This week on The Girlfriend Doctor Show, Dr. Anna brings on two medical experts who are fighting against the Coronavirus pandemic on a daily basis to talk about what preventative measures we can take against the virus, as well as what is currently happening in the medical field in terms of research and treatment.
Dr. Jeffrey Gladden was an interventional cardiologist in Dallas, Texas for over 25 years before turning his attention to functional medicine. Now working in the functional medicine field with a focus on extending life spans through bio-identical hormone replacement and age management medicine, Dr. Gladden's focus is to work with patients on a ground level to address their underlying health needs to extend their health and their lives.
To learn more about Dr. Jeffrey Gladden visit: www.livingbeyond120.com
Dr. Angeli Akey is a practicing physician on the forefront of the COVID pandemic. From research and education materials, to treating patients daily with the virus, Dr. Akey's work is paramount to learning how the virus affects the body and what methods we can use to help prevent the virus, as well as identify which patients might be at a higher risk than others.
To learn more about Dr. Angeli Akey or to buy "Kick COVID-19 To The Curb" visit:www.firrimupdoctors.com
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Girl, you've got questions, questions about your body and how to feel good in it, about your hormones and how to keep them in check. Questions about your sex life and your whole health. Can you imagine having a best girlfriend who is also a triple board certified OB GYN, a girlfriend doctor you could call and ask or tell her anything. Someone who could show you how to live any stage of life before, during or after menopause in a big, bold, and beautiful way. Well, friends, I'm your girlfriend doctor, I believe you were meant to flourish and shine, to embrace life and awaken to all its possibilities. Let's get there together. Welcome to our show.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Welcome back to the Girlfriend After Show. Today, we're going to be talking about a really important topic that's coming up and on the minds of all of us right now. And especially during this season, and that is coronavirus. What are we going to do about it? How can we prevent it and prevent transmission and spread. And don't we want to just go on about our regular lives and have our regular relationships and hug and handshake and kiss? I mean, all those good things, I know I do.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And I'm hearing from many of you that you do as well. Well, you guys know you can ask or tell me anything. No such thing as TMI. And if you go to my website at dranna.com, click on the show page, there is a space there for you to go ahead and ask me your question. You can tell, I am in the pink hot seat, right? This is our hot seat. So this is where I'm taking a viewer question and let's turn to our viewer right now. Who do we have on the line?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hi, Dr. Anna. This is Michael. I'm really worried about catching coronavirus during the holidays and especially around flu season now. Is there anything that you'd recommend taking to maybe reduce my risk of getting sick or trying to avoid getting coronavirus?
Speaker 1 (02:00):
That was a great question. And I know many of you may have the same question and today we're going to dig in deep with two experts that I have. So let's get started. Here we go. Hi everyone and welcome back. On the couch today, I have Dr. Jeffrey Gladden. He is from Dallas and has a long standing history as an interventional cardiologist. He's now reformed and focuses on human performance and extending our lifespan to a healthy 120. A founder of The Gladden Longevity Institute and the podcast of-
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Living Beyond 120.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Living Beyond 120, it makes sense. So welcome, Jeff. Great to have you here on the podcast [crosstalk 00:02:47].
