There is something really big missing from every coronavirus conversation, and it’s not about masks or conspiracies, and it’s what I believe is the most important thing we should understand about the pandemic: As a nation, we’ve become so sick that a virus that is mild for anyone with a healthy immune system is killing many, many more people than it should.
These are not genetic conditions putting people at elevated risk, no, we’ve known throughout the course of the pandemic that primarily diseases attributed to lifestyle are involved in nearly all of the deaths. Diseases that are well-known to be preventable over 80% of the time (and often reversible), but we’ve sort of glossed right over the weight of this information.
From my perspective, as a doctor of root cause, putting the focus on the only solution as widespread vaccination is like putting a band-aid over the problem. It’s accepting that we will always be sick and damaged, saying we’re not going to address the metabolic diseases and better identify the condition of the body that makes one susceptible, and just keep altering our genes in a never-ending effort to protect ourselves from every virus in existence with any mortality rate, no matter how small it would be if we actually came up systemic solutions to fix the overall state of our health.
I’d just like to point out that to present vaccinating every single flu-like virus out of existence as a legitimate long-term solution, when we’ve only barely begun to understand the function of viruses, their roles in our microbiome and possibly in human evolution, is the pinnacle of the hubris of humanity, particularly when the vast majority of deaths would be prevented in a healthy population.
I’m not anti-vaccination, but I’m anti-top-down-one-size-fits-all-cookie-cutter-medicine, pro-informed medical choice, and pro-root cause medicine and solutions. A vaccine is a reasonable solution to prevent transmission of one virus, but it is not a solution that is actually going to improve the health and resiliency of the human body.
Remember a few years ago when the headlines said this generation is expected to have shorter lives than their parents? So is it surprising that in America, where we are particularly overfed and still malnourished, to find the occasional outlier of a young and healthy person (which only really means not diagnosed with anything so far), to die of COVID-19 when the rates of metabolic and autoimmune disease have been on the rise in children for decades? Americans are sick already, and even when not diagnosed with any condition, often unwell and not thriving, and this is a crisis, yet no one is talking about how we’re overwhelmed with toxins, additives in things advertised as healthy that continually spike insulin, a broken food pyramid, and news media that is paid for by the companies whose products are damaging our health– all leading to the same preventable chronic illnesses that are making this virus, all viruses, more deadly.
If people are going to be in the streets shouting at others for not wearing a mask when alone on a sidewalk, why is no one shouting about this? If the media put the proper attention on the underlying conditions for the pandemic and what people can do to start to improve their health and reduce risk now, not just by covering your face, but at the root of this particular health crisis, wouldn’t we have stopped eating processed foods and put fast food chains out of business during the shut down? Or spent our time shaming the FDA for what they allow in our food rather than shaming each other for distancing too little or too much?
We should be angry and ready to fight to change the systems that promote disease within our society. That’s something on which we should all be able to agree. There’s too much to consider how to change it all at once, but pick one aspect that you see is a problem and start, and definitely start within your own home.
Yes, of course, wear a mask in public spaces, practice social distancing, wash your hands, disinfect everything, wait for a vaccine that may or may not arrive soon, and anything else you feel called to do to keep yourself and others safe. However, if you’re not also proactively making choices that add health to your body on a daily basis: eating vegetables with every meal, cutting out processed foods and sugar, exercising, sleeping well, quitting smoking, getting adjusted regularly and doing the things that enhance health and help your body to function its best, you are missing an equally important aspect of risk reduction.
