Several recent studies have determined that the health of the human gut has a significant impact on outcomes of COVID-19 infections. The gut microbiome—those bacteria, fungi, yeast, and other microbes that live by the trillions in our digestive tract—can help or hinder recovery from viruses.

Yogurt: Packed with Probiotics

One food that significantly alters the microbiome in a positive way is yogurt. It’s rich in probiotic bacteria, which are vital for a robust immune system. These bacteria are abundant in many yogurt brands, but make sure the label gives assurance that the product contains live cultures.

A Healthy Gut Boosts Immunity

“Given the fact that the gut is heavily linked to immunity, inflammatory status, and the ability to challenge pathogens, it is worthwhile to consider dietary intervention of the gut microbiota as means of potentially challenging the viral outcome,” wrote the authors of a COVID-19 study published July 28 in the British Journal of Nutrition.

Probiotic bacteria are also abundant in kefir, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods.

COVID Connections

Earlier this year, researchers examined the digestive tracts of 100 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. They found that several strains of healthful bacteria were in short supply. Lower amounts of those bacteria were linked to more severe cases of the disease.

• Speed Recovery

  Additional research concluded that improving the microbiome might help speed recovery from the virus and may counter effects of “long COVID.”

• Reduce Severe Disease Risk

  Another study determined that the most severe cases of COVID-19 are often linked to underlying health conditions, “which are intriguingly characterized also by unhealthy microbiome status.”

Vitamins and Nutrients for Immunity

Supplements for Immunity

• Maitake mushroom extract has been shown to stimulate the immune system.
• Vitamins C, D, and E support immunity. Vitamin C also stimulates the production of infection-fighting white blood cells.
• Elderberry extract is rich in vitamin C.
• Zinc is essential for immune-cell function.

Nutrition for Immunity

• Garlic enhances immune function to protect against infection and contains other substances (vitamin C, zinc) that support the immune response.
• Oranges and other citrus fruits offer plenty of vitamin C.
• Salmon is a rich source of vitamin D, which supports cells that battle viruses.
• Almonds provide a natural dose of vitamin E.
• Green tea offers many health benefits, including immune support.

For most of us, when we think about the age range of 24 to 39, certain defining characteristics come to mind. This is a time when people consider pursuing an advanced degree, decide where they want to live, buy a home, make career choices, and explore relationships and parenthood. These are normal milestones of adulthood.

Nearly 73 million people in the United States are Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996). When we think about Millennials, we think YOUNG!

What we might not think about is chronic illness. Yet, reports from 2017 health insurance data show that “over half (54 percent) of Millennials reported having been diagnosed with at least one chronic illness.”

Before we talk about chronic illness, we need to talk about stress.

The Link Between Stress and Illness

Stress and illness are intricately connected. When there is chronic stress, illness often develops. Chronic stress, especially without a balance of healthy outlets, can compromise the immune system, making people more susceptible to illness. Everything from fatigue, insomnia, headaches, and digestive problems to anxiety and depression are influenced by stress.

Stress in Millennials

As part of the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America survey, Millennials ranked as having the highest stress levels of all generations (older adults, Baby Boomers, and Gen Xers).

Their most commonly cited source of stress is the economy. Other stressors include mass shootings, the current political environment, and concern over the country’s future.

Add in work-related stress, social media, constant technology use, and a decrease in face-to-face connections with others, and it isn’t hard to see how stress levels can compound quickly.

Chronic Illness in Millennials

According to Blue Cross Blue Shield data, the major decline in health for Millennials begins at age 27. Reports also show double-digit increases in certain health conditions. Major depression ranked number one followed by substance abuse disorder. Other conditions included Crohn's disease/ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes.

Therapy and Millennials

On a more promising note, the Stress in America survey showed a significant increase in the belief that licensed mental health professionals can help with stress management. So while Millennials are stressed, this openness to receiving help can ease the negative effects.

How to Manage Stress and Protect Your Health

What can you do if you are struggling with stress and having physical and/or emotional symptoms or if you know someone who is?

Whether it is relaxing in the sun, reading a book, painting, or something else that suits you, healthy outlets reduce the toxic stress load and boost the immune system. It is easy to get overwhelmed with life, but remember, there is help available and it is possible to reclaim and maintain health.

• Build a Support System and Seek Help

  The first step is recognizing you are not alone. There is no reason to suffer in silence. Help is available.

