Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
lungs Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. Resveratrol for the Lungs – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 573 Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph. *Intro music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals …
Your lungs are at risk of damage on a daily basis due to pollution, aging and more. The good news is that the nutrient resveratrol can help them stay healthy.
COVID-19
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Hosted by Jerry Hickey, Ph.
*Intro music*
InVite Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Jerry Hickey, Ph.:
[00:00:40] There is an indisputable relationship between Vitamin D and our immune system. Lacking Vitamin D, such as on a blood test, increases the risk of severe infection, but also increases your risk of having an autoimmune disease where your own immune system is attacking your body, which is a very dangerous situation. And now Vitamin D strengthens a number of immune cells. It’s involved with controlling these cells also. For instance, converting monocytes to macrophages. Very important. These are part of the uneducated part of the immune system that will attack any foreign invader. Monocytes travel to a site and develop into these very big cells. They’re called phagocytic cells called macrophages. Phagocytic means they literally consume and digest bacteria and viruses. But you get these type of cells, for instance, in your liver to clean out your blood because your blood goes, gets filtered through your liver. So Vitamin D is needed for macrophage functions. Neutrophils, they’re dominant white blood cells, they’re not educated. They attack whatever they’re pointed at. Dendritic cells, they kind of connect the entire immune system. T lymphocytes. That’s really important. T lymphocytes are involved with the formation of antibodies. T cells have a memory for particular infections. For instance, if you had COVID-19 three years ago, if somebody sneezed on you or coughed on you with COVID-19 today, you’d have some memory T cells, which would very quickly alert the immune system and have it create new antibodies. Antibodies fit COVID-19 or any infection like a glove fitting perfectly on a hand. T cells go in and shred infections and cancer cells, but T cells also control the immune system. So Vitamin D is involved with all of these cells and B cells. B cells are where a lot of your antibodies are created on B cells.† [00:02:50]
[00:02:52] Now, Vitamin D also raises anti-inflammatory cytokines and reduces the level of inflammatory cytokines. That really came to light with COVID-19. The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes COVID-19. That’s the name of the infection, not the name of the virus. And up front, back in 2020, many people were developing acute respiratory distress syndrome. The virus would invade their lungs and trigger inflammation. There would be backlash from our immune system, and our immune system would fill the lungs with inflammatory cytokines like interleukin six and interleukin four, and this was destroying people’s lungs. This was a major cause of death up front, early on in people with COVID-19. So Vitamin D raises anti-inflammatory cytokines to protect tissues like the brain and the lungs and the heart and the kidneys, etc., such as interleukin 10, and lowers the level of inflammatory, dangerous cytokines so they don’t destroy us. Because our immune system is such a powerful army, it could literally destroy us very quickly. So you need this control.† [00:04:05]
[00:04:06] Vitamin D… This is very important. It can actually be activated by our own immune cells. There’s receptor sites for Vitamin D on almost all of our immune cells. That just shows how important Vitamin D is for the immune system that all of the immune cells practically require Vitamin D activity. But Vitamin D can also be activated by immune cells, which is very interesting. At one time, we thought only the kidneys could activate Vitamin D. Now we know there’s other tissues in the human body that can activate Vitamin D, so this really hits the ball out of the ballpark in the last inning of the World Series, a super homerun. In fact, the grand slam, showing how important Vitamin D is for the immune system.† [00:04:54]
[00:04:55] Also, it’s involved with preventing acute respiratory distress syndrome. Acute respiratory distress syndrome is when the lung gets so inflamed that it’s filling with fluid and you can’t breathe. These are the people that early on were put on oxygen and they were put into intensive care units, they were put on oxygen and ventilators and the ventilators were blowing out their lungs because the SARS-CoV-2 inflamed and damaged the lungs so much that when they put the pressure of the ventilator on the lungs, it just finished off destroying the lungs.† [00:05:25]
[00:05:27] So this is… There’s a lot of new data on Vitamin D and COVID-19. So welcome to my episode, An Update on Vitamin D and COVID-19. Hi, my name is Jerry Hickey. I’m a nutritional pharmacist. I’m also the Senior Scientific Officer over here at InViteⓇ Health. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcast episodes, or you could just visit invitehealth.com/podcast. You can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @invitehealth. And all of the information on today’s episode is linked at the episode description.† [00:06:00]
