Corona Virus Update: Prevention Approaches

RVAchironeuro • March 30, 2020

Hello everyone:

As this crisis is developing and more and more observations and research are becoming available, it seems that the information is consolidating to form a pretty substantial view of what is going on. The infection takes 2 to 11 days to incubate (day 5 on average) and this is when you feel you are getting flu like symptoms: such as fever, headache, dry cough, myalgias(back pain), nausea without vomiting, abdominal discomfort with perhaps some diarrhea, loss of smell, anorexia, fatigue.

Then about 3 to 5 days after you get the flu like signs and symptoms that you are infected, the virus moves into the lungs (the dangerous phase) and you may experience shortness of breath due to the viral pneumonia setting in.

About 10 days after flu like illness starts, there can be an immune ‘storm’. This is where the immune response is so strong and severe, that the inflammation created by the immune response to the virus causes organ failure with acute respiratory distress syndrome. This is also known as a ‘cytokine storm’.

About 80% have mild cases, 15% severe enough to require hospitalization, and 5% become critical…and it can happen very rapidly.

From an immunologic standpoint, the critical event is to support the immune process that kills the virus and simultaneously dampen the ‘storm’. As it turns out, the ‘storm’ is largely created via a process called inflammasome assemblage, and there are some things that can slow that down. Whenever possible, dosages should be based upon lab tests (such as Vitamin D and A).

Thus the early prevention strategy might look like this with approximate dosages:

Zinc                                     20 mg. twice a day

Vitamin A                         20,000 i.u. per day

Vitamin C                          500 mg. at 4 x per day

Vitamin D                         4000 i.u. per day for adults: 2000 i.u. per day adolescents, 1000 i.u. per day for infants.

NAC                                    600 mg. at 3 x per day

Oil of Oregano              2 capsules per day

Immunopad                   1 capsule at 3 x per day

Selenium                          200 mcg. per day

Glutathione                    250 mg. of S-acetyl glutathione at 3 x per day (protects lungs)

To slow inflammasome assemblage:

Curcumin                         500 mg. at 3 x per day

Resveratrol                     200 mg. at 2 x per day

Quercitin                          250 mg. at 3 x per day

Berberine                         500 mg. at 3 x per day

Sulforaphane                 100 mg. at 3 x per day

Bear in mind that in these early times of this corona virus world-wide expansion and developing knowledge base, this information is by necessity speculative in nature and not yet based on any research papers relating to this specific virus. It is based upon evidence informed data in the immune literature and should be adhered to under physician guidance and judgement, preferably in a clinical setting if at all possible so that care can be individualized. If you progress into the 20% that has lung symptoms (shortness of breath), your dosages may need to be considerably higher.

Of note, all nutritional care should be considered supportive care and does not replace primary care by your medical physician. Because there is not a vaccine available yet, it is reasonable to place some importance on prevention by supporting your overall health to reduce your risk and possibly severity, and thus this information can assist you in significant ways.

In addition to supplements, proper rest, sleep, stress reduction and optimal diet are essential components of any nutritional supplement regimen. Please avoid sugar and processed foods at all costs. If all goes well, you will only need this regimen for the next 4 to 8 weeks. There are a lot of other supplements that may be helpful, such as mushrooms (for example: Ganoderma Lucidum [Reishi] or Coriolus Versicolor [Turkey Tail]), so if you feel that you are particularly vulnerable with issues like asthma or other health related factors, you may want to add other things like mushroom extracts. Overall, this approach should assist you, yet it is too early to tell how much…so do everything you can to stay healthy.

We are here to help and are available via telemedicine consultations. Contact the office for more information.