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Great to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Well, one thing that we want to talk about with our audience is how we are addressing coronavirus. What is the state of the union on coronavirus? What we know now, and we're filming this in late 2020, late November, and where are we at with this?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Well, it's a great question. We've followed it all the way through quite honestly. And we're in a different point than we were, let's say in March, for example. So where we are as a practice is we feel like we understand the virus. We understand how it propagates. We understand how to prevent it. We understand how to treat it. And we actually help people recover if they did get it also. So we feel really at this point in time, although, the rates of testing positive are going up, we actually feel less threatened by it now than we ever did. So-
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Do you think it's because the virus mutated or is it just-
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
We think that the virus did not come from a market in Wuhan, China. We actually think that it was genetically engineered and there's a lot of... We've had virologists on our podcast actually, Living Beyond 120, that go through this in great detail, but it looks like really, it was genetically engineered to be a super [inaudible 00:04:02] virus, if you will. And now what happens in that situation is the viruses devolve, right? They don't maintain that hyper toxicity if you will. They devolve back to a more natural state, which is less toxic, still highly infectious, but many more people are getting infected, but many fewer people are dying. Part of that's due to the fact that we know how to treat it. But also I think the virus is also less variable.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
I was wondering that looking at numbers just this week, it just showed the death rate has dropped significantly.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And again, you're exactly right. Definitely, we know how to treat it better.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
And so let's talk about how it's propagated.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Sure. So I think that close contact is really how it's propagated and we can argue in other words, touch or aerosol or whatever, but at the end of the day, it's close contact with other humans. I think when I think about people and when I think about talking to the audience here, I think they need to understand, are you in a high-risk group or not? And are the people that you're visiting in a high-risk group or not. Do you have obesity? Do you have diabetes? Do you have a history of cancer? Do you have a history of heart disease, hypertension? Do you have a history of asthma, things like that, all those things.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
[inaudible 00:05:13] medications.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Exactly. If you're a man, do you have prostate issues? Because that really increases the risk of infection for men. So prostate issues, if you have non blood type O, that seems to increase the risk as well.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So first off, you need to understand if you're in a high risk group, if you are, then I think you need to take real precautions, wear a mask wherever you go, wash your hands. Maybe more, we'd like to call it physical distancing than social distancing [crosstalk 00:05:38] because we want people to be socially connected.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But I think that if you do those things, you can be quite safe. And if you're going to be visiting people like over the holidays who are high risk, then you need to take precautions with regards to their health. So we're big advocates of wearing the mask, washing the hands, maintaining some physical distancing and things like that in that context.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
But also taking precautions before they go. Right?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, absolutely. So we also feel like there are things you can do to monitor your status. For example, you probably have gone into stores or restaurants and they take your temperature. So if you know your temperature every day, that's one thing. We all wear body trackers, basically, this is a WHOOP band, there's aura rings, there's Apple Watches, there's other things. But what these are now doing is they're actually measuring your respiratory rate. And so at night where you're sleeping, you're wake up and you can see what your respiratory rate was. Because the virus attacks red blood cells and causes them to be disrupted, oxygen carrying capacity goes down.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
The way you have to compensate for that is by pumping more blood and breathing faster. And so your respiratory rate can go up. We've actually had a case in our practice where somebody's respiratory rate went up by about 30% based on this, let's say, normally it's running 14 or 15 and went up to 20, it's like, let's go get tested. Sure enough, they were positive. So there's simple things you can do to monitor at home, just like respiratory rate. The other thing you can do is get a pulse oximeter and look at your O2 saturation. Normally in Texas, it would be 98, 99% typically. But if you see it dropping, it could be another sign that you have the infection. So that's a simple thing you can do. Take your temperature, measure respiratory rate. We like doing that to monitor.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I agree too. We have a pulse-ox, definitely a thermometer at home and that's something to continue to watch as well. And then other precautions are preventive [crosstalk 00:07:38] methods that you recommend for your patients.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It's interesting that corona, it's supposed to very infectious and so you need to have your immune system be strong to deal with it. We do a lot of genetic testing in our practice and in our practice, we see that some people are very genetically predisposed to having this hyper inflammatory response to the virus. And so we know that when we see that, that there are things that we can do to actually down-regulate those genes. So we have a lot of our people taking something called special pro resolving mediators, they're called SPMs. You can get these, I believe you can get them on the internet now. They're 250 times more potent than fish oil at resolving inflammation. And so it sort of keeps inflammation down. And then just from a purely sort of prophylactic standpoint, there was talk originally that these viruses seem to crop up in areas of China that are low in selenium in the soil. So we maintain adequate selenium levels by eating some Brazil nuts.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Two Brazil nuts, 200 micrograms a day, I have pro Brazil nut.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
So we like Brazil nuts, three, four a week even is probably adequate for people. And then the other thing we like is we like zinc and you can take a lozenge, a zinc lozenge, like Zicam. Do that even up to six times a day, if you're traveling. Vitamin C, we like a 1,000 milligrams, maybe four times a day if you're traveling.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
1,000 milligrams, about four times a day while traveling.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Exactly. Vitamin A is important about 5,000 milligrams a day. Maybe not every day, but three or four times a week. You don't want to get too much vitamin A. And then we like vitamin D as well.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
So at least 5,000 units of vitamin D, we have a lot of people taking 10,000. There's a lot of genetic variation [crosstalk 00:00:09:25].
