COVID-19 has been with us for well over a year, but there is still no specific treatment regimen for the disease. While there are multiple clinical trials under way for potential treatments, preliminary results are conflicting and show mixed efficacy.
With an urgent need for more preventive strategies and alternate treatments, a recent research paper investigates previously published studies for evidence supporting the effectiveness of dietary vitamins and minerals in reducing symptoms and disease progression.
The researchers found evidence that zinc and vitamin C have potential in reducing the inflammatory response associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
They also found that folate and vitamin D may have a role in making it more difficult for the virus to enter host cells.
The researchers conclude that further research should be conducted into the use of nutritional supplements involving natural compounds with known safety records, such as zinc, folate, vitamin C and vitamin D.
Evidence in existing literature suggests that Vitamin D in particular could be a safe, effective and inexpensive way to lessen the impact of the disease.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of nutrition in our health and wellbeing. Contact us to learn more.
This research was published in the journal Current Nutrition Reports – click here to read the paper.
A new study from Deakin University shows that pro-inflammatory diets increase the risk of 27 chronic diseases, and to the risk of sudden death.
The study looked at data covering four million people across the globe, pooling data from many previous studies. The results showed a clear link between a pro-inflammatory diet and increased risk of premature death, heart attacks, several types of cancer, and depression.
A pro-inflammatory diet is one that promote inflammation in the body over the long term.
Fried foods, commercial bakery products and fatty meat products all contribute to inflammation, especially in the absence of fruits and vegetables.
Western diets tend to be pro-inflammatory, while diets such as the Mediterranean diet, which is high in fruit, vegetables and legumes, olive oil and oily fish, tend to reduce inflammation.
Chronic inflammation occurs when the body’s defensive inflammation response – essential in cases of injury and infection – remains active and causes damage to the body’s own tissues.
The authors of the study say that their research can’t prove that pro-inflammatory diets cause death and chronic disease, but it shows a clear link between diet and increased risk of these outcomes. More research is needed into the connection between diet, inflammation and long-term health.
The good news is that by understanding the risk, we can reduce it, simply by making changes to our diet.
By reducing foods likely to cause inflammation – trans fats, highly processed foods and fried foods – and eating more of the foods that reduce inflammation – fruits, vegetables, legumes, oily fish ¬– we can improve our chances of healthy living.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of diet and nutrition in health. Contact us to learn more.
Mental health studies have shown that people who are wiser are less likely to be lonely, and vice versa. Now new research suggests the connection may be in the gut microbiome – people with a greater diversity of gut microbes are less likely to be lonely.
Researchers at the University of California looked at 197 people aged between 28 and 97, comparing measures of loneliness, wisdom, compassion, social support and social engagement with analysis of their gut bacteria.
They found that greater diversity and richness of the gut microbiome were linked with higher levels of social support and engagement, compassion and wisdom, and lower levels of loneliness.
The researchers say that the subject is complex and more research is required in order to understand the mechanisms involved. They theorise that loneliness may lead to changes in the gut microbiome, or perhaps that changes in gut bacteria may predispose people to become lonely.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the gut microbiome and its many connections to our health and wellbeing. Contact us to learn more.
With the COVID-19 lockdown over the cooler months, many people found themselves feeling lethargic and suffering from joint aches and pains. The cause – vitamin D deficiency.
With autumn upon us and winter fast approaching, it pays to think about maintaining a healthy level of vitamin D.
Your body produces vitamin D in response to exposure to sunlight and stores it in fat tissue. Without regular exposure to the sun, the levels can drop below the optimum level for muscle and bone health.
Vitamin D deficiency is especially common in colder, wetter regions like Tasmania, but is surprisingly common in other parts of Australia, especially in older people and others who cannot get outside frequently.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of nutrition in our health and wellbeing. Contact us to find out more.
You’ll see many products on the shelves and on your screens that are marketed as gut health superfoods, but maintaining a healthy gut microbiome is a bit more complex than buying the right product at the supermarket.
At PIM we have a particular interest in diet and nutrition. If you scroll back through our blog you’ll see many articles on the myriad ways our gut microbiome influences our health and wellbeing.
But when you see advertisements for specific food products claiming they’re good for gut health, it pays to remember that good gut health requires more than the right brand of breakfast cereal.
