Sorry for the confusion. The website for the International Evolutionary Health Conference changed when the venue changed from Boston to Virtual. Here is the correct website link which gives a list of speakers/topics and sign up information.
https://2023.evolutionaryhealthconference.com/
The previously published link will lead you to a site that says “canceled”. The conference is not cancelled, the venue has changed to virtual.
Dr. Bob
Winter approaches with a perfect storm of 3 respiratory viruses, increased indoor activity, dry spaces, and holiday gatherings. The 3 viruses already filling many hospitals (including children’s hospitals) include RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus), Influenza, and SARS-CoV-2.
Respiratory viruses spread by aerosol typically enter through the nose and throat. Dry nasal and oral-pharyngeal mucosa (the lining of the nose and throat) presents an ideal incubator for respiratory viruses. With winter comes drier indoor environments created by heating systems.
A recently published study concluded:
Indoor conditions, particularly indoor RH (relative humidity) modulate the spread and severity of COVID-19 outbreaks.
The sweet spot was between 40% and 60% humidity to minimize spread and severity of infection.
Here is a picture of the temperature and humidity monitor in my home office.
Note that while outdoor humidity is 55%, indoor humidity is only 34%, short of the “ideal” range for decreased viral transmission and severity. We have a humidifier in our bedroom where the RH is higher.
In addition to a bedroom humidifier we have several HEPA filters dispersed throughout the house. HEPA filters can decrease aerosol (viral load) by 80% or more as can the homemade Corsi-Rosenthal box. HEPA filters and the Corsi-Rosenthal Box also significantly reduce indoor air pollution, potentially protecting us from not only respiratory disease but also heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer.
As the winter approaches consider protecting your family and friends from RSV, Influenza, and COVID-19 by utilizing a humidifier and free standing HEPA filters. Improving indoor air quality will have many health benefits.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
SARS CoV-2 virus is spread by aerosols. These aerosols contain many viruses carried in a tiny amount of liquid from a person’s mouth and nose as they breath, talk, sing, or yell. Yelling, singing, coughing, sneezing produce more aerosol than breathing. Risk of transmission in a room depends on duration of exposure (time in the room), amount of ventilation, # of individuals carrying the virus present and their activity . A 5 micron aerosol can stay suspended in air for 30 minutes indoors.
HEPA filters (High Efficiency Powered Air-filters) can dramatically reduce the number of aerosols in a room. This includes not only virus carrying aerosols but also small particulate pollutants, both of which impact the health and safety of children and adults in classrooms, meeting rooms and businesses.
HEPA filters range in price from $150 to $800 or more depending on quality, efficiency and how quiet they run. They have been tested in classrooms and hospitals.
In the hospital setting they have dramatically decreased COVID Virus.
To determine how the filters stand up to real-world conditions, Navapurkar and his co-authors installed them in two fully occupied COVID-19 wards — a general ward and an ICU. The team chose high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, which blow air through a fine mesh that catches extremely small particles. The researchers collected air samples from the wards during a week when the air filters were switched on and two weeks when they were turned off.
In the general ward, the team found SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air when the filter was off but not when it was on. Surprisingly, the team didn’t find many viral particles in the air of the ICU ward, even when the filter there was off. The authors suggest several possible reasons for this, including slower viral replication at later stages of the disease3. As a result, the team says that measures to remove the virus from the air might be more important in general wards than in ICUs.
You can read the article here.
An Engineering professor and Dean at UC Davis, Richard Corsi, tweeted the design of an inexpensive homemade air filter providing the equivalent aerosol clearing capacity as an expensive manufactured HEPA filter. A colleague in Texas built one with simple components from a hardware store. The result was called the Corsi-Rosenthal box.
Dr. Corsi is an expert in the engineering of HVAC systems. He has researched methods to improve indoor air quality and published many scientific studies involving the interaction between pollutants and indoor materials. He estimates that the cost of a home-made Corsi-Rosenthal box is $4.50 per year per student to build and run based on average class size in the US. These are easily made with simple components and instructions available on-line. In fact if you search YouTube you will find many short videos on how to build these in 20 minutes. Their construction and use could easily be a classroom activity.