  Next, talk to someone. Talk to your primary care physician or doctor, or make an appointment to see a licensed mental health therapist. Many county and community clinics offer sliding scale services. If you have insurance, your carrier can give you referrals. Employers often have employee assistance programs that can offer support for life- and work-related issues.

• Take Care of Your Body

  In addition to building a support system, don’t forget the basics. These actions make a difference in health and stress management.

  • Eating well
  • Exercising regularly
  • Getting enough sleep

• Find Balance

  Do things that help you relax, feel good, and find peace. Everyone is different. Some examples include spending time in nature, creative arts, moving more, grounding yourself by walking barefoot in the sand, gardening, volunteer work, a spa day! Don't forget to take a deep breath!

• Unplug and Limit Screen Time

  Don’t sleep with your phone in your bedroom. Shut it off at least one hour before you plan to go to sleep.

Aside from being diligent about commonsense practices like handwashing, is there anything you can do to remain healthy during flu season, especially as the threat of COVID-19 looms?

Your best bet is to keep your immune system in tip-top shape.

What is AHCC Mushroom Extract?

AHCC stands for active hexose correlated compound. It’s an extract of hybridized shiitake mushroom mycelia (root system).

What is ​AHCC Used For?

AHCC’s oligosaccharides are linked to immunomodulatory effects.

Does AHCC Have a Scientific Basis?

It has been studied by various institutions, including Harvard Medical School and Yale University School of Medicine, over 20 years.

Has AHCC Been Tested on People?

In both human and animal studies, AHCC has been shown to activate and enhance immune cells in the body.

How Does AHCC Help Immunity?

It has been shown to aid white blood cells called NK (natural killer) cells and NKT (natural killer T) cells.

What are "Natural Killer" Cells?

These white blood cells are part of the body’s innate defense mechanism, and immediately attacks against viral threats.

Enhanced cell response has been linked to the ability to clear infections more quickly.

Is AHCC Effective Against the Coronavirus?

While it has not yet been evaluated for covid, AHCC has shown to have protective effects against infectious diseases, including H1N1 influenza, H5N1 avian (bird) flu, and West Nile virus.

Testing AHCC Against Infectious Diseases

• Swine Flu (Influenza A virus subtype H1N1)

  In one study, mice supplemented with AHCC showed increased survival against H1N1. The mice were able to maintain body weight as opposed to controls, which indicates less severe infections. AHCC enhanced NK cell activity in the lungs and shortened recovery time.

• West Nile Virus

  In a 2009 study, mice were infected with what should have been a lethal dose of West Nile virus. One group received AHCC at various intervals before and after being infected. The survival rate of mice treated with AHCC was more than twice that of the controls. AHCC also increased the number of antibodies to that virus in the blood.

• Bird Flu (Influenza A virus subtype H5N1)

  In another study, mice were infected with the flu virus after receiving the H5N1 vaccine. Eighty percent of the vaccinated mice survived; 100 percent of the mice that also received AHCC lived.

  In another study, mice were infected with 100 times the 50 percent lethal dose of the avian flu. All the control mice that did not receive AHCC died within 12 days. Thirty percent of the group given AHCC before infection were alive at 28 days.

• Seasonal Flu

  In one human study, people received the seasonal flu vaccine. Some of the group also received 3 grams of AHCC daily for several weeks. Blood samples showed that those who received AHCC in addition to the vaccine showed significantly improved numbers of NK cells and T cells. The increase in cells was most notable in people over 60.

Carbohydrates in Your Diet

Breaking the Carb Craving Cycle

Taste for Life: If you have developed a carb-eating cycle during COVID due to working from home and needing “comfort” from food, how do you break this cycle of eating?

Jonny Bowden: Start in the morning, because that’s when the craving cycle starts. Go for a higher-protein, higher-fat breakfast (eggs and avocado, for example). If you need to add some carbs, make them slow-burning carbs like oatmeal (not the instant kind).

Keep it simple and follow one basic rule: Eat real food, food your great-great-grandmother would have known what to do with. Food that would spoil if left outside for 48 hours.

If you eat real food—complete with whatever fat comes with it—you’ll be on the way to re-building a healthy metabolism.

You won’t have to eat “every two hours” if your body “knows” how to run on fat. You only have to eat every few hours if you have a “sugar-burning metabolism.” A sugar-burning metabolism is the result of eating too much sugar, starch, and processed carbohydrates.