One thing we do know about gut health is that it is different for different people. What works for you is determined at least in part by the types of bacteria inhabiting your gut.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to wellbeing, and while specific food products may help or hinder your gut health, the key lies in your overall diet and lifestyle. General principles to abide by include a varied diet including fruits and vegetables, regular exercise, and avoiding alcohol and other drugs.
Contact us to find out more about how diet and nutrition may help with your wellbeing.
Australia may have been spared the worst impacts of Covid-19, but there are fears that cancer deaths could rise because thousands of people may have missed out on early cancer diagnoses during the pandemic.
The Cancer Council has released figures from Victoria showing a 10% reduction in cancer screening pathology tests between April and October, 2020.
This could work out to more than 2500 missed diagnoses, potentially leading to more deaths from cancer as opportunities for early intervention and treatment are missed.
The Victorian data shows a 30% drop in some diagnostic procedures and an 18% drop in some treatments. These figures are likely to be a result of the suspension of some medical procedures, along with a reluctance to visit a GP during the pandemic.
Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper said, “Our concern would be that it may mean that people are diagnosed at a later stage of cancer, where potentially treatment options are not available and cancer may be more advanced. This data gives us time to prepare if there were to be a spike in cancer cases in coming months … This is a unique event, so we don’t actually have any parallels … about what that might look like.”
Pathology statistics are only available for Victoria, but previous data suggests the problem is likely to be nation-wide.
These figures are a timely reminder that Covid-19 is not the only health concern we face, and reinforce the need for timely medical care for a range of illnesses.
A new study in the British Medical Journal from a group of researchers spread across the globe has found that consumption of refined grain products such as white bread, breakfast cereals, pasta and baked goods is associated with increased mortality, major cardiovascular disease, stroke and other health conditions.
The global intake of refined grains has risen over recent decades, and higher carbohydrate intake has previously been shown to raise the risk of death and cardiovascular disease.
Cereal grains make up around half of all calories consumed globally. In lower income countries in Africa and Asia this figure rises to 70%. Previous studies have mostly been carried out in the USA and Europe, so the researchers in this case sought to include diverse populations in low, middle and high income regions across the globe.
The researchers looked at almost 150,000 people from 21 countries and analysed their intake of refined grains, whole grains and white rice. The study took place between 2003 and 2019.
Study participants who had experienced a cardiovascular disease event in the two years prior to the trial were excluded. Including the intake of sodium and saturated fat did not change the result for any type of grain.
The results showed that a higher intake of refined grains was associated with a higher risk of death and a higher risk of major cardiovascular events.
Critically, the study found no association between these health risk levels and the intake of whole grains and white rice.
The researchers say the results suggest the need to reduce the quantity and improve the quality of our carbohydrate intake for better health.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of diet and nutrition in our health and wellbeing. Contact us to find out more.
The human gut microbiome is fascinating and researchers are constantly finding new links between the microbes that inhabit our digestive tract and various aspects of our health.
Recently, scientists were looking at why some cancer patients respond well to immunotherapy drugs while others do not. They made an interesting discovery.
Immunotherapy drugs are an important weapon in the fight against cancer, but they don’t work for everybody. In fact, these drugs only only work in about 40% of patients with melanoma.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh suspected the microbiomes of patients might play a role, so they collected stool samples from patients who responded well to the immunotherapy treatment and transplanted the faeces – and the microbes – into the guts of patients who had not responded to the drugs.
Six of the 15 patients involved in the trial responded to immunotherapy for the first time, with either tumour reduction or disease stabilisation lasting more than a year. In these patients, the response to the transplant was a buildup of antibodies that scientist suspect and help prime the immune system to hunt down cancer cells. These patients also showed higher levels of activated T-cells, immune cells that target and kill cancer cells.
As the other 9 patients involved did not benefit from the fecal transplant, researchers suspect the gut microbiome may be one of many factors at play. Some had dissimilar gut microbiomes to the donors, suggesting that the introduced bacteria could not thrive in their new environment.
Further research is needed into this encouraging new development.
In 2019 the Medical Board of Australia proposed new regulations that could potentially prevent doctors from recommending vitamins, minerals and nutritional supplements to their patients.