Professor Corsi was interviewed on the People’s Pharmacy radio show.
Here is a picture of the Corsi-Rosenthal box from Wikipedia:
One box can help to improve the air quality in an average size classroom, offering the equivalent of 7 to 8 air changes an hour.
These boxes would not only benefit health by decreasing circulating virus containing aerosols but also filtering out indoor pollutants that come from latex paint, carpet fibers, cleaning chemicals, air fresheners, fire retardants on furniture and clothing, which all release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that cause lung damage, increase risk of asthma and autoimmune disease. So why have these not been widely used in our schools, homes, and businesses?
Why has the CDC not recommended this simple and inexpensive highly effective risk reduction approach? If widely implemented soon after Drs. Corsi and Rosenthal invented and advocated it’s use, it would have prevented many infections and allayed some of the fear and anxiety of teachers, students and parents. As the flu season approaches, and with the added risk of a triple threat presented by RSV, Influenza, and Covid, all transmitted by aerosol, now would be a great time to build some for your home, business, office or your chidren’s school classrooms.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
An excellent article recently published in the Atlantic was so well written that I have cut and pasted important snippets to help create this post. The review confirms many findings uncovered in my reading of several scientific publications.
You can read the full article here:
The crushing fog of long COVID
20 to 30 percent of patients report brain fog three months after their initial infection, as do 65 to 85 percent of the long-haulers who stay sick for much longer.
Of long COVID’s many possible symptoms, brain fog “is by far one of the most disabling and destructive,”
It is more profound than the clouded thinking that accompanies hangovers, stress, or fatigue.
It is not a mood disorder.
It is almost always a disorder of “executive function”—the set of mental abilities that includes:
Patients state they often lose focus mid-sentence.
Difficulty with simple tasks impairs activities of daily living.
“I couldn’t unload a dishwasher, because identifying an object, remembering where it should go, and putting it there was too complicated.”
The memories are there, but with impaired executive function, the brain neither chooses the important things to store nor retrieves that information efficiently.
Most people with brain fog are not so severely affected, and gradually improve with time. But even when people recover enough to work, they can struggle with minds that are less nimble than before.
“I’ve had surgeons who can’t go back to surgery, because they need their executive function,” Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, a rehabilitation specialist at UT Health San Antonio.
That specific constellation of problems also befalls many people living with HIV, epileptics after seizures, cancer patients experiencing so-called chemo brain, and people with several complex chronic illnesses such as fibromyalgia.
It’s part of the diagnostic criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS
People with brain fog also excel at hiding it: to protect their jobs when still able to work, or to protect their reputation, or out of embarrassment.
“I know my value in many people’s eyes will be diminished by knowing that I have these cognitive challenges.”
Individuals with previously above average cognitive ability often test “normal” but suffer significant loss compared to their prior ability.
A team of British researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank study. The findings revealed structural changes in the brain with loss of tissue on MRI scans that correlates with symptoms.
They found that even mild infections can slightly shrink the brain and reduce the thickness of its neuron-rich gray matter. At their worst, these changes were comparable to a decade of aging.
They were especially pronounced in areas such as the parahippocampal gyrus, which is important for encoding and retrieving memories, and the orbitofrontal cortex, which is important for executive function.
In most cases the virus probably harms the brain without directly infecting it.
Inflammatory chemicals can travel from the lungs to the brain, where they disrupt cells called microglia (immune cells in the brain).
In their presence, the hippocampus—a region crucial for memory—produces fewer fresh neurons, while many existing neurons lose their insulating coats (demyelination), so electric signals now course along these cells more slowly.
These are the same changes seen in cancer patients with “chemo fog”.
Neuro-inflammation is “probably the most common way” that COVID results in brain fog, but that there are likely many such routes, such as reactivation of dormant viruses such as Epstein-Barr virus, which has been linked to conditions including ME/CFS and multiple sclerosis.
By damaging blood vessels and filling them with small clots, COVID also throttles the brain’s blood supply, depriving this most energetically demanding of organs of oxygen and fuel.
