This Is The Most Helpful COVID-19 Advice We’ve Read on the Internet So Far

Even before COVID-19, there was no shortage of conflicting health advice on the internet. And now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, the number of voices online telling us what to do — and what not to do! — have increased tenfold.

It’s a lot, enough to make anyone’s head spin.

So where do you go for advice on how to optimize our health in the face of COVID-19? Turn to the medical experts we trust the most for their experience, expertise, and ability to distill complex health information into understandable, actionable advice for everyday people like us.

At Clean Plates, we’ve been leaning on three experts, in particular, to help us quiet the noise and get to the facts. Together, they have decades of clinical experience as physicians, valuable knowledge of public health, and a deep understanding of how the immune system works to fend off viruses. Here’s their best advice on what we should all be doing to cope.

Dr. Aviva Romm Reminds Us to Ignore the Clickbait & Pseudo-Science

Dr. Aviva Romm is a midwife, herbalist, and Yale-trained medical doctor — and she wants you to know that not all health advice is good health advice. In fact, as she writes in her guide called COVID-19 Prevention: From Common Sense to Natural Remedies (& Avoiding Nonsense!), “An outbreak of this magnitude…is an opportunity for health-influencers of all sorts to position themselves as leaders and experts even when they have no training in public health, infectious disease, or natural therapies, and have no clinical experience…”

So while she knows there are plenty of well-meaning people out there, she advises us to focus on the facts and qualified expert opinions to avoid being led astray. As she says it: “there are many incredulous claims and I don’t want you to get duped, sold, or worse, harmed…”

Optimize Your Diet: Dr. Romm — who does, for the record, have training in public health, infectious disease, and natural therapies — recommends keeping it simple by eating a nutritionally rich diet. According to Dr. Romm, “An optimally healthy diet is a basic Mediterranean-style diet that includes 6 to 8 servings of fresh veggies and fruits daily, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, fish, and eggs.”

Optimize Your Sleep: She also recommends focusing on getting enough high-quality sleep every night since sleep plays an important role in immune health. As she writes: “Lack of adequate sleep can make us more susceptible to colds, the flu, and can impair immune response more generally, while creating a generally heightened inflammatory state.”

Read the rest of her Dr. Romm’s advice:

• COVID-19 Prevention: From Common-Sense to Natural Remedies (& Avoiding Nonsense!)
• Vitamin D and COVID-19 Prevention: A Ray of Hope
• Can You Treat COVID-19 Symptoms Naturally?

Dr. Andrew Weil Wants You to Educate Yourself on the Virus

According to Dr. Andrew Weil, integrative medicine physician and founder of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, it’s important to know the facts about the virus in order to avoid contracting it. As he explains: “Many coronaviruses can cause illness in humans and animals, from the common cold to serious diseases including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and now illness due to the current virus (COVID-19) infecting humans worldwide.”

Understand key facts: There is currently no vaccine, no cure, and no FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. According to Dr. Weil, the virus is mainly passed through close contact with an infected person or from touching a contaminated surface and then touching your face. According to Dr. Weil, here’s how long the virus can live on common surfaces:

1. Stainless steel: Virus can be detected up to 72 hours
2. Plastic: Virus can be found after 2 to 3 days
3. Cardboard: Viable virus gone after 24 hours
4. Copper: No viable particles after 4 hours

If you are exposed to the virus, you are more likely to develop a serious illness if you are 65 and older or have “underlying health problems, such as lung disease, high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes,” he explains.

Read Dr. Weil’s full article: What You Should Know About Coronavirus.

Dr. Leo Galland Urges You to Support Your Body’s Natural Defenses

According to Dr. Leo Galland, an internist and the author of several best-selling health books, “In order to cause disease, any virus must enter a human cell, replicate, and damage the cell, escaping to infect adjacent cells.” He continues to explain that in the case of COVID-19, there are specific enzymes and pathways in the body involved in this process — and that dietary interventions can help prevent the virus from developing into a serious illness.

In his recently published Coronavirus Handbook, Dr. Galland gives natural ways to support these enzymes, pathways, and your immune system as a whole. For example, he recommends that almost everyone supplement with vitamin D because of its positive influence on the immune system and respiratory infections. He also outlines the potential benefits of probiotics, which as he explains, “may impact innate immunity by creating a gut microbiome that stimulates the immune system.” If you are infected and symptomatic, Dr. Galland also recommends ingredients that decrease inflammation, including resveratrol, curcumin, and melatonin.

As he writes in the handbook: “These are not treatments for disease; they are preventive strategies to help place you among the 80% with mild to minimal illness and they have the greatest chance of succeeding if they are implemented before you are exposed.” And think about it: If we are able to limit the severity of the illness in just a slightly larger percentage of the population, it would keep a lot of people healthy and lessen the impact on our healthcare system enormously.

COVID-19 has quickly taken over our lives, thoughts, and worries. To ease your mind, lean on resources created by highlight qualified experts for the best ways to stay healthy and educated.

Read Dr. Galland’s Handbook: Coronavirus Prevention & Protection Protocol

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