 

By Mark Smith April 20, 2026
Health News Update: What to Eat and Longevity 4.20.26 Hello again: It is important to note that in our society we are living longer but sicker. The current lifestyle our country offers is not creating a healthy population, but it is supporting medically managed sick people. It seems to me that the optimal strategy would be to combine our traditional medical care with a lifestyle that supports health promotion and longevity. To that end, food is a powerful tool…more powerful than we are told. Here is what this study looked at: “As the global population ages, it is critical to identify diets that, beyond preventing noncommunicable diseases, optimally promote healthy aging. Here, using longitudinal questionnaire data from the Nurses’ Health Study (1986–2016) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986–2016), we examined the association of long-term adherence to eight dietary patterns and ultraprocessed food consumption with healthy aging, as assessed according to measures of cognitive, physical and mental health, as well as living to 70 years of age free of chronic diseases.” And here is what they found: “Higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fats, nuts, legumes and low-fat dairy products were linked to greater odds of healthy aging, whereas higher intakes of trans fats, sodium, sugary beverages and red or processed meats (or both) were inversely associated. Our findings suggest that dietary patterns rich in plant-based foods, with moderate inclusion of healthy animal-based foods, may enhance overall healthy aging, guiding future dietary guidelines.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03570-5 Optimal dietary patterns for longevity. Bottom Line: What this means is switching to the Green Mediterranean dietary food plan is the way to go to optimize your health span and life span while avoiding or minimizing chronic disease risk. If you simply consume unprocessed to minimally processed whole foods, eat predominantly vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans and avoid processed foods, added sugars, and refined grains. Just avoiding the Standard American Diet (SAD) would result in tremendous improvement in the health of our nation and the world. I offer this information for several reasons: · I have not seen anyone recover their health eating a poor diet. · Research has shown that food is the leading cause of death and disability. · No one else can do this for you. · You can literally save your own life with your fork and spoon. · Everything I just said is true and applies to everyone. · There is literally no good reason not to eat as good as you can. 
By Mark Smith April 13, 2026
Health News Update: When to Eat Really Matters 4.13.26 Hello everyone: You have probably heard of the old saying recommending eating breakfast like a king or queen, lunch like a prince/princess, and dinner like a pauper. It turns out that new studies are revealing that meal timing is critical for long term health. “At the study’s conclusion, researchers found that participants following early and mid-day time-restricted eating experienced better outcomes, including a lowering of body weight , waist circumference , body mass index (BMI) , fat mass , systolic blood pressure , and fasting glucose ( blood sugar ) levels, when compared to participants who ate late in the day. “These findings highlight that aligning food intake earlier in the day, when metabolic processes such as insulin sensitivity are more favorable, may amplify the benefits of time-restricted eating,” Chen explained. “The results suggest that not all time-restricted eating patterns are equal. Eating earlier appears to confer broader metabolic advantages compared with delaying food intake to later hours,” he added. Additionally, scientists discovered that late-day eating, when combined with a longer eating window, was the least effective dietary pattern for the most metabolic benefits. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/time-restricted-eating-early-window-best-metabolism?utm_source=ReadNext#Time-restricted-eating-Time-of-day-and-eating-window-size When you eat really matters Bottom Line: Your biology always works best when it is running in time with your natural circadian rhythms. One of the things that can alter your circadian clocks and lead to problems is when we eat and how much, plus the quality of the food. Making sure you align your food intake with your body clock is an important aspect of health and is considered a modifiable risk factor. In other words, it is best to eat in concordance with your own biological rhythms. Will this work for everyone? Probably not, but some form of intermittent fasting will work which means experiment with this concept to find the best clock management that works for you. For example, breakfast like a prince or princess, lunch like a king or queen, dinner like a pauper. The important keys are to have some kind of breakfast and have dinner be the smallest meal of the day as early as possible. To find out more how meal timing can promote health, check out these terms: Circadian autophagy.
By Mark Smith April 6, 2026