These problems can be exacerbated or mitigated by factors such as sleep and rest, which explains why many people with brain fog have good days and bad days.
Although other respiratory viruses can wreak inflammatory havoc on the brain, SARS-CoV-2 does so more potently than influenza.
For adults following SARS CoV-2 infection:
risks of cognitive deficit (known as brain fog), dementia, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures were still increased at the end of the 2-year follow-up period.
For children following SARS CoV-2 infection:
in the 6 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection, children were not at an increased risk of mood (HR 1·02 [95% CI 0·94–1·10) or anxiety (1·00 [0·94–1·06]) disorders, but did have an increased risk of cognitive deficit, insomnia, intracranial haemorrhage, ischaemic stroke, nerve, nerve root, and plexus disorders, psychotic disorders, and epilepsy or seizures (HRs ranging from 1·20 [1·09–1·33] to 2·16 [1·46–3·19])…. Unlike adults, cognitive deficit in children had a finite risk horizon (75 days) and a finite time to equal incidence (491 days).
The fact that neurological and psychiatric outcomes were similar during the delta and omicron waves indicates that the burden on the health-care system might continue even with variants that are less severe in other respects.
There are no proven drug treatments for long-haulers.
But there is hope.
Cancer researchers have developed drugs that can calm inflamed microglia in mice and restore their cognitive abilities;
“Metformin can promote the regeneration of neural precursor cell populations and improve cognitive function in a preclinical model of cranial radiation and a pilot clinical study of children after cranial radiation and chemotherapy.”
Treating cancer therapy–related cognitive impairment | Nature Medicine
With regard to long-haulers, better sleep, healthy eating, and other generic lifestyle changes can make the condition more tolerable. Breathing and relaxation techniques can help people through bad flare-ups; speech therapy can help those with problems finding words.
“Some people spontaneously recover back to baseline,”
The largest group of long-haulers—those whose brain fog has improved but not vanished, can “maintain a relatively normal life, but only after making serious accommodations,”
Patients struggle to make peace with how much they’ve changed and the stigma associated with it, regardless of where they end up.
Post-exertional malaise—severe crashes in which all symptoms worsen after even minor physical or mental exertion is commonly reported.
Many long-haulers try to push themselves back to work and instead “push themselves into a crash,”
Post-exertional malaise is so common among long-haulers that “exercise as a treatment is inappropriate for people with long COVID,”
Even brain-training games—which have questionable value but are often mentioned as potential treatments for brain fog—must be very carefully rationed because mental exertion is physical exertion.
People with ME/CFS learned this lesson the hard way, and fought hard to get exercise therapy, once commonly prescribed for the condition, to be removed from official guidance in the U.S. and U.K.
In summary:
In the meantime, preventive measures represent the low hanging fruit for health in general and with respect to the pandemic.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
My friend Diana Rogers, started the Global Food Justice Alliance. This organization brings unbiased science to the discussion of meat consumption as it relates to health AND the environment. As discussed previously (see regenerative agriculture posts), properly raised ruminants (beef, pork, lamb, etc.) are ecologically sound, help create soil and fight climate change, and provide important nutrient dense food for people of all ages. The anti-meat narrative in popular media presents a false and dangerous position that threatens our environment, soil conversation/creation, and health.
For more information go here:
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
I recently gave a talk at the AHS 2022 meeting held at UCLA. You can view the video here:
The presentation covers a quick review of my presentations given last year at the PAH 2021 annual meeting (virtual) with additional information on long Covid.
Multiple nutrients acting synergistically support a balanced response to viral infections, including SARS CoV-2. Here is a picture.
The take home message is that no single nutritional intervention is likely to have significant impact with an acute infection unless all but one nutritional component is optimal. Nevertheless, there is compelling evidence that Vitamin D deficiency is rampant in the developed world and if one nutritional intervention is likely to be of benefit, Vitamin D supplementation, particularly in high risk populations, presents the most likely candidate. As usual, preventive supplementation would be preferable to rescue high dose intervention.
