By Dr Richard Maurer. BloodCode Metabolic Testing

I have mentioned Nina Teicholz (@bigfatsurprise) in the past – she is an astute journalist who has taken on the low fat myth with strong scientific backdrops and guidance. What I see as a clinician and as an inquisitive diagnostician seems to dovetail into what she writes. In this article she tackles a bit of public health. If we spent a fraction of the effort discussing ways to strengthen the host rather then eradicating the virus, we would be so much further along the path toward a healthier coexistence with this snappy coronavirus (SARS-cov-2).

It’s worth diving into her recent article published in the WSJ recently…where she states simply, “we need to talk about not only the masks that go over our mouths but the food that goes into them”…read on for her input if you like…

It is early June and reaches 3 months into when our lives in the US were thrown into sudden pandemic response / reaction. We have, I am afraid, lost our mission and message. At the time it was to change our behavior to slow the process fo contagion and prevent medical setting from becoming overwhelmed and thus unable to care for those in need.

But as this went on – there is marketing that makes it sound like eradicating the virus is the goal. This has already been determined to be impossible. We should be as skeptical of viral eradication claims as much as we are of the old sales pitch of having the “cure for the common cold.”

This is an age old question in the history of medicine…Vitalism versus Virus…ism. But it is not an either or…

We have made enormous strides creating drugs by copying and modifying natures chemistry. Modern antibiotics are powerful tools and formerly deadly bacteria are now of minor concern – see tuberculosis. But realize, bacteria are different. They are their own entity – they mulitiply outside of our cells, they live outside of us per se. Viruses are just DNA material and to do their bidding, they need to enter into a cell of another organism to make copies of themselves. Our cells become their cells during a viral infection. Cool huh?

I like to say that we “get” bacterial infections but we “become” viral infections.

So, viruses are different. While there are cocktails of medications that can address the specific viruses such as hepatitis (Hepacivirus) and HIV (retrovirus), these are the exception and not the rule. Each virus acts differently and the coronavirus is more like the rule. There is no treatment to the common cold (rhinovirses and coronaviruses) or “Stomach bugs (noroviruses) or influenzae viruses. We have to have a body that can withstand a little invasive viral attack occasionally.

Metabolic health is a game changer here with SARS-cov-2. Could we all, from a public health standpoint, benefit from becoming more insulin sensitive through a low carb diet and exercising in a way that builds a smarter metabolic leanness?

—Nina Teicholz authors with a yes.