Following an enormous and unprecedented response from doctors and patients, the Medical Board has just announced it will not change the existing professional standards framework.
The consultation sought feedback about whether medical practitioners offering complementary, unconventional and emerging treatments should be subject to extra regulation.
The response to the proposal was emphatic – risks in medical practice are not confined to specific areas of practice and the proposed changes would not be helpful in improving patient outcomes.
‘It is clear from the consultation that there is no simple equation linking areas of practice with risk to patients, and that high-risk practice is not confined to one area of medicine,’ said Dr Anne Tonkin, Chair of the Medical Board.
‘In effect, the solution we had proposed did not match the problem we were trying to solve and the labels we used – complementary and unconventional medicine and emerging treatments – were not helpful in defining the level of risk posed to patients,’ she said.
The Medical Board said there was a persisting issue of patients being offered high-risk treatments that did not have an evidence base of safety and efficacy, which the consultation process confirmed was not limited to complementary and unconventional medicine and emerging treatments. A related issue involves vulnerable patients not being provided with the information they would need to give genuinely informed consent.
‘It is clear that we need to carefully match safeguards for patients with high-risk practice, which occurs across a number of areas of medicine,’ Dr Tonkin said.
‘We need to calibrate our regulatory approach to address risk, while also acknowledging patients’ rights to make informed choices,’ Dr Tonkin said.
We would like to give credit to the Medical Board for acknowledging that their proposal was flawed and for making the correct decision in light of all the evidence presented to them.
We would particularly like to thank every one of the 13,500 people who took the time to make a submission – your voices have been heard!
Researchers in Italy exploring the role of heavy metal accumulation in patients with neurodegenerative disease and multiple sclerosis have found that chelation therapy significantly reduced the burden of toxic metal levels.
The researchers, from the University of Milan, looked at patients with neurodegenerative disease (ND) and a control group with no ND symptoms.
The patients were initially given a dose of a chelating agent known as ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and then their urine was analysed to determine the levels of toxic metals present.
Aluminium, arsenic, lead, cadmium and caesium were all noted, with ND patients having significantly higher levels of these toxic metals compared to healthy patients.
The test patients then underwent a series of weekly infusions of EDTA, with each patient receiving up to 30 doses.
The researchers found that after 10 sessions there was a significant reduction in the levels of toxic metals in the patients. Related symptoms also were notably reduced – these included headache, skin tingling, difficulty walking, memory and vision loss, hypertension, and physical weakness, along with loss of motor control.
Neurodegenerative patients showed a reduction in toxic metal levels following 20-30 chelation therapies, and these levels continued to fall with repeated therapies.
It’s encouraging to see ongoing research in this area, with environmental pollutants having a plausible role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disease. It is especially encouraging to see improved patient outcomes.
Age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of blindness in Australia.
Responsible for half of all cases, it affects one-third of all people over 80 years old.
A naturally occurring carotenoid known as zeaxanthin protects against macular degeneration by shielding the macula, an area in the centre of the retina, from blue light.
Researchers from the University of Queensland have discovered that orange capsicums are the richest source of zeaxanthin, which cannot be produced by our bodies and needs to be obtained in our diet.
Zeaxanthin is found in other fruits and vegetables, but only in tiny quantities. Other varieties of capsicums do not contain the substance.
Eating orange capsicums could help reduce the incidence of macular degeneration by 25%, according to lead researcher Dr Tim O’Hare.
O’Hare says that orange capsicums are the richest source of the carotenoid, with a single capsicum containing the equivalent of up to 30 supplement tablets.
The university is working to improve the availability of the orange variety, which can be difficult to find.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of diet and nutrition in our health and wellbeing. Contact us to learn more.
New research suggests our immune systems remember the virus after recovering from COVID-19, and the antibodies we produce continue to improve after the infection has waned.
Researchers from Rockefeller University found that immune cells are able to produce more effective antibodies over time thanks to remnants of the virus hidden in gut tissue.
The findings suggest that when a person who has recovered from COVID-19 encounters the virus again, their immune response may be faster and stronger, preventing reinfection.