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So vitamin D3 with K2 though, right?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
We love vitamins D3 with K2. Yes, we do. We use that all the time, 10,200 micrograms.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I would say vitamin D says deposit calcium vitamin K says where, and that combination has been shown to also prevent calcifications where we don't want them like in the heart.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Like in the coronary arteries, exactly. We use that continually. And then there are other things that we like a lot. We like echinacea, especially combined with elderberry.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
And those have been around for centuries, for millennia, as a integrative option or holistic natural remedy. So is elderberry tea, what about other elderberry tea?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Elderberry tea is good. Echinacea is really, I think kind of one of the best things you can do. And speaking of tea, EGCG that comes in green tea is super healthy for you as well. It down-regulates inflammation.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
We have that in my formula, Mighty Maca combination of super food. So it has that green tea, [inaudible 00:10:23], turmeric, resveratrol. All of these other-
Speaker 3 (10:27):
One of the other things that's been shown to be very helpful is curcumin. So we like that. And using brands like UltraCure or Thera-Cure, where you have very high bioavailability of the curcumin.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And Thrive is another brand too.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Okay Thrive.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And then just making a turmeric milk, we call it a golden milk, making a hot tea with turmeric and almond milk or coconut milk, or being another natural way to get it in. What do you think?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
No, I think that's good and eating it, as you know it's poorly absorbed, right? So it actually, it has to be combined with something else to get it into your system.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Typically, a pepper, right?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, pepper will work, but there are other more sophisticated techniques. So combining it with a whey protein actually gets it right in. That's what UltraCure does. And Thera-Cure does is a different combination that actually gets it right in, so we can get them much higher levels with those than you can just taking or eating curcumin.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That sounds good.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
So we like all those things-
Speaker 1 (11:28):
And curcumin too. Just a potent anti-inflammatory good for joint pain, [crosstalk 00:11:33] great for athletes, brain health, memory.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yep. Cardiovascular. There's a couple of other things we really like, we like something called [Artrosil 00:00:11:40]. You probably haven't heard of Artrosil. I'm a cardiologist by background. Your arteries-
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Well, let's stop on that because this is a really interesting history because you, as a cardiologist, you did interventional cardiology. That's like end stage, okay, I'm coming in with a heart attack. I'm coming in with symptoms. You've got some blockage and we're going to go in and clean that up. And now you're on the opposite end of that spectrum. Talk about that for a minute, because this is so profound. This is what we know can happen. These diagnoses of heart disease and diabetes aren't for life, right? It's not a death sentence anymore. We know there's a lot we can do to reverse this process and really remove those diagnoses.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Well, my situation was that I practiced interventional cardiology here in North Texas and Southeast Oklahoma for 25 years. And I've built my own heart group. We had 10 offices, 12 doctors, we flew around in a little late 36 Bonanza. I set up cath labs at multiple hospitals. I actually co-founded the heart hospital up in Plano with David Brown and Gary [inaudible 00:12:43], which was a great project. But when I got sick in my fifties and was told, "Hey, everything checks out. You're just getting older." It really flipped a switch for me. And I realized that had been practicing sick care and not health care. And that we really only get the answers to the questions that we're asking. And I was asking, "How are you feeling? Are you having chest pain? Are you having shortness of breath? Are you having palpitations? If not, you're okay. Then you're well." And so-
