Coronavirus mortality | Nutrition Services | Nutritionist Dr. Diana Artene

Smoking during the pandemic, ping-pong between panic and stupidity

Diana Artene — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 20:04:00 +0000

Reading the French study about smoking and Covid-19 I woke up pretty much just like Proust transported back in time by the smell of madeleines, transported back in the by the smell of the stupidity I witnessed at one of the sponsored workshops I attended at the American Nutrition conference that took place in Boston in 2018.

Feeling cold (because in American buildings the air conditioning is set at only 16 degrees) and hungry (because there you can only have fast food and American coffee, which is rainwater for Europeans) – I watched in amazement a workshop conducted by 3 top professors come to prove that soft drinks are healthier than water.

The truth being told, only the first two professors did the job they’ve been payed to do bringing seemingly scientific arguments to prove (- I still wonder today: To God damn whom?!) that cola is better for humans than water. The third one, a little younger than the others and a little more Tarzan, broke down their pseudo-scientific arguments, dismantling them one by one.

I still remember with deep pleasure the organizers face color standing on the sidelines of the room, changing from the pink bon-bon delighted by the first two presentations to the brown-cola during the third. Well … the face of the first two presenters also turned brown-cola during the third presentation, but what the hell they were thinking ?!

Theoretically, any mentally healthy person with or without a degree in nutrition would be shocked to attend an international nutrition workshop designed to prove that you become healthier if you drink cola than if you drink water. The fact that you are a top professor saying stupidities does not change the stupidities, it only changes your image as an impartial expert putting the spotlight on the fact that you are now for sale.

Neither light soda drinks nor those with sugars provide the body with actual sugar, but with all kinds of synthetic substances, generating: weight gain, d yslipidemia, hepatic and renal steatosis and an appetite disturbed enough to create a continuous craving that makes you want to to consume them every damn day.

Now, if you’re wondering what the hell was I thinking to attend such a workshop, I must mention two sad but essential conference aspects:

The food served at nutrition conferences varies from extremely bad, to bad, to purely inedible, depending on the budget and the organizers’ equanimity towards the conference participants.
And one of the conferences with the worst food on the planet is the annual conference organized by the American Nutrition Society, which is why the focus of many of the 30,000 participants moves around lunch to identify the workshops organized by various companies that promote their products.

These big conferences take place for days in a row, continuously from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening, and if you don’t want to starve at noon you quietly sit and attend one of the many elegantly veiled commercials called “workshop” to have access to something to eat that is somewhat edible.

Watching these commercials placed in the middle of conferences is like watching commercials placed in a good movie. Theoretically you can go to the kitchen at any time to eat in a civilized manner, but practically you risk losing important presentations strategically placed throughout the program to keep you at the conference.

Two years later, in the cozy comfort of my home, I relive the same shock while reading the French study which raises the hypothes about how nicotine protects us from respiratory disease Covid-19 just as I was shocked then by the lovely studies meant to prove that cola protects us from obesity and metabolic diseases.

I would like to quote this study, but it is only published as a preprint in some journal and already republished after various international researches asked for more details about the data behind the puzzling conclusion.

It is basically a statistical analysis that calculates the incidence of coronavirus infection compared between those who report smoking and those who are officially known to smoke.

Coronavirus-infected people admitted to a hospital in France between 28 February and 30 March 2020 (considered patients with severe infection) are taken together with those consulted in the same hospital between 23 March and 9 April (considered patients with mild or moderate infection) and asked, “Do you smoke?”

Those who answered yes were labeled “smokers”.

Those who answered no were labeled “non-smokers”.

Just that you can answer exactly how your panic dictates when you’re asked whether you smoke or not in the midst of a pandemic of a respiratory disease.

The studies that assess the real impact of smoking on human health don’t just consider the answers yes or no as enough evidence to actually know the smoking status of a person. Objectively, the smoking status is attested by blood and urine tests that show the metabolic evidence that a person smokes or not. (1)

Obviously, these studies are more difficult to do, and in the midst of the pandemic there is no time for such details, so the people surveyed in the French observational study were not tested in any way to assess whether the answer about their smoking is real.

But without the metabolic verification of the given answer, one can respond whatever they might consider appropriate.

If you say you don’t smoke you don’t risk anyone blaming you for taking up the coronavirus infection, you don’t risk not being treated well because how the hell do you still smoke when you were repeatedly warned not to touch your mouth with your hand until after you washed it 15 times, and you don’t risk someone slapping you in the midst of a panic pandemic.