If you want a fat-burning metabolism, guess what you’ve got to eat? Fat! You have to train your body to run on this (far superior) source of fuel. But it will be worth it!

Is Keto for Everyone?

TFL: Should everyone try to follow a keto diet?

JB: No. Not because the keto diet isn’t great, but because there’s no diet in the world that everyone should be following 100 percent of the time, unless you call the “Only Eat Real Food Diet” a diet!

Keto diets are terrific for certain people who can live on them most of the time and thrive, for others who use them cyclically, and for still others who use them as interventions for specific conditions, including diabetes and obesity.

But they’re not without challenges, and they’re not ideal for everyone!

Healthy Fats and Oils

Getting Healthy Fats in Your Diet

TFL: If you would like some of the benefits of eating healthy fat without having to adopt a particular diet, what is the best way to modify what/how you eat so you can still reap the benefits of healthy fats?

JB: That’s a great question. I commend you for asking it because it brings up one of my favorite things, something I call “flirting with ketosis.” As your question implies, you don’t have to be fanatic about adopting any particular diet to get all the benefits of healthy fat.

Look at the overlap between “diets” like Paleo, Whole30, Keto, Atkins, Bulletproof, even Carnivore. What do they have in common? Low sugar, high fat! The rest are details.

You do not have to follow any specific dietary orthodoxy to get the benefit of eating from what I call “The Jonny Bowden Four Food Groups”: food you could have hunted for, fished, gathered from the ground, or plucked from a tree.

Healthy fats such as extra-virgin olive oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, Malaysian palm oil, coconut oil, the fat in grass-fed dairy, which has now been shown to have health properties … all these are natural healthy fats, some of them are vegetarian friendly (like coconut and Malaysian palm), some of them are from animals, but all of them are healthy, noninflammatory sources of calories. Many of them also have specific health properties, such as the tocotrienols in Malaysian red palm oil or the polyphenols in extra-virgin olive oil.

Again, remember you don’t need to follow any specific dietary regimen to get the benefits of adding more of these fats in your diet! Just substitute them for the sugars and empty carbs now taking up space on your plate!

The Benefits of Saturated Fats

TFL: What are some of the health studies that indicate there’s a benefit in some saturated fats?

JB: Let’s start with the studies that clearly demonstrate there’s no harm in saturated fats.

A decade ago, a large meta-analysis came out in the highly regarded peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Nutrition that absolved saturated fat of any causal role in heart disease.

In 2014, another study (in the Annals of Internal Medicine) said the same thing.

And recently, a wonderful study out of Malaysia looked at dietary eating patterns in cultures where the vast majority of fat comes from Malaysian palm oil, which has a high concentration of saturated fat, about 50 percent. The study found that the amount of fat people ate had almost no effect on their cardiovascular risk, but the amount of carbohydrates did!

Speaking of Malaysian red palm oil, which is a perfect example of a plant-based saturated fat, its healthy components are visible to the naked eye! It’s red because it’s loaded with carotenoids!

And let’s not forget its tocotrienol content. Tocotrienols—a component of vitamin E—have been shown to attenuate brain damage after a stroke, and palm oil is a major source of tocotrienols.

Healthy Cooking Oils

TFL: Which oils should be used for cooking?

JB: One of the things to remember with oils is that there’s almost always a tradeoff between two variables: How refined is the oil? And how hot can you heat it?

Unfortunately, the less refined oils—which are nutritionally richer—are also much more vulnerable to high heat. The higher up you go on the “refining” scale, the higher the heat the oil can tolerate.

Knowing the proper range of heat to apply to an oil is very important.

For higher heat, I love avocado oil, macadamia nut oil, and Malaysian palm oil. Slightly refined coconut oil stands up to heat pretty well also! I like grass-fed butter and ghee, and, once in a while, a cold-pressed sesame oil, which is rich in nutrients called lignans.

I love extra-virgin olive oil, which—contrary to popular opinion—you can use for sautéing, though I still prefer to use it as a dressing or drizzle. Slightly refined olive oil—i.e. virgin as opposed to extra-virgin—will tolerate higher heat.

In general, I’m not a fan of commercial cooking oils. They are very high in pro-inflammatory omega-6s, and have been processed and refined within an inch of their lives. Worst offenders: corn, sunflower, safflower, and soybean. Remember also that almost all soybean and canola oils are GMO.

Oils like flax, fish and chia are terrific, but in general shouldn’t be used for cooking.