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Not symptomatic yet.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Exactly. So I threw myself into functional medicine, age management medicine, integrative medicine, and over two and a half years cracked the code for myself as to what was going on. And I started to feel really great again, instead of feeling like I wasn't going to be able to keep up with my kids. So at that point I basically said, "I've been asking the wrong questions. I'm going to ask a different question. I'm going to ask how good can we be? How fit, how strong, how mentally sharp and for how many years and decades can you carry this forward?" And that's basically morphed into a practice that we have today and then asking bigger questions. How do we make a 100 the new 30? How do we live well beyond 120? How do we really crack the code on aging? And so in our practice, we are going down multiple avenues to really... We're super passionate about cracking that code. So that's what we do.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
So I'm an interventionist, but I'm intervening to really keep people very super healthy if you will.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Reverse the disease.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Exactly. And we do, we get a lot of people off their medications. We see arteries improve. We see plaque disappear. We see cardiovascular performance improve, lung performance, brain performance. I mean, we could stay here all day actually talking about it-
Speaker 1 (14:25):
We could talk about, I know we can talk stories because my father was suffering with heart disease at 79. And his cardiologist said to me, "Dr. An..." He said, "Anna, your father's lived a good life-"
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Right, what is that all about?
Speaker 1 (14:37):
And so needless to say, I said, "Well, do you mind if I intervene?" And I did. And let me tell you, he lived to 91 good years, 91 good years.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
And that for us is a young person now.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
That's a young person, right? And to live well with your brain intact and being able to travel and go places. I mean, it really is. And we want to protect that because too many good, good people have died too young. So let's shift back to coronavirus. So I have you for a couple more minutes and I want to hit on, you were talking about Artrosil.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Yes Artrosil. Artrosil protects your arteries so the virus can't get into the arteries and that's really helpful. Another one we like is something called Avmacol Extra, which is sulforaphane with glycans, from mushrooms basically. And when you put that together, the sulforaphane blocks the virus from getting into your respiratory cells. So we like those a lot for prevention. And the other thing is that if you are a high risk person and you're going to be around your family or you're going to travel or whatever it is, taking some hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin prophylactically will block the virus being able to get into your cells. So we recommend that as well. And if I'm going to go into high risk situation, I'll take that as well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So, but how often can you take that? So I've been hesitant unless, to recommend it or use it unless I find a high need, high risk patient and a high risk situation or early symptoms.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
We treat early symptoms with it all the time. I also have other people that are traveling internationally and we've been giving it to them prophylactically. Now, if they have a cardiac condition called a prolonged QT syndrome, which you've heard about which can increase a risk of arrhythmia and those drugs can lengthen the QT a little bit further, which increases the risk, then you have to be a little bit careful. But we're measuring all that for our clients, so we understand where they're at. That being said, we think that that combination works amazingly well. And certainly if you have the earliest signs of symptoms jumping on that right away will definitely shorten the course. So we love that. We use the SPMs. We also love something called molecular hydrogen. That basically down-regulates all of your inflammatory and oxidative stress related to inflammation.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So through supplementation or through using-
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You can go online. There's H2Max, which is a product we actually developed. You can find it on Amazon and molecular hydrogen is great. We use it as athletes also, so.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Okay. To increase oxygenation and-
Speaker 3 (17:17):
No it's actually to ba... It's think of it as an adaptogens. I know you like the [inaudible 00:17:22], right?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I do.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Right. So that's all about balance, and stress and we'll talk about stress in a second, but what H2 does is it balances the whole redox system. You need some reactive oxygen species. If you blunt them all, you've stopped all the signaling. Antioxidants have never made anybody live longer, there's no study that's ever shown that antioxidants make people live longer. That's not the answer, but balancing the oxidative stress is key and the hydrogen does that.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, we need stress, right?