If you say you don’t smoke even if you smoke since you were 16, you can now remain calm, you are officially a non-smoker, and you get to be treated like any other human being because it is not your fault, you did nothing wrong to get the respiratory infection.

And tam-taram-ta-dam-dam-dam… the number of those infected with coronavirus who admitted to smoking is only 5.3% compared to the 25.4% who are officially known to smoke in France.

So, tam-taram-ta-dam-dam-dam… Breaking News: Covid-19 incidence is lower in smokers!

The authors of the study officially regret that the number of the study participant was lowered by the fact that they were not allowed access to intensive care units, considering that the protective effect of smoking would have been much more clearly highlighted if they had been allowed to ask intubated patients if they smoke or not …

Trying to prove that drinking cola improves your health at one of the largest international nutrition conferences feels as stupefying as trying to prove that nicotine protects you during a pandemic of infectious respiratory disease.

We witness in dismay the leaders of the planet flow of intelligence.

From the herd immunity proposed by the English boss, to the disinfectant injections proposed by the American boss, to sex as a method of maintaining mental health proposed by the Danish boss, somehow it also had to come to smoking.

At the moment they are a little busy dealing with all this pandemic to have the time to investigate whether the beneficial effects cola has against obesity and diabetes also protects us against Covid-19. Let’s have a little patience, after they’ll finish with the immunity from the holy spirit, the disinfectant injections, the sex and the smoking they will probably end up researching the cola benefits too.

Relaxingly smoking they cigarettes while surfing the corona wave, pseudo-researchers issue hypotheses after hypotheses, one more crazy and less scientific than the other.

And how on Earth to issue hypotheses than from a study…

But “study” is a word as vague as the word “human”.

There are humans and humans, there are studies and studies. Not that they are good or bad, but at least their training level and expertise can differ:

first graders use the same letters as doctors – all being named using the same word “human” and theoretically any first grader has the potential to become a doctor
observational studies use the same letters as randomized controlled clinical trials – all being called using the same word “study” and theoretically any observational study has the potential to become a randomized controlled clinical trial

Just that most children do not become doctors, and that most observational studies do not become randomized controlled clinical trials.

Still – because it was written in a “study” – the internet roars with all kinds of miracles, one more startling than the otter.

But, although the fact that it comes from a “study” seems like enough of an argument if you don’t know how to evaluate the degree of clinical validity of a study, one observational study does not wipe out all we already know about the harms inflicted by smoking.

When a kindergarten study comes to tell us that smoking protects us from respiratory infections, it would be logical to call an adult study to explain to the kid that:

smoking increases the risk of respiratory infections and nosocomial complications resulting in increased respiratory mucosal permeability to pathogens, local inflammation and decreased immunity (2)
smokers with respiratory infections have an increased risk of developing more severe disease (3)
smoking increases the risk of diseases associated with a severe evolution or death in those infected with coronavirus:
- smoking increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, (4) including in non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke (5) and in smokers of e-cigarettes (6) and in those smoking hookah (7)
- smoking increases the risk of chronic kidney disease in direct proportion to the number of cigarettes smoked per day and to the years since you’ve been smoking, dialysis being less effective in patients with advanced kidney disease who continue to smoke (8, 9, 10)
- smoking increases the risk of diabetes even in non-smokers exposed at home to secondhand smoke, associating hyperglycaemia, increased HbA1c and dyslipidemia (11, 12, 13)

Over 1 billion people are known to smoke globally, and maybe in the midst of today’s pandemic it would be good to calm them down, so they can continue to calm themselves down through smoking.

But it is not only about the fact that smoking increases the risk of respiratory infectious diseases, about the fact that smokers have worse prognostics when they get these respiratory infectious diseases, or about the fact that smoking increases the the risk of diseases associated with a severe evolution or death in those infected with coronavirus: cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.

On top of these, smoking also increases the risk of chronic lung disease in direct proportion to the time you smoke. (14, 15) And once hospitalized, the simple fact that you already have a chronic lung disease increases your risk of in hospital mortality by 10%. (16)

Even in the case of coronavirus infection, the systematic analysis of the few studies available today shows an increased risk of severe Covid-19 infection in people with chronic lung disease who continue to smoke. (17)

The number of annual deaths from chronic lung disease has increased globally from 3.32 million in 1990 to 3.91 million in 2017. (18)

On average, over 3 million people die each year from chronic lung diseases associated with smoking.