Health News Update: Sleep Timing, Mood & Performance 4.6.26 Hello everyone: In taking a history at the start of a healthcare process, I often find people of all ages have sleep schedules that do not match optimal circadian rhythms and have un-knowingly contributed to degrading their health. Sleep is a significant component of leading an anti-inflammatory lifestyle as it fosters autophagy (an immune based essential self-cleaning function, hormonal regulation, stress reduction, immune resilience, optimal aging, and more. As it turns out, getting your sleep timing right lowers depression, reduces morning fatigue, improves physical functions, and can markedly increase your ability to think, recall things and overall cognitive functions. Proper sleep timing aligned with our natural circadian clocks may also decrease mortality risks. Background There is conflict between living according to our endogenous biological rhythms and our external environment, with disruptions resulting in negative consequences to health and performance. This is often documented in shift work and jet lag , but ‘societal norms’ (eg, typical working hours) can create profound issues for ‘night owls’, people whose internal biological timing predisposes them to follow an unusually late sleep-wake cycle. Night owls have also been associated with health issues, mood disturbances, poorer performance and increased mortality rates . Results Overall, participants demonstrated a significant advance of ∼2 h in sleep/wake timings as measured by actigraphy and circadian phase markers (dim light melatonin onset and peak time of the cortisol awakening response), whilst having no adverse effect on sleep duration. Notably, the phase advance was accompanied by significant improvements to self-reported depression and stress, as well as improved cognitive (reaction time) and physical (grip strength) performance measures during the typical ‘suboptimal’ morning hours. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389945719301388?via%3Dihub resetting sleep timing improves brain function and overall health. Bottom Line: For long term health, assisting recovery, optimal aging, improving immune resilience, lowering your total inflammatory burden thus reducing your risk for developing chronic diseases…it looks like a very good idea to get your sleep cycles in line with your natural biological rhythms. The researchers aimed to accomplish this using only simple practical natural lifestyle methods…no medications. Here is some of what they did: · Avoid blue light after dark. · Get some early morning sunshine…even 5 minutes will help. · Exercise in the morning or early afternoon. · Adopt early time restricted feeding schedules (eTRF). · Fix a time to sleep and stick to it. If you have any chronic health issues, or just want to optimize the aging process, simply adopt a few simple lifestyle strategies. I have seen this clinically be one of the major keys to the success when it comes to overcoming fatigue, brain fog, digestive issues, and any chronic health problem. Best wishes to you for a healthy life!
By Mark Smith March 30, 2026
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By Mark Smith March 23, 2026
Health News Update: How To Fight Inflammation and Chronic Disease 3.23.26 Hello again everyone: You might wonder why I keep focusing on food…so here are some of the reasons: food choices are the leading cause of death in the U.S. and spreading around the world. Poor food choices lead to inflammation which slowly destroy health. It is that simple, plain, and clear and backed by research. The next question: how do we fight back? Introduction The positive impact of food on health was postulated by the ancient Hippocrates, father of modern medicine with his famous quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” [1]. In the 21st century, scientists have focused on the effect of nutritional habits in diseases. Nowadays, it is well documented that food plays a noteworthy role in the pathogenesis of chronic diseases namely cardiovascular diseases (CVD), metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus type II, and cancer [2–5], as it correlates with others with the lipid pattern, the blood pressure, and the endothelial function. The scientists examine the effect of nutritional habits on disease emergence and progression in both individual nutrient intake and dietary patterns models. Worldwide, two dietary patterns are usually compared—the Mediterranean diet (MD) and the Western diet (WD) [3,6]. The Mediterranean diet reflects the food culture of most Mediterranean countries based on olive oil consumption, seasonal fresh vegetables, cereals, and plants in balance with low consumption of meat [7]. The Western diet, on the contrary, is dominated by high-fat dairy products processed and red meat [8]. However, discordance in the different MD patterns and consumed food doses had been recognized. Without any doubt, those discrepancies could confine and restrict our knowledge on the health benefit mechanisms of the MD [9]. Due to the above, the medical community along with nutritionists and dieticians take a keen interest in MD and its traits [7]. https://www.academia.edu/45378994/biomedicines_Mediterranean_Diet_as_a_Tool_to_Combat_Inflammation_and_Chronic_Diseases_An_Overview?email_work_card=view-paper food choices can fight inflammation and chronic disease Bottom Line: This is a 2020 paper and since then literally hundreds of papers on the MD have emerged showing how the food plan lowers inflammation and the risk for developing multiple chronic illnesses. Even still, lots of research needs to be done to elucidate the many mechanisms of how food impacts our system and how to optimally individualize dietary recommendations. At this point, our best strategy to prevent and/or recover from any chronic condition is to eat as clean and natural as possible. It has become rather obvious that the further away from a natural diet we get, the sicker we become. On top of that, I have yet to see a full recovery from any health issue without the foundation of a predominantly plant-based, unprocessed, whole foods approach…which is why I keep posting about this subject. All the best to you and yours!
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