Speaker 3 (17:53):
We do.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
As an athlete, you know that we need [crosstalk 00:17:55].
Speaker 3 (17:55):
We need exercise.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Well, I'll know, I think I've had enough stress for right now.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Well, that's a different kind of stress.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
And I think to your point, there's been a ton of stress related to COVID, people, families disrupted, jobs disrupted, et cetera, et cetera, depression, all these kinds of things, massive toll, I think even bigger than the virus. And so we've really kind of doubled down on meditation and exercise and things like that to gain perspective and keep everything in focus and decrease the stress.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah. I agree with you. There's so much more we could be talking about, there's so more. We're going to do another heart episode with you, for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So I want to thank you for your time. If there was just one thing you would want your clients to take. So just say a 50 year old with early symptoms or let's just say 50 year old with diabetes and aching joints and pain. So we see the inflammatory issues, insulin resistance issues. If they would only be able to take one thing, what would you say, okay, we have to take this one thing?
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Well, do they have symptoms? Is that what you-
Speaker 1 (19:01):
No symptoms. No. Preventatively.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
That's really tough because I really think that this is a multifaceted thing. And I think you can't really limit it to just one thing. I think we'd do them a disservice to say one thing quite honestly.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So give us three.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Well, I think personally, I think Avmacol is great. I think the echinacea with elderberry is critical. I think the zinc is critical. I also think the vitamin D is critical, the vitamin C. I just-
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Okay. We're good [crosstalk 00:19:29]. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
You really need a number of things.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I agree. And I think for me too, it's that foundational support is number one, it stop all sugar, get Keto-Green, do what we can there and really take control of that. So I think we're definitely on the same page and the supplements you recommended, we'll put those in the show notes as well. So our audience has those as reference and can look those up as well, but I'm with you, foundationally we hear this all the time, D, C zinc, omegas, and looking at, of course we are with our Mighty Maca Plus. And just looking at the constellation of areas that we have to address. It's never just one thing.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
It's never just one thing.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Thank you so much, Jeffrey. Thanks for being with us today.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
My pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Great to have you here and to our audience, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, he's here in Dallas, The Gladden Longevity Institute, and you can look him up, Jeffrey Gladden MD, and I look forward to seeing you in just a minute. We will be right back.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Welcome back to the show. We are going to continue this discussion of coronavirus. And with me on the couch virtually right now is Dr. Angeli Akey. She is a dear friend of, and we've known each other for over a decade. And let me tell you, one of the most intelligent, inspiring, heart-centered amazing woman that I've ever been blessed to meet, and definitely a dear friend of mine. So welcome. Welcome Dr. Angeli Akey. Welcome to the set. How are you?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I'm doing great. Dr. Anna, it's always a pleasure to be with you teaching. I think that's what we're doing today.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah. I would say teaching, having conversation and want to really provide solutions and dissipate the fear. Well, one thing we know now is that really, it seems like the coronavirus, we know how to manage it better and less people are dying who get it, less sick, and our critical stages are better managed. And so wanting to dissipate some of the fear around this and to restore confidence, and also talk about the cutting edge therapies, what's going on right now, if we do, if we become... If for someone we love becomes really, really sick.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I mean, this is where we want to take notes. What's the science showing? And of course, with your integrative medicine, your internal medicine, your tremendous background and studied at Yale, created Yale integrative medicine, right? I mean, all of these things that you've done and so up on the research plus in clinical practice and treating patients in your own practice. So that's why I want to have this conversation with you today and with our audience to inspire them and give them real solutions, okay, this is what we know to be true at this moment.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Sure. And it's an evolving topic. Mostly I spend my days managing outpatient medicine patients, cumulative population is about 6,000 in North Central Florida. And I was happy to have rapid COVID swabs. So what happens on a day to day basis are people call in having symptoms or having been exposed. And then we manage them through it such that only one person has died out of our practice since March. And she was an 88 year old woman with chronic lung disease called interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. So she was at risk of having severe complications should she have received COVID, which she did and she passed, but overall really happy with my team's effort. It keeping our population super healthy.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Let's talk about the stages of coronavirus and what we should do at each stage.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