Our bodies respond to infection by producing antibodies, which linger in blood plasma for weeks or months, but the levels of antibodies drop over time. To save having to constantly produce antibodies, the immune system creates memory B cells that recognise the pathogen and can quickly generate new antibodies when they see it again.
The Rockefeller University researchers found that while antibodies against the SARS-Cov-2 virus had markedly decreased after six months but the memory B cells that produced these antibodies had not declined, and had even increased in some cases.
They also found something unexpected: the antibodies produced by the memory B cells were much more effective than the originals, because the cells had gone through multiple rounds of mutation after the infection was resolved.
Memory B cells often continue to evolve in chronic infections such as HIV but the researchers were surprised to see it with SARS-CoV-2, which was thought to leave the body after recovery.
They suspect the ongoing evolution is due to remnants of the virus hiding within tissues in the lungs, throat and small intestine. Traces of the virus’s genetic material have been found in some of the patients’ small intestine tissue.
The team plans to continue their research to learn more about how these viral remnants may drive the disease process and the immune response.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for more than 10% of all deaths globally, but a new international study shows that consuming less carbohydrates may be the key to putting the disease into remission.
Patients who followed a low-carb diet for six months – containing less than 26% of daily calories from carbohydrates – had greater rates of type 2 diabetes remission than those who followed other diets recommended for managing the disease.
Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, contributed to the research, which examined 23 published clinical trials worldwide involving 1357 participants and was published in the British Medical Journal.
The results suggest that low-carb diets can be an effective alternative, while monitoring and adjusting medications as needed.
The CSIRO’s Professor Grant Brinkworth, who contributed to the study, said that the promising results showed the need for support tools for patients, to enable them to better adhere to the diet in the long term.
At PIM we have a particular interest in the role of diet and nutrition in our health. Contact us to learn more.
New research from Spain focuses attention once again on the role of zinc in infection control, showing that higher zinc levels are associated with lower mortality rates from COVID-19 infection.
The researchers looked at the zinc levels of patients admitted to hospital in Barcelona in March and April this year. The average zinc level of all patients was 61mcg/dL. Around 8% of the patients died, and they had significantly lower zinc levels of 43mcg/dL.
The study found that a plasma zinc level lower than 50mcg/dL was associated with an increased risk of death of 2.3 times that of patients with higher zinc levels.
The findings were presented at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases’ online coronavirus disease conference and are considered preliminary findings at this stage. More research is needed into the link between zinc and COVID-19 outcomes.
At PIM we have a particular interest in nutrition and wellbeing. Contact us to find out more.
A Melbourne man who was in intensive care suffering from COVID-19 and sepsis has been released from hospital with no complications after being given a high dose of intravenous vitamin C by his doctors.
The 40-year-old man had lost kidney function, his blood pressure was dropping and sepsis had begun to set in. Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s response to infection causes damage to its own organs and tissues. It is a common cause of death for people who are ill with COVID-19.
“We felt we were in a very difficult situation, and the patient’s life was under serious threat,” said Professor Rinaldo Bellomo, director of Intensive Care at Melbourne’s Austin Health.
Professor Bellomo initially gave the patient 30 grams of vitamin C over half an hour, followed another 30 grams over 6.5 hours. In changes Bellomo described as “remarkable”, the patient regained kidney function and his blood pressure and oxygen levels improved.
12 days after starting the vitamin C treatment, the patient was taken off the ventilator and he was released from hospital after 22 days.
Bellomo had been collaborating with Professor Clive May at the Florey Institute, who leads a team studying the treatment of sepsis. He says that Bellomo was initially sceptical of the results of vitamin C treatment on animals with sepsis, but after seeing videos of their results he had visited the lab to see it for himself.
The dose of vitamin C given to the patient was 50 times larger than had been tried before in the treatment of sepsis.
Professor May has just published research that shows the megadoses of vitamin C can reverse the course of sepsis in animals, which he describes as “revolutionary”.
“If the treatment works as well in patients as it does in our animal studies, I think it’s going to totally revolutionise the treatment of septic patients in intensive care units all over the world,” Professor May said.
More research is needed to confirm the effectiveness of vitamin C on human sepsis patients, something that is already under way at Albert Health following their patient’s remarkable recovery.
At PIM we have a particular interest in nutrition and its role in our wellbeing. Contact us to learn more.
