Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Vitamin B6 Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH Subscribe Today! B vitamins play a really important role when it comes to supporting energy levels, metabolism, heart health, brain health and so many more systems that are crucial for the everyday functions of …
We know that mushrooms are beneficial for our overall health, but they can be especially beneficial for our immune and cardiovascular systems.
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
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Today, I want to talk about what to do before and after you get your COVID-19 vaccination. We have been fielding a lot of questions on this recently and it’s really smart that people want to know if they should be taking vitamins before and after they get their vaccination and, if so, which vitamins and minerals would be most beneficial.
I want to talk about some of the science behind how vitamins, minerals and different antioxidants can be incredibly advantageous to take when you are going to be getting vaccinated, not just against COVID-19, but for a variety of different vaccines. I also want to discuss why they have shown how efficacious this can actually be in terms of helping to really enhance the immune system’s ability to have this heightened way to take on that vaccine and really boost overall immunity.†
We’ve known for a long time that many people go in and they do the annual influenza vaccine. They started to look into this. In the Journal of Gerontology, they were doing an overview of different studies looking at whether nutritional supplementation would have any type of an impact in terms of increasing an immune response to influenza immunization. In this particular study, they were looking at a few different ways in which they were able to show that taking vitamins, minerals and other antioxidants could really help the flu vaccine provide even more protection against influenza.†
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What they did in one of the studies was they recruited participants who were 65 and older and they were giving them a drink that contained vitamins, minerals and enhanced antioxidants, while another group was given placebo. The researchers had them do this for seven months. They did antibody titers to three different strains of flu seven months before the vaccine and then one month after the vaccine. What they found was a significant increase in antibody response to one of those strains and they found that it was only in the group that was given that nutritional supplementation drink.†
Another study that was conducted at Iowa State University divided participants that were over the age of 62 into different groups. What they were looking at was how much of an impact multivitamin intake would have in terms of helping to enhance the immunization effect for influenza. They once again were able to find that in the group that had higher physical activity along with taking a daily multivitamin had a significant correlation in terms of their different titer levels. They also had higher levels when looking at things like immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M, meaning that their immune system was much more responsive. This is really quite impressive.†
In the basic picture, we already know that the immune system is reliant on pretty much every single vitamin and mineral out there. When we look at B-Vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, zinc and all of these different minerals, they are all an integral component of both the innate and the adaptive immune system. It would make sense that if someone is going to be getting vaccinated, that they would want to make sure that they have these nutrients on board, to act in a sense as a primer allowing the body to get in front of the immune response. This is really very important, especially when we think about the COVID vaccine.†
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At bare minimum, before you get vaccinated, you should be taking a multivitamin. Whether you’re looking at the Core Multivitamin, Men’s Multivitamin, Women’s Multivitamin, Performance Multivitamin or Multi Energy Powder by Dr. Pressman, that’s the bare minimum. We at least want to get all of the key and essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants on board. We can also look at things such as green tea, zinc, Vitamin C and Vitamin D. Our Immunity Hx tablet could be very beneficial both before and after your vaccination.†
Tune into the full podcast episode to hear more nutritional recommendations from Amanda.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
As we approach the one year mark of facing the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are learning more and more about what we can be doing to protect ourselves from this dangerous virus. Some of these methods may be as simple as boosting our intake of certain vitamins.
Studies on black elderberry have demonstrated that they have antiviral activity, antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity and anti-inflammatory properties.
covid mutations
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH.
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By now, we’ve all heard that there is a new strain of the COVID-19 virus that is out there and it has been coined the UK strain. A lot of focus has been put on this strain because of the perception that it is certainly much more transmissible and hence more contagious, but they’re not able to definitely show that it is creating higher mortality rates. This means that the original strain of virus going around was infecting and killing people roughly at the same rate as this new strain, which is infecting more people but perhaps killing less people.
Let’s talk a little bit about that in terms of what it actually means when we talk about a variant or a mutation within a virus and why this can be incredibly problematic when we’re looking at COVID-19, as well as what we should be doing throughout this time.
Genetic changes within viruses
We know that viruses as a whole continually change as a result of basic genetic selection, so they’re undergoing these different subtle genetic changes or mutations. Through these mutations, then we can end up with a variant or strain that actually is presenting in a much different way than the original virus.
We can think about the influenza virus, for example. We know that from one year to the next, there are always new strains. With the flu vaccine, they’re always trying to predict what the new mutation might be.
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The mutation rates of viruses certainly are quite high. When we look at RNA viruses in particular, which is what COVID-19 is, they have a much higher mutation rate. Being that RNA viruses seem to mutate at a much higher rate, then we have to look at it and consider how we can track it in terms of its infectiousness. We know that the virus is replaced by many, many different generations of itself and this is what a virus tends to do. They change and evolve many times.
Learn more about the replication of viruses and the variety of coronavirus strains by tuning into the full podcast episode.
What to know as we face mutations in COVID-19
One of the things we know for sure now that we as a scientific community have been researching the rate and spread of COVID-19 for over a year now is how effective masking and social distancing can be. When you start to see a waning of this behavior, we start to see this spike. That’s where the worry is with this new strain of virus because people have COVID fatigue. Now that we have a new strain that’s out there that’s really, really infectious, you have to make sure that you are taking every possible precaution that you can during this time.
There are more and more studies that continue to come out that are shedding more light onto COVID-19 and the different variants that are out there. One thing that came out recently in the journal PLOS One was that males of all ages appear to be affected by COVID-19 at a greater rate than females. The researchers were looking at different data that was available through Houston Methodist Research Institute and they were able to identify different populations and subgroups within those populations that were being strongly impacted by looking at the level of disease and vulnerability of different groups. What they were able to detect overall was that those who were testing positive for COVID-19 were, at a greater proportion, males as compared to females. At this point in time, it is looking like males are more likely to actually contract the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is certainly something they’re going to be looking into in terms of further investigation and it is important to know now that we’re looking at this UK variant that is now starting to traverse across the United States.
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The University of Texas at Austin were looking at the different mutations and talking about how the mutations themselves are what are making the coronavirus more contagious. Sometimes you see this in the opposite way with other viruses, where the more mutations there are, the lower the transmission rate becomes. But we’re not seeing that with COVID-19. The researchers were looking at 5000 different patients who were COVID-19 positive in Houston and were finding that the virus that causes the disease was accumulating greater genetic mutations than they even recognized before.
Tune into the full podcast episode for more information on the research relating to new COVID-19 strains.
We’ve gotten a lot of questions about whether people should be doing anything different to prepare for these new variants. My best advice would be to make sure you’re doing everything in your power to support your immune system during this. Make sure that, every single day, you’re taking things that we know the immune system needs to function properly, like Vitamin C, Vitamin D, zinc and magnesium. Even at bare minimum, I would encourage people to take a multivitamin, as well as Immunity Hx to give you an adequate amount of Vitamin D, Vitamin C and zinc. You also want to make sure that you’re still practicing proper social distancing and you’re limiting your exposure to big, large group settings. If you’re going to be going out, wear your mask.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