Yes. I shared with you figure three from a guidebook that we put together, but basically there's four phases-
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Wait, one second. Just to stop on that, that guidebook is called Kick COVID To The Curb and is the book that everyone needs to have. You really have a good understanding about coronavirus in general, as well as COVID-19 and how it's affecting us plus what to do about it. And so that we'll put show notes to the link, to get Kick COVID To The Curb, your excellent resource that you and Dr. Kathleen O'Neil-Smith wrote, I will say Harvard and Yale together, right? So within a good integrative perspective. So the stages, we'll put up that slide.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
That published in May and yet we're still using it every single day with our patient populations and those who tune in through our webinars, because it's still accurate. And any updates that have happened have been placed on our website, firrmupdoctors.com. So I'd refer you to that. There's over 130 references there as well. But getting back to the phases of COVID-19 disease progression and severity, there's four phases. The first phase is exposure. Somebody coughed on you. Usually you have symptoms, it could be fever, chills, cold symptoms, diarrhea, isolated diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, four to 5% of the time could be gastroenterology only. So that's phase two where you have symptoms. Usually again happens two to five days after exposure, and it could be simply cold symptoms, or it could be simply gastroenterological symptoms or a combination. So I always like to know what day of the disease process you're in so that I can predict where you might take a turn.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Usually phase three starts to happen, which is the early lung phase, about day 10 or 11. I consider this, if you're going to take a turn for the worst, I call it the cliff where at least at our practice, we offer to see you every single day, including Saturday and Sunday, to make sure that the oxygen levels aren't going lower, that your lungs aren't getting inflamed, or you're having shortness of breath, because this is when you start having shortness of breath. And I always taught my population that way back in March to have three instruments for monitoring on hand, a good thermometer, a good blood pressure cuff, and something called a pulse oximeter that measures the oxygen level in your blood. I get really concerned when the oxygen level, which is normally 99 to a 100%, when it drops to 94% or lower, we start moving because we are concerned that you're moving into the early lung phase.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
And that's when we have to monitor you really, really closely. When you desaturate towards 91%, we actually are moving you into the emergency room for chest x-rays, blood thinners, if it's appropriate treatment, inpatient hospitalization. Usually when you're in phase three, early lung phase, you have potential to the valley of death. When your lungs fill up with cement, pus and blood clots, it literally feels like you're breathing against cement. And it's very dangerous at that point. And that's where, if we do have the chance to talk about clinical trials, that Dr. Kathleen O'Neil-Smith, and I are in the midst of designing clinical trials to prevent progression from phase two to phase three, with some progressive therapies. I can't really talk about, but it's in the regenerative medicine world. And there are published studies in regenerative medicine of over 94 clinical trials in regenerative medicine at clinicaltrials.gov.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
So that I will tell you. But that really trying to segregate, who will progress to early lung phase, and then who is at risk to moving to the late lung phase where they're really at danger of multiorgan system failure, not only at the lungs, but the heart gets affected about 30% of the time and the kidneys because of the door knobs into the body called the ACE2 receptors, which are the door knobs that COVID-19 virus also known as SARS-CoV-2 enters into the tissue. And so that's how we think of it. When you're in the hospital, at least at my local hospital, we've had really great success except that one older lady. When you're in phase three, you're being monitored very closely. If the oxygen starts dropping, you get Remdesivir. And I had a 35 year old morbidly obese woman, 35 year old teacher.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
She's morbidly obese still, she had lost 40 pounds prior intentionally, but she was still over 200. 35 years old, went into the early lung phase. Oxygen drops to the low nineties. She said she felt like the Remdesivir didn't really help her. But within one dose of convalescent plasma, which is antibodies donated from someone who has survived COVID successfully, she said that within one dose of that, she started to feel a shift that her body started getting better. So she was quite miraculous. So from the time of admission to discharge, it was seven days. And so I think that we get you through the process. And again, we've managed over 50 COVID patients, some more severe than others, about eight to 10 hospitalized and discharged. And about of those about five have what's being defined as post COVID syndrome, which is a topic we could spend some time on if you want.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Really important. So in talking about the treatment, once they get in the hospital, because we're doing all the intervention we're working, I would say we're getting Keto-Green, we're avoiding sugar. We're getting on a healthy levels of vitamin C, D zinc, selenium, our omega threes and any additional supplements. We just had Jeffrey Gladden on and we talked about some different and novel also alternative supplementation that we can take as well. And then looking at once, if we progressed from phase two to phase three and looking at hospitalization, that what about IV vitamin C therapies and IV multi-vitamin therapies? And we talked about prone positioning and low pressure oxygenation as well, right?