In a study of frail elderly hospitalized patients, regular vitamin D supplementation was associated with decreased mortality as demonstrated here. Compared to no supplementation, regular supplementation was associated with a 93% reduction in risk of death.
A study from Spain with very high dose Vitamin D in the form of Calcifediol showed significant benefit in hospitalized patients, suggesting that Vitamin D deficiency was prevalent in that population and that such a treatment intervention should be widely considered.
Calcifediol Treatment and COVID-19-Related Outcomes
The following graphic from another nutrition review article, with red additions added by myself, demonstrates the complex interaction between nutrition and the two main components of our immune system, innate immunity (immediate response) and adaptive immunity (based on immune memory). Again red highlights added by yours truely.
And here is a slide from my lecture with quotes from that article.
Yet most Americans are deficient in many of these essential nutrients as depicted here. The percentages represent the % of Americans that fall below the estimated amount required to prevent deficiency in HALF of adults (a very low standard).
The SARS CoV2 virus interferes with a crucial component of the the initial (innate) immune response, the production of interferon 1 and the signaling of interferon one to immune cell mediators as depicted in this graphic.
Obesity, insulin and leptin resistance, also interfere with the production and signaling of interferon. The result is that people with insulin and leptin resistance (pre-diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes as well as sarcopenia) experience a double hit. First the virus itself disrupts the immune response and superimposed upon the viral effect is the effect of insulin and leptin resistance on the immune response.
Factors that can quickly impact insulin and leptin resistance include all the components of an ancestral lifestyle depicted in my website graphic. A paleolithic or ancestral diet that eliminates sugar added foods and beverages, replacing those empty calories with nutrient dense foods, exercise, adequate restorative sleep, stress reduction, avoidance of environmental toxins, social connection. All of these affect health in general, mitigate insulin and leptin resistance, and support a balanced immune response to viral infection. The circle of health depicted below is surrounded by the many deleterious aspects of modern living. Thus, a mismatch between our evolutionary biology and present day life.
Here is a slide from my lecture that lists many lifestyle factors that can impact infection with any virus, including SARS CoV-2
My lecture also included discussion of Long COVID, theories of etiology and pathophysiology which will be discussed in my next post.
For the full lecture which is about 34 minutes long, please follow the link above.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
Again, another biased article claims to demonstrate the dangers of red meat. There are so many problems with the author’s analysis and conclusions it is hard to know where to begin. Rather than go through the nitty gritty here, just head on over to this analysis to read another debunking of the same litany of bad science.
https://www.globalfoodjustice.org/nutrition/does-the-global-meat-trade-lead-to-poor-health
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
Today I listened to Dr. Bruce Patterson discuss his research on Long-Covid.
Bruce Patterson was director of a virology lab at Stanford before establishing Incelldx, a biotech firm in the area of virus diagnostics. Bruce was interviewed today (second half of the program) on The People’s Pharmacy (NPR). The transcript and podcast will be available tomorrow at PeoplesPharmacy.com (show #1273)
Utilizing AI and data from over 10,000 patients, Incelldx has developed diagnostic tools to characterize the immune system dysregulation associated with long covid. According to Dr. Patterson’s research, Long-Covid involves “non-classical monocytes” that are reacting to remnant virus proteins (not RNA or DNA), producing a vascular inflammatory process. That was the missing link. Researchers were looking for RNA, but the problem appears to be in the monocyte reaction to remnant viral proteins that stimulate these specialized monocytes, producing a chronic vasculitis.
Here is a link to the Long Covid clinical program based upon this research.
The program involves immune testing by Incelldx and based on the results, treatment recommendations are made.
So far 2 drugs repurposed for long-Covid appear effective when used in combination.
A CCR5 antagonist (maraviroc) which has been used to treat HIV and a Statin medication which blocks binding of the monocytes to artery walls.
According to Dr. Patterson, Long Covid in many patients is a vascular inflammatory process, mediated by non-classical monocytes which are activated by viral remnant proteins.
Dr. Patterson has seen many patients respond to this drug combination. He uses an old, early statin drug (pravastatin) which has a low side effect profile compared to the more commonly used atorvastatin (which gave me severe myopathy, notorious for that problem but understated by drug company reports).