[00:06:01] So I want to get into these studies. They’re very interesting. This was recently published information from IU International University of Applied Sciences. It’s published in the journal Nutrients. They’re in Germany. The IU International University of Applied Sciences is in Germany, and they used computers, artificial intelligence to find data on COVID-19 and Vitamin D related to mortality. And here’s what they found… That there was a strong correlation between the severity of a COVID-19 infection and the level of Vitamin D in your blood, the level of Vitamin D in your blood. This was based on one huge population study and seven clinical studies. Increased levels of Vitamin D3 seem to strongly, powerfully reduce the risk of mortality from COVID-19. And when they did the algorithm, that’s a mathematical model, hypothetically, if you got your blood level of Vitamin D above 50, there should be no mortality. So the higher the level of Vitamin D in your blood up to 50, over 50 there was no additional benefit, the lower your risk of severe infection, such as winding up in the intensive care unit of a hospital on oxygen, etc. and the lower your risk of dying. So they said that they’re recommending, these researchers, getting your blood level of Vitamin D above 50 to prevent and also to treat outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2, you know, COVID-19, but also to prevent the emergence of new variants.† [00:08:05]
[00:08:08] Now this is the Epidemiology Center, Durham VA Health Care Center. So they’re quantifying, they’re collating all this research and intelligence. They were working with the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, Harvard Medical School, Duke University, Duke Cancer Institute and Signify Health in Dallas. They published their findings in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Cool journal. They’re looking at over 26,000 American veterans, 26,508 American veterans who were diagnosed positive for SARS-CoV-2, so COVID-19. Giving them high doses of Vitamin D cut their risk of dying from COVID-19. The higher the dosage, to a point, the lower their risk of dying in the hospital.† [00:09:03]
[00:09:06] Now they’re giving people with COVID-19 that’s infecting their lungs, etc., corticosteroids such as hydrocortisone, which could be called hydro cortef or prednisone or medrol dose pack. And they found that compared to patients on corticosteroids, giving patients Vitamin D, high doses, cut their risk of dying by 70%. That’s compared to corticosteroids. That’s not saying corticosteroids weren’t saving people. It’s just Vitamin D was more effective. And they found that in hospitalized patients, adding Vitamin D to a corticosteroid such as prednisone or medrol or hydrocortisone further cut the risk of dying by 49%. That’s actually quite amazing. Get on your Vitamin D. My blood level of Vitamin D currently is about 49, so that’s perfect. I mean, 49, 50, not really any difference.† [00:10:08]
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[00:10:09] So this is the Journal of General Internal Medicine. It’s the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Health Care System, the Department of Medicine and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora, Colorado, and various VA health care centers. It’s published right now, January 2020. So it’s a very, very recent. All of this data is very, very current, very, very recent data. These are patients and the Veterans Administration health care system. They’re in the facilities. They have severe acute respiratory distress syndrome COVID-19. These people are in trouble. It’s hurting their lungs. They then tested their blood for their Vitamin D level, and they followed them for up to two months because not all of them made it to the two month point. Giving the patients Vitamin D… There was a dose response, a strong correlation. So what does that mean? That means giving a little was helpful, giving more was even more helpful and giving a lot was even better. The higher the dose of Vitamin D, the lower the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 and the lower the risk of dying from COVID-19. In fact, it cut the risk of dying from COVID-19 basically by 50%.† [00:11:32]
[00:11:37] So Vitamin D is safe, it’s not expensive. I don’t know why the government and all these healthcare agencies are not telling the general public to take some Vitamin D right now. They’re probably worried that people’ll overdo it because people have a tendency to do that. I would, I would get a hold of about 3000 units of Vitamin D3. Now, the research shows that Vitamin D3 is superior to Vitamin D2 for humans. It lasts in our body longer. It works better. It’s more effective. I would get about 3000 units of Vitamin D3, and for the first three days or so, I’d take about 9000 units. I’d take about three tablets or capsules, whatever it might be in, a day with food for about three days, and then I’d cut it down to 3000 units every day with food, because the research shows that taking Vitamin D every day is much more effective than getting one huge dosage once a week or once a month. So take the Vitamin D3 3000 units daily. Get your blood tested. A blood level between like 45 and 75 is beautiful. You don’t need higher than 75.† [00:12:56]
[00:12:59] So I want to thank you for listening to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast today. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or just go to invitehealth.com/podcast. Please leave us a review and please subscribe. I guess if you liked us, you’ll subscribe. In any event, you can also follow us on Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms @invitehealth. Hope to see you next time in another episode of InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Thank you so much for listening! Jerry Hickey signing off.† [00:12:59]
*Exit music*
With flu season upon us, Senior Scientific Officer Jerry Hickey, Ph. revisits the topic of green tea’s benefits for our immunity. Tune in to hear him discuss the powerful constituents in green tea, as well as their abilities to help protect the body from infections such as COVID-19.