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Yeah. So couple things went through in the hospital and I think a really good source, I know that University of Vermont, a hospital in Seattle and a university, I believe of West Virginia have progressive therapies that include intravenous vitamin C. So at my hospital, I've tried really hard to convince them to use intravenous vitamin C, it's been unsuccessful. I don't think there's any downside in my own personal practice in phase one, phase two and post COVID recovery, I'm using a lot of intravenous nutritional therapy, but I'm working with my hospitalist colleagues at my local hospital. Try very hard with all the literature to convince them to use intravenous vitamin C, but unsuccessfully, despite the major academic centers. Again, University of Vermont, University of, believe of West Virginia that are using intravenous vitamin C protocols.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Talk about post COVID syndrome now too, because it seems to be lasting for months doing well and then having respiratory issues again, what are you seeing and what do we do about it? How do we help patients going, experiencing this, who've had this kind of prodromal or prolonged recovery time period?
Speaker 4 (31:26):
So, what's interesting about COVID is we, as physicians are going back to our roots in observation, and I don't think until we pull data and observational data, including artificial intelligence, that we'll really totally understand this, but what's interesting about the long haulers syndrome, which is actually post stromal prolonged symptoms is that it's been the people that have been affected that have gotten together on social media and compared notes that have been so useful. But if you read up the literature JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article about a month ago, they're still trying to make a definition of what it is, but it looks like at three months after COVID, three out of four people still have symptoms. Those symptoms can include chest pains, muscle aches, inability to exercise, sleep disturbance, brain fog, and shortness of breath. And what does that really mean?
Speaker 4 (32:28):
We're not really... The biomarkers or labs can be totally normal, or they could be abnormal. In the clinical trial I'm helping to design, we're actually trying figure out what biomarkers we could use, what labs we could use at baseline propose a very progressive intervention in the field of regenerative medicine and define our cohort and then see how they do. So that's an active process, if anyone has any ideas, Dr. O'Neil-Smith and I are actually trying to design it this week. But I really like the collaboration and collegiality between multiple specialties, academic, clinical, outpatient, like myself, inpatient, just to beat this virus or to kick COVID-19 to the curb. So, number one, I'd refer you to the JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association article that published last week on long haulers syndrome, which is a post COVID syndrome. So other people have actually recommended the definition happened at six months of still having symptoms.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
But the closest disease state that it resembles at this point is a condition called chronic fatigue syndrome. And you could get chronic fatigue syndrome from SARS-1, right? The first is SARS-CoV-1 led to chronic fatigue syndrome, also Lyme disease, also mono or Epstein BARR virus. And so if you think that you are a long hauler or post COVID syndrome, I'd be more than happy for you to reach out to me through the information at Dr. Anna's website, because we will be enrolling for this clinical trial to treat post COVID syndrome. I think it's going to be a humongous public health issue as it gets more defined. I have no interest myself in getting COVID because I do not want to get post COVID syndrome-
Speaker 1 (34:33):
So with post COVID syndrome, what can people do now?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Well, because we think it has an inflammatory component and we really don't know, I'll tell you what I'm doing, but I'm still collecting data to see if it's helpful. And I think it may be, but we're still defining it. Get a lot of sleep. If you're tired, rest, if you have exercise intolerance, which most of my patients tell me they can't exercise. Well, make sure your doctor checks an echocardiogram of the heart, make sure your heart's okay. And some pulmonary function tests to make sure the lungs are okay. So get checked out. Eat an anti-inflammatory, I love Keto-Green because honestly, doctor, and it looks like a fascial syndrome.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
