We live in a hectic world. We have many responsibilities on our shoulders, and many hats to wear. But our health, both mental and physical, should always be our priority. As we are entering an endemic phase of Covid-19, it’s a blessing that we are seeing less and less severe cases. 

However, this doesn’t mean Sars-Covid-2 has packed up its bag and called it a day. We still see people getting infected and re-infected from time to time in the clinic. Whether or not you are vaccinated or had Sars-Civd-2 infection, there are many things we can do to help build our resilience and strengthen both our mental and physical health.

Lately, I am seeing more and more Long Covid symptoms(LCS), and this is more concerning now than ever. It is now proven through peer reviewed research that LCS can have a grave impact on a person’s quality of life (Research Article). 

Long Covid symptoms include:

Fatigue, severe malaise, low grade fever, cough, shortness of breath, palpitation, brain fog, headache, sleep disruption, loss of taste and appetite, anxiety or depression, diarrhea and maylasia. In some incidents, patients can even have irregular menstrual cycles.

The mechanism of long Covid symptoms is chronic low grade inflammation.

In the initial stage of an infection, our immune system would start a cascade of immune response and inflammation to help combat the infection. In this stage, our immune system is called to react and fight off the intruder (ex: bacteria, virus, or trauma), this is called immune response. The immune response is then followed by inflammation, where it will release inflammatory mediators such as cytokines, TFNɑ, prostaglandin.

While inflammation is an important and necessary step for our body to fight off the pathogens, prolonged, low grade inflammation is very harmful, and it is our modern lifestyle that has laid the ground for chronic inflammation. As we are seeing more and more Long Covid symptoms, it is a good idea to teach ourselves to live a lifestyle that builds resilience and restores balance.

Gut function and health are important in both functional medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine. The gut is more than digestion, it also plays important roles in immune modulation and inflammation, and also regulates the enteric nervous system. That’s why we call our gut the second brain.

After the Covd-19 infection, we might see an increased intestinal permeability as there are more circulating immune modulators in the system that cause the gut lining to lose its integrity. One of the strategies to combat this is to eat well and live well. 

How do we eat well?

Food is not just nutrition, but also a way to educate our systems. 

In the case of long term low grade inflammation, we can also educate our body to clear the inflammation. By feeding our body more antioxidant rich food, eliminating processed meat and refined carbs, we can help our body to reduce the oxidative load and increase the antioxidants that can be used to increase our resilience. 

The quantity is also very important. The standard therapeutic guideline of fruits and vegetables is 9 to 13 servings per day. Our modern lifestyle diet tends to be overloaded with omega 6 and not enough omega 3. Omega 3 is an absolute essential nutrient, because it decreases the production of inflammatory mediators, and also helps to restore gut permeability. 

Not to mention our good friend, probiotics. Fermented food rich in probiotics is long to be considered a longevity food. There is research that shows that fermented food can decrease the incident and duration of respiratory infection (Research Article).