It is known that Covid 19 presents a much greater threat to the health and well being of older people and people who have concomitant chronic conditions:
- heart disease
diabetes - metabolic syndrome
- obesity
Therefore right now an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure — and that’s never been more true.
So what can you do?
You can’t make yourself chronologically younger but you can improve your immune function, and most importantly you can improve your metabolic health.
What this means is looking under the bonnet and measuring our fasting blood sugar levels, our triglycerides, our insulin levels, our 3 month blood sugar levels (HbA1C) and assessing how metabolically healthy we are. We consider your weight, your sleep, your blood pressure and how much exercise you get. Diet is probably the single thing you can do to improve all these factors.
- Did you know that alcohol will reduce your immune cell numbers?
- Did you know that vitamin C is vital for the body to produce your immune cells?
- Did you know that sugar and vitamin C compete for transporters into the cell?
Therefore eating sugar will reduce your immune function.
If you want help with your metabolic health give me a call and I will be glad to help.
Long Covid
Long Covid is presenting with a vast array of symptoms affecting the gastrointestinal, neurological, respiratory and psychological systems to mention a few.
There are emerging studies and practises which are showing promising results, especially where a doctor has involved themselves in thinking outside the box, prescribing antihistamines, cytokine antagonists, as well as the naturopathic thinking of making key dietary changes to target the hyperinflammation that is the hallmark of the disease.
It is also possible to work with Long Covid naturopathically, and I am following up to date thinking on which biochemical pathways to target. This is done using food as medicine with some key psychological adaptations to facilitate the process as well as professional supplementation.
Safe Covid Practice
Following the November 2020 lockdown, the CNHC (Complementary and Natural Health Care Council) confirmed that CNHC registrants meet the definition of “other ….health services contained in schedule 3A of the Health Protection Regulations 2020.
This means as a CNHC registrant Nutritional Therapists can continue to practise face-to-face.
If the benefit of face-to-face meetings are thought to outweigh the risks then this is possible at my clinic. If this option is used then the following government guidelines are implemented:
- appropriate social distancing
- hand-washing facilities
- mask wearing
- deep clean of surfaces
For those at greater risk, or who prefer not to meet face to face, then we can conduct all our meetings on zoom.
