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Bell’s palsy
InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
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The long-term effects of a viral infection are often taken for granted. Maybe you get the common cold and after a few days, it resolves. You go about your life and you don’t really think about it again. We now know more about so many different viruses and we understand that viruses are tough to actually kill. Many times, these viruses actually go dormant, sometimes for years or decades. Then, they may decide to come out of hibernation and create havoc in our life.†
THE VIRUS KILLER: YOUR LYMPHATIC SYSTEM, PART 1 – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 83. Listen Now>>
Today, I want to talk about a particular virus that we know has been directly linked to a very problematic facial paralysis called Bell’s palsy. It is thought that the reactivation of the herpes simplex 1 virus could potentially be the driving force for this. The reason I want to talk about this today is because as we get into the fall and winter months, we know that oftentimes the incidence of Bell’s palsy can go up during those colder months. We can look at a couple of different factors that can cause this.†
Statistically speaking, we know that Bell’s palsy can impact roughly 50,000 Americans every year, so this is not necessarily a rare condition. When it comes to people who are impacted by Bell’s palsy, this is usually going to hit people in their teenage years through their mid-40s.†
There are some comorbid conditions that can increase someone’s incidence of developing Bell’s palsy. Pregnant women, for example, often develop this issue in the third trimester. We can look at people who are overweight or diabetic, as well as people with comorbid respiratory infections.†
There are some different correlations between the development of Bell’s palsy and what may be the causative trigger. Scientists and researchers have predominantly agreed that this issue is likely being caused by the reactivation of the herpes simplex 1 virus. This virus often causes the common cold sore. Pretty much everyone worldwide has been exposed to herpes simplex 1, which means we all can have this virus laying dormant inside of our body.†
Bell’s palsy is very scary for someone who develops it because they may be worried that they’re having a stroke. It generally impacts one side of the face and creates this significant weakness or paralysis. It’s rare that you would ever see this on both sides. It highly affects the eye and the eye itself may develop the inability to properly blink, thus creating significant dry eye. The symptoms and severity can vary from one person to the next, but the most common thing is the weakness on one side of the face.†
There are different nutrients that can be added into a routine to help with this issue. We can look at omega-3 fatty acids, B-vitamins and acetyl-l-carnitine (ALCAR). A study done in the 1990s looked at idiopathic facial paralysis and the therapeutic impacts of ALCAR. The researchers found that the ALCAR actually provided a significant statistical improvement in terms of action.†
THE MANY BRAIN BENEFITS OF ALCAR AND ALA, PART 1 – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 134
We certainly know that there are nutrients that can be very helpful in achieving this type of recovery, but we have to make sure that we are trying to support our immune system and ease inflammation from the get go. We should be taking nutrients that are optimizing our immune defenses, including Vitamin D, Vitamin C, zinc and magnesium.†
In this episode, Amanda Williams, MPH discusses Bell’s palsy, a muscle issue in the face that may be caused by the activation of dormant viruses in the body. She explains why it’s important to support the immune system and provides recommendations of nutrients that can help bolster immune response.†
Key Topics:
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.
Human papillomavirus is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world, but many people don’t know what HPV is. Learn about this dangerous virus and what you can do to help protect your body from Amanda Williams, MPH.
What is it about cold weather that makes us more susceptible to coming down with the common cold? Let’s ensure your immune system is ready to fend off anything that can cause damage, especially during the winter.
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.
How To Support Respiratory Health During A Pandemic – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 253. Listen Now >>
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.