You’ve likely heard of autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, but do you know how these occur? These issues take place when the immune system goes haywire and attacks the rest of the body.
resveratrol
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
*Intro music*
InVite Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InVite Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
*Intro music*
Amanda Williams, MPH: Today I want to talk about the many different benefits that go along with resveratrol. I am Amanda Williams, MD, MPH and let’s get right to it.†
Resveratrol has always been kind of touted as that anti-aging supplement and rightfully so. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We know that resveratrol does this really great job of the activation of sirtuin and sirtuin 1 in particular. It’s through that that allows for cellular longevity, so this we know. We definitely can see why resveratrol has been touted as kind of this, in a sense, this miracle supplement.†
But it’s coming from nature and it has all of these great benefits. We know it’s a very powerful antioxidant and we certainly can see how it’s been studied across the spectrum when it comes to cardiovascular health, when it comes to cognitive health and so much of the way in which resveratrol is working is when we think about inflammaging. It’s that chronic inflammation that leads to that accelerated aging. We know that because resveratrol can actually activate and promote that sirtuin activity… remember that sirtuin is helping with that cellular longevity, sirtuin 1 in particular. So we know that the more we can activate SIRT1, the more that we can promote the repair and longevity of our cells.†
Inflammation itself is promoting this cellular proliferation and angiogenesis. This is why we find that resveratrol can actually inhibit the activity of many different inflammatory enzymes, including things like NF-kappa beta. If we can downregulate that, we know at the same time, we’re going to be bolstering up our immune system. This is where you, once again, have to be able to draw that connection.†
Now, initially, outside of the anti-aging of resveratrol and the studies that focused on that, much of the research was done on the cardiovascular benefits and being able to see just how it was that the resveratrol, that trans-resveratrol, can actually help to support the cardiovascular system by targeting inflammation and the viscosity of the blood, supporting the endothelial cells, so it’s very, very impressive.†
When it comes to blood pressure, I’ve talked about this study that they did where they actually used resveratrol soaked… so they take cardiac stents, so someone has to go in to have a vessel opened up because it’s clogged up and they put a stent in. They did a study in Louisiana where they actually soaked the stents in resveratrol and then they put the stent into the cardiac patient and they found that they did much better in terms of healing post-surgery and those markers for inflammation were coming down much more rapidly. We know that resveratrol packs a punch when it comes to targeting that inflammation.†
Now, this is the key takeaway: trans-resveratrol is what is yielding all of that benefit. When we look at the components coming from grape, for example, and resveratrol is called a stilbenoid. This is a compound that’s produced by these different plants, so we can look at Japanese knotweed, we can look at grapes, and we know that the resveratrol is predominately found in the skin of those grapes and blueberries, raspberries. That’s where we’re predominately being able to source the resveratrol. But it is a specific type. It is the trans-resveratrol that is what is yielding that benefit.†
Now, the initial studies done with resveratrol were showing that when someone took in roughly 20mg of trans-resveratrol, that it was this amount that would start to potentiate that benefit when we think of sirtuin activation, so for that cellular longevity. But then when we get deeper into the science and we look at the cardiovascular benefits, then we see that the trans-resveratrol amount needs to be much higher. So, we recognize 100mg is probably where we need to be.
