for COVID-19. One is the “molecular test” which typically involves a swab of the nose and oral cavity. This looks for the genetic material of the virus itself and is good for determining if there is an active infection or not. These tests are typically performed on the people who are currently sick. I don’t have access to this test at this time.
The other test is the “serological test” which looks for antibodies against the virus. This tells us if our immune system has already encountered the virus or not. A person who contracted COVID-19, became sick, and tested positive for the molecular test will have positive antibodies because the virus has already been in their system. This person will also be able to enjoy natural immunity, provided that there aren’t mutations like we might see in the yearly flu. So far that is not the opinion of the scientific community. Once enough people have these positive COVID-19 antibodies the virus cannot spread through the community. This is the “herd immunity” we are hearing about, and what a vaccine hopes to achieve.
Now it is also possible to be exposed to this virus, fight it off well without contracting the symptoms of the disease, and still end up positive to the antibodies. In fact, as more of this antibody testing is being done, we are finding more and more people are actually positive to the antibodies who never even felt sick in the first place.
Misleading Data
If you remember hearing about “knowing the denominator” for the disease, this is what they are referring to when it comes to death rates. There have unfortunately been a lot of statistics being reported on the news, and by important organizations, based upon staggeringly low testing rates. We are literally bashing our friends and loved ones on social media based upon grossly inadequate data! Is it even ethical to report mortality rates without even knowing how many people have had the virus? I think not. The death rate of a disease is only significant if first we know how many people have been exposed to the virus. If all we are going with are the number of people who have died as compared to the number of people known to be actively sick, you end up with a much higher “death rate” than there is in reality. This is where the proposed death rates of 1.5% or even 3% that we were hearing about several weeks back came from. There simply weren’t enough people tested for antibodies to know how many people in our society contracted the virus! Current estimates are somewhere around 0.5% which is still just a bit more than the seasonal flu.
The more people who are able to get tested for the antibody to this virus, the more accurately the epidemiologists can report what is actually happening. In San Diego County the most current death toll (as of the day I wrote this article) was 135 people. That is 135 people who died out of just over 3.3 million San Diego County citizens! That comes out to roughly 0.004 % here in San Diego County. I say this not to minimize the seriousness or tragedy of those impacted, but to put you at ease a bit that your neighbor isn’t as scary as you might be led to think. Nor is the jogger, or the handle on the ice cream cooler at the local grocery store.
A Stronger Immune System for Whatever Comes Along
With a robust immune system these things pose a minimal threat at best. It is the immune compromised amongst us that need protecting. And protect them we can! Hopefully we can shift from a total society closure here very soon and work more specifically in target populations. And like I have been saying in these articles, the rest of us should be taking measures to boost our ability to respond to these viral threats. (See my previous article for a few recommendations.)
I know that all this isn’t something we hear on the news or even from the people we have come to trust in the medical industry. I wish that were different. All we need to do is look a little further than our faith in vaccines and total avoidance of exposure and there is a whole world of published data out there to help us be as strong as possible. We need to follow the mantra and “trust the science.” In the end we want a strong community, not one that is dependent on forced, rushed, and potentially unsafe vaccinations. If we can see through the fear, the path forward is much more clear.