This is cutting edge, most physicians, even in university settings, are not aware of this diagnostic/therapeutic approach.
This is still considered experimental but appears to be very promising.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
Earlier this year I gave 2 presentations on this topic at the (virtual) annual meeting of Physicians and Ancestral Health, a physician organization dedicated to incorporating evolutionary biology and lifestyle recommendations into the practice of medicine. Here is the first slide:
And here are some very important references:
Please note that this lecture was given before the delta variant arrived so the data applies to the pre-delta period.
I will skip several of the slides and get to the nutritional immunology and other lifestyle factors.
Here is the very busy slide that summarizes nutritional immunology:
Key points in this slide:
Here is another busy slide that presents more detail, note the reference at the bottom of the slide to read more.
http://A Review of Micronutrients and the Immune System-Working …
So does the “Standard American Diet” meet these nutritional needs to support a healthy immune system?
The % above represent the % of American adults with intakes BELOW the EAR (Estimated Average Requirement) for various vitamins and minerals. But note the definition of EAR:
“nutrient intake value that is estimated to meet the requirement of half the healthy individuals to avoid symptoms of a clinical or subclinical deficiency” (NOT OPTIMAL LEVELS for immune function)
Note also that this study did not consider omega-3s, phytonutrients, flavonoids, polyphenols, fiber, etc., all of which are essential to a robust immune response to any virus including SARS CoV-2.
With regards to omega 3 vs omega 6 fats:
We will return to this topic in my next post. We are just scratching the surface of a complex system.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
There remains a strong bias against the consumption of red meat in published dietary guidelines. The evidence supporting claims of increased risk of cancer or heart disease remains very weak and suggests at most a 1% absolute risk increase based on very weak evidence. Significant factors are almost universally ignored in the analysis. These include:
1. Use of hormones in raising animals
2. Grass fed and grass finished vs grain fed- feedlot fattened animals
3. Use of antibiotics
4. Methods of cooking
5. Processed-refined meats with added sugars/preservatives vs fresh or frozen unprocessed meats.
6. Confounding factors such as smoking, exercise, and other lifestyle factors
7. Poor accuracy of dietary questionnaires
8. Poor study design.
9. Residual pesticides in animals passed through feedlots.
These considerations are all important in determining the health benefits of consuming animal fat and protein. The 1% absolute risk increase discussed above relates to consuming meat raised in the typical US fashion. That includes the regular use of hormones, antibiotics, and feedlot conditions. Feedlot conditions dramatically change the fatty acid content of beef to a less healthy mix. I do not consume meat that passed through feedlots.
Prior to WWII, meat and poultry were raised without hormones, without antibiotics. They were pastured and free range. Ruminants ate grasses not grains, which cause gastro-intestinal problems in ruminants. Poultry ate bugs, grass, seeds in an open air environment. Crowded disease causing conditions were not prevalent in animal husbandry. Today things are different and one would be wise to make their consumption choices speak for healthier sources of animal protein and fat.
I have always advocated for avoiding animal foods raised with indiscriminate use of antibiotics and hormones, animals raised in crowded unsanitary conditions, ruminants (beef, lamb) fed grains, etc.
But beyond those considerations, unprocessed red meat provides an abundance of important nutrients vital to health.
A discussion of the bias that underlies many dietary guidelines is covered in a brief and informative video:
I have previously discussed the false narrative about environmental concerns related to beef, recommending the book and documentary by the same name, SACRED COW.
You can read that here.
Dr. Georgia Ede addresses the issue of red meat in many of her talks. Here is one.
She has also posted a discussion of brain health and animal fat.
And she has debunked the concept that meat causes cancer.
In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic I will close with the usual summary.
THIS WEBSITE PROVIDES INFORMATION FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. CONSULT YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER FOR MEDICAL ADVICE.
Eat clean, drink filtered water, love, laugh, exercise outdoors in a greenspace, get some morning sunlight, block the blue light before bed, engage in meaningful work, find a sense of purpose, spend time with those you love, AND sleep well tonight.
Doctor Bob
Practical Evolutionary Health 