Well let me tell you about the Resveratrol Max. This has over 200mg of trans-resveratrol in it. That’s a huge amount of trans-resveratrol. And understanding the science of the trans-resveratrol and how this is the biologically active form of that powerful compound that is derived from those fruits, that this is what is yielding all of that benefit. And this is why the research really took off, because they said, “If we use a higher amount of this trans-resveratrol…” We know that 20mg is what’s beneficial just to support basic cellular health, but if we increase that amount, now we’re looking at improvements to memory. We’re looking at improvements to insulin sensitivity in diabetics, better glucose control. We’re looking at how that trans-resveratrol is really optimizing the health of cardiac patients. And study after study continues to show this.†
When I look at much of the science behind the resveratrol, it is really very broad. When we think about the immune system, this is where that trans-resveratrol, to me, is oftentimes overlooked because we know that the resveratrol has this finite ability to do so much when it comes to, once again, fending off oxidative stress. The more we can fend off oxidative stress, the more we’re supporting the immune system. We also have now recognized that the trans-resveratrol, that particular compound, has a unique ability to target specific viruses and bacteria. And so, a lot of scientific research right now is highly focused on that uniqueness of resveratrol when it comes to the way that the immune system can utilize it for its benefit. So the antiviral properties that go along with resveratrol have been shown and we are seeing more and more of these studies coming out.†
In the Biochemical Translational Journal, they looked at how resveratrol has been shown over the course of many years now, and this was probably over a decade ago that this study came out… We know that it has this capacity to target and prevent many different conditions, including cardiovascular disease and cancers, they mention. But they also recognize that it has this unique ability to control fungal, bacterial and viral infections. This is why you continue to see different studies.†
I mean, there’s even been studies in this current situation with COVID-19 where they have been studying resveratrol to see if resveratrol had any capacity to inhibit that SARS-CoV-2 replication. Remember, with viruses, that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to stop that replication because viruses are very tough things to actually eliminate or eradicate, so we’re always trying to stop the replication. That is the goal. And so, seeing how resveratrol can actually be incredibly targeted to specified viruses… I mean, we’re talking different herpes viruses, so in that herpes simplex virus family… looking at Epstein-Barr. There’s a lot of different ways in which resveratrol has shown to exhibit these inhibitory properties against a whole wide range of different viruses. And in the Nature journal they talked about this and one of the ways that they were looking at it was through the deactivation of one component of these particular viruses.†
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This is why, once again, I wanted to talk about resveratrol in this setting because many times we think, “Resveratrol, anti-aging,” or “Resveratrol, cardiovascular health.” But we now see that resveratrol plays a really profound role when it comes to brain health. And once again, they’ve done really interesting studies with functional MRIs and seen the difference when they gave individuals trans-resveratrol. Then they looked at the brain and they said, “Wow, look at the difference in this.” And part of that was the ability to target glycation, oxidative stress, helping to support better blood flow, once again, into the brain. And that was in the Journal of Neurosciences back in 2014, where they talked about this. They took a group of diabetics, which they knew already had a diminished cardiovascular circulatory system and had a greater risk of damage or atrophy in the brain because of excessive glycation. Then they found that the resveratrol actually improved their memory and helped to enhance insulin sensitivity and regulate that glycation from doing further damage.†
We have different resveratrols available at InViteⓇ Health, but the Resveratrol Max, this is the power punch of all resveratrols. You will be definitely hard-pressed to try and find another resveratrol on the market that can stand up to the Resveratrol Max. This is by far one of the most potent forms of trans-resveratrol that you can get your hands on. And remember, we’ve got a lot of pharmaceutical companies out there that are really doing their darnedest to try and figure out how to create a synthetic version of resveratrol for their own benefits because they realize just how powerful trans-resveratrol is and all of the many ways in which trans-resveratrol can make an impact on human health. So we’re talking immune health, cardiovascular health, neuronal health, so many different utilizations. No wonder why they are trying to manipulate or make this in a lab synthetic setting. But luckily for you, you can get the real deal. You can get the actual trans-resveratrol in the highest amount by utilizing the Resveratrol Max formulation.†
So, I want to thank you so much for tuning into the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Remember, you can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting invitehealth.com/podcast. Now, do make sure that you subscribe and you leave us a review. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @invitehealth and we will see you next time for another episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast.†
*Exit music*
