You know, I had a sudden thought. The news this morning had a segment on how people who are obese are more susceptible to Covid. Just thinking, if that were true, there should be a huge incidence of Covid among people on this forum, since many of us are still overweight. But there's not, at least not that I know of.

Might this be because "we" are trying very hard to eat healthful foods? That we shun carbs and processed foods?

Just sayin'.

You might be right. Eating "right" isn't just about weight, but blood sugar & insulin levels for those of us who are diabetic (& probably for those who are not diabetic). I'm no longer obese but still overweight. And because of eating low carb my bg doesn't have major highs & lows. I know too many diabetics who eat whatever they want & "cover" with insulin. Dumbest thing ever, but these people don't care. Even when they see parents in the same boat having major health problems.

Bawdy, you have a very valid point there. It would be interesting to compare the covid resistance of obese doing a LC diet with the resistance of obese doing a low cal diet. They're both trying to eat what they're sure is a healthy diet, both most likely losing weight (or maintaining, or at least not gaining), and no doubt the low fat dieters are experiencing some weight loss too. The composition of the diet is different of course, and the impact on blood sugars and insulin are different, which of course could also affect resistance to the virus.



There's other factors to consider though - what percentage of each group are practicing social distancing, wearing masks every single time they go out, and limiting excursions to necessary trips only?



And then the real confounding issue, something we won't likely know until we have widespread testing for antibodies - how many obese in each group have had the virus at some point, but were completely asymptomatic, or had such mild symptoms for only a few days (or so early on, before it was even recognized as a new virus) that they thought it was only a little cold, and therefore were not tested?

Excellent observation, Bawdy. This is clearly an issue of correlation. Malhotra and others contend that when one transitions to a healthy whole foods WOE while eliminating carbs and processed foods containing carbs, one realizes better health and improved immunity well before body weight is reduced.

I wouldn't expect a high incidence of covid here any more than anywhere else. Most people everywhere are overweight, and a very small percentage are low carb. Many are still asymptomatic, most are recovering. I mean, i'm the only low carber at my job, and nearly everyone is overweight (as am I), but we have zero positive cases (knock on wood), and our county is a level 3 as far as the Covid alert system. Some places are just hit harder once the virus enters a group of people close to each other. Plus this is a message board, so its hard to compare each of us from different areas, different work environments, different diets even, different activity levels, different supplements, different health issues... If this was a real life club, and we were all socializing in a brick and mortar building in the middle of an area where everyone around us had it, and somehow it was not affecting us, i'd definitely be curious. But I don't assume my diet is the reason I haven't gotten Covid. I live alone, work at home, have grocery delivery, and literally do not go anywhere except my allergist's office, where I wear a mask.

I'm still not sure there's even a correlation. Earlier in the thread several articles gave incidence of obesity among Covid patients that wasn't even higher than obesity in the general population. Covid patients tend to be obese because obesity is fairly prevalent these days, from what I can tell.

Following on from Bonnie's point:


Does High Blood Sugar Worsen COVID-19 Outcomes?

Preliminary observations of COVID-19 patients with diabetes inspired an algorithm for glucose monitoring that’s suspected to help combat the virus’ serious complications.

https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/roun...vid-19-outcomes

I previously shared a paper on this thread which pointed out that the risk factors for COVID-19 were all signs of metabolic syndrome.

I would add that in addition, this syndrome includes immune system dysfunction. I started with Dr Wahl's protocol for MS, which she states in her book will work with a variety of autoimmune issues, because it's all the same disorder, it presents in different ways. I moved through an eilimation phase and wound up with a diet that works so well my serious condition cleared up and I lost 40 pounds.

It's the immune system which is the real danger with COVID-19. The cytokine storm which kills, or leaves people with chronic fatigue symptoms.

And chronic fatigue, according to the best doctor I know on the subject, Dr. Sarah Myhill of the UK, is a mitochondrial disorder. And the first step, her centerpiece for treating it, is a low carb diet.

Saw this in one of the daily coronavirus newsletters that I get from the NY Times:





They linked the actual article in the newsletter: Obesity Raises the risk of Death From Covid 19 Among Men

Other studies show that even before COVID-19, men wash their hands less often, ~64% as often as women do. Perhaps that is the real reason as non-obese men also have higher rates of COVID than women.

Bootsy, the mother of a staff member who occasionally appears on Stephen Colbert's show, found out she was diabetic only when she was in the hospital with COVID. She had been enjoying all of the jellos & puddings until they measured her blood sugar. They took her off those, but probably gave her processed starch, instead. She survived COVID, but now has diabetes & heart arrhythmias to deal with.

Now that it appears high blood sugar, not high cholesterol, may be the real cause of atherosclerosis, perhaps that is what is causing some of the blood clotting issues associated with COVID.

Most of my immune issues are triggered by grain, legume and diary proteins and sugar. They all disappear when I avoid these foods. It could be if your immune system is not wasting time inflaming itself to protect you from the junk you eat, it can focus on creating white cells to fight off the common cold, bacteria, and viruses like COVID.

Oddly enough, in the county where I live, there have actually been more females than males die from covid, and the vast majority of deaths have occured in those over the age of 60. However, our numbers are skewed by the fact that we have a LOT of care facilities (assisted living, nursing homes, group homes) in our county, and it seems that there are generally far more female residents in those facilities than male (particularly nursing homes and elder assisted living, because most of the men died at a younger age), so naturally when one individual in a care facility contracts it, it spreads readily.

So that's the background of why we have more female covid deaths than male in this county. But you still need to consider what they're being fed in those places - always low fat (which is inherently high carb), not much protein either.

Before I retired from the grocery store last year, I occasionally had a
"chef" from one of the local nursing homes who would come in and buy large amounts of certain breakfast foods for his facility. His order always contained cartons of liquid egg whites, lots of bread, orange juice, and apple juice. If he was serving pancakes, french toast, or waffles, there would be lots of sugary fake "maple" syrup. Everything else he bought for the nursing home was low fat or fat free, such as fat free half and half, and reduced fat margarine. I'm sure this is the standard so-called "healthy" diet fed to care facility residents, so it's no wonder that nursing home residents have so little resistance to this virus. They're not in good shape, or they wouldn't be in a nursing home to begin with, and a lot of them are diabetic or pre-diabetic. But when they're fed this pitiful nearly-all carb diet with little to no fat, and not nearly enough protein, it's no wonder they have so little resistance to covid.

By the way, I found this article to actually be quite comforting to those of us females who are over 60, and despite our efforts to lose weight, are still obese. They're of course not saying that there's no risk of dying from covid if you're extremely obese at any age, but that the highest risk of death from covid if you're extremely obese is only if you're a male under the age of 50.

~Diedra



You are dead on. DrATKINS covers this in his books. He points the finger at insulin.
Other docs are on this bandwagon, too.

Sad but true.

I thank the Lord that my mother and MIL are able bodied and can cook for themselves. One eats far better than the other though.

My kids never alliwed to eat school food......its the same liw fat high carb crap.

This supports what I had long suspected. The people in the worst metabolic health get fed the worst possible diet.