I truly believe your food choices and time of eating are two of the most profoundly effective strategies for regaining your metabolic flexibility and:
- Promoting insulin sensitivity and decreasing insulin resistance.
- Improving your blood sugar (crucial for resolving not only Type 2 diabetes but also high blood pressure and obesity).
- Igniting your body’s powerful cleanup process to remove damaged cellular parts and recycling them to make new ones (much like a poorly maintained old automobile).
- Improving your mitochondrial function and cellular energy production to help combat brain fog and fatigue.
- Boosting your resistance to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and brain and neurological decay.
There’s one aspect of my eating strategy that’s so crucial for reducing your risk of COVID-19, I give it special emphasis in “The Truth About COVID-19.”
Let me tell you briefly about it here.
The Essential Fat That Can Increase Your Risk of COVID-19 and Worsen Disease Outcome
Something many people don’t realize about the connection between diet and COVID-19 is that there’s a food that can actually influence both your risk of contracting the virus and your disease outcome.
Surprisingly enough, I’m not talking about sugar.
There’s no question excessive amounts of sugar will increase your risk of disease, but this other food choice is actually far worse.
This fat acts like a metabolic poison in your body and causes extensive oxidative damage, impairs the function of your cells’ mitochondria and literally triggers the destruction of cells.
As the fat oxidizes, it breaks down into metabolites that can contribute to insulin resistance, obesity, diabetes, DNA damage, coronary artery disease and cancer.
What makes it particularly confusing is the fact that it is categorized as an “essential fatty acid,” leading many to falsely believe it’s good for you in large quantities. And to complicate matters further, this fat is plentiful in foods that many people consider healthy, like olive oil, chicken and farmed salmon.
The problem is when it is consumed in excess and, unfortunately, that appears to be the case now with virtually everyone. Worse, people are totally unaware of the repercussions of eating this fat — especially as it relates to COVID-19 and other viruses.
In “The Truth About COVID-19,” you’ll learn all the details about:
- This essential fat, that, when consumed in excess, can cause sepsis and widespread organ failure when exposed to SARS-CoV-2.
- Why the type and amount of fat you eat heavily influences your risk of dying from COVID-19.
- How to quickly calculate how much you’re consuming of the wrong kind of fat (there’s no cost involved).
- The mistake people make trying to remedy the problem.
- How to turn the situation around and lower your risk of severe COVID-19.
As crucial as healthy eating and metabolic flexibility are for lowering your risk for severe COVID-19 disease, you also need to get your immune system into shape, especially if you’re no longer in your 20s or 30s.
In addition to what and how you eat, you need lifestyle strategies to strengthen your immune function.
Alternative Strategies for Improving Your Immune Function
As you age, your immune system function — specifically your white blood cell function — tends to decline as part of a process called immunosenescence. More specifically, it is your T cell function. Reduced T cell function is a primary cause of severe COVID-19.
This is one reason why the elderly and those with preexisting conditions are at such an increased risk for viral infections, especially COVID-19.
Chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome also tend to worsen your body’s inflammatory response to SARS-CoV-2 in addition to weakening your overall immunity.
Stress is another factor that promotes inflammation and impacts your immune system’s ability to fight off infection. The high levels of anxiety and stress people are experiencing during this pandemic are adversely affecting how well they fight the virus.
Out-of-control stress can also prevent you from getting a good night’s sleep and can fuel unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking and snacking.
To stay well and manage any infection, you must be able to manage your stress. I include an assortment of strategies for managing stress and enhancing your immune system function in “The Truth About COVID-19,” including:
- Your first priority for radically improving your immune function (don’t try to do anything else until you check this off your list)
- A foundational health strategy that can help reverse immunosenescence and help acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which is very common in COVID-19
- The strategy that provides mental as well as physical health benefits
- What I consider the near-perfect exercise strategy for anyone over 50 years of age for gaining muscle mass with minimal risk of injury (ideal not only for increasing your resistance to COVID-19 but for long-term health as well)
- Some of the most effective relaxation techniques for stress-related diseases