And I love fascia too because we recently published a medical textbook on fascia, where the body's inflamed and it hurts and it's intolerant to a lot of exercise. So your Keto-Green 16, alkalinizing the pH, even in the fascia, especially in the fascia is so important. As it's staying very well hydrated with a balanced electrolyte solution, a non sugary one. Staying well hydrated, getting enough sleep, you've already discussed the nutritional therapies, but an additional one, if you haven't discussed is glutathione, the grandmother antioxidant, it's located in the cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
You can take it supplementally. We gave them a webinar on that a couple months ago, but look up how to get glutathione in your diet. It's essentially the rainbow of colors. Omega-3 fats, that's fish oils, which I believe you've already talked about. So without knowing exactly what the syndrome represents from a tissue standpoint, from a pathophysiological standpoint, it's to say at this point, what is effective to treat because it's relatively new, but at least in my patient population, those are the ways that I'm trying to help my patients recover if they're suffering from post COVID syndrome.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I think that's a excellent advice, Angeli, thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. And I know you go into even some regenerative medicine in Kick COVID To The Curb. So talk about peptides and STEM cells and what we can do with these other interventions that are up and coming to help, especially I think in this post COVID syndrome. And there's so much that we're just looking at right now as we kind of recreate get on our feet again and get back out into the world and continue to help others. And you've been on the front line seeing patients.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Not saying no to anyone and treating all the COVID patients that came your way and diagnosing and taking care of them and staying healthy and keeping your staff healthy while you've done it. So I want to thank you so much for being here. We're going to put this show in the show notes where we can connect with you because we definitely know you're in clinical practice in Gainesville, Florida seeing patients on the front lines and have this excellent resource, Kick COVID To The Curb. So we'll put the links to your website. And I thank you so much for being here with us today. You know I love you. I can't wait to have a glass of wine with you, so I'll catch up with you soon [crosstalk 00:37:58].
Speaker 4 (37:59):
All right. Be well, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Coronavirus is a serious topic and I'm glad we had our experts on today to really dive into what can we do to prevent getting it? How do we decrease the spread of it and keep others healthy as well as ourselves healthy. And also what do we do in the stages? You'll see some overlap in the recommendations. And certainly what you need to know to do is to embrace, embrace what is so important to you, those connections around family and nourish your body. One of our pillars is to nourish, nourish and support our human system, our body, and our health. And that comes in many levels, certainly through that good night's sleep, through good relationships, through great connections, and vitamins and supplements. I supplement on a regular basis and we'll put in the show notes to what I'm taking as well.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
But I want you to know that we, at this time, at this higher stress time, we need a little extra. I suppose we can't get it all in diet alone. So nourishing our body becomes very important, not to mention nourishing our mind and nourishing our relationships. So with our experts, Dr. Gladden and Dr. Akey, as they've talked also about what to do, if we do get sick, if we do, or someone else gets sick, there are cutting edge therapies that we can take part in and also to not give up. We're conquering this illness and the more we do together and staying healthy, the better off we're all going to be. So thank you for being here with me on The Girlfriend Doctor show, I look forward to seeing you next time.