Today, 28 April, at a global level 216.281 people died with Covid-19. We don’t even know the number of deaths actually caused by coronavirus; we only know that these people also had Covid-19 while dying.

And still, studies promoting smoking against a respiratory disease sprung in full pandemic… Or maybe just the nicotine… We can’t say for sure, but maybe it’s just the nicotine…

Despite today’s bombastic “breaking news”, people don’t die only from Covid-19.

Promoting nicotine in today’s pandemic of respiratory infection spells stupidity just like promoting soda drinks in today’s pandemic of diabetes and obesity.

Although the mental fog globally induced by panic has dramatically increased the need for magic solutions, smoking amplifies all know factors associated with severe evolution and death in those infected with coronavirus

– But if the smart ones of the planet say differently?!

You look amazed at how the boss makes smoke rolls, relaxed, knowing he’s right because he’s the boss, and you are not because you’re not.

Just that the magic of being right because you’re the boss only applies to humans, the virus doesn’t make such faible differences.

And although it seems that money can buy health regardless of your behaviour, the boss countries that globally lead us today are the most affected ones – both by the pandemic of obesity and metabolic diseases, and by the pandemic of coronavirus.

Thus, regardless of what the boss says, for your health, use your own brain and common sense.

Scientific references:

(1) Martin, Elizabeth M., et al. “E-cigarette use results in suppression of immune and inflammatory-response genes in nasal epithelial cells similar to cigarette smoke.” American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology 311.1 (2016): L135-L144.

(2) Bagaitkar, Juhi, Donald R. Demuth, and David A. Scott. “Tobacco use increases susceptibility to bacterial infection.” Tobacco induced diseases 4.1 (2008): 12.

(3) Han, Lefei, et al. “Smoking and influenza-associated morbidity and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Epidemiology 30.3 (2019): 405-417.

(4) King, Cecile C., et al. “Longitudinal impact of smoking and smoking cessation on inflammatory markers of cardiovascular disease risk.” Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology 37.2 (2017): 374-3

(5) Attard, Ritienne, et al. “The impact of passive and active smoking on inflammation, lipid profile and the risk of myocardial infarction.” Open Heart 4.2 (2017): e000620.

(6) Carnevale, Roberto, et al. “Acute impact of tobacco vs electronic cigarette smoking on oxidative stress and vascular function.” Chest 150.3 (2016): 606-612.

(7) Bhatnagar, Aruni, et al. “Water pipe (hookah) smoking and cardiovascular disease risk: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association.” Circulation 139.19 (2019): e917-e936.

(8) Roehm, Bethany, et al. “Cigarette smoking attenuates kidney protection by angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in nondiabetic chronic kidney disease.” American journal of nephrology 46.4 (2017): 260-267.

(9) Zhang, Shu Tong, et al. “Effects of Smoking on Chronic Kidney Disease.” J Am Soc Nephrol 21.11 (2019): 1819-1834.

(10) Trajceska, Lada, et al. “Active Smoking is Associated with Lower Dialysis Adequacy in Prevalent Dialysis Patients.” Open Access Macedonian Journal of Medical Sciences 7.21 (2019).

(11) Akter, Shamima, Atsushi Goto, and Tetsuya Mizoue. “Smoking and the risk of type 2 diabetes in Japan: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Journal of epidemiology 27.12 (2017): 553-561.

(12) Maddatu, Judith, Emily Anderson-Baucum, and Carmella Evans-Molina. “Smoking and the risk of type 2 diabetes.” Translational Research 184 (2017): 101-107.

(13) Gu, Lijuan, et al. “Effects of Passive Smoking on Glycemic Parameters and Lipid Profiles in a Chinese Female Population.” Clinical laboratory 63.7 (2017): 1147-1152.

(14) Jayes, Leah, et al. “SmokeHaz: systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the effects of smoking on respiratory health.” Chest 150.1 (2016): 164-179.

(15) Liu, Yong, et al. “Smoking duration, respiratory symptoms, and COPD in adults aged≥ 45 years with a smoking history.” International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 10 (2015): 1409.

(16) Sin, Don D. “Contemporary concise review 2019: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.” Respirology 104 (2020).

(17) Zhao, Qianwen, et al. “The impact of COPD and smoking history on the severity of Covid‐19: A systemic review and meta‐analysis.” Journal of Medical Virology (2020).

(18) Li, Xiaochen, et al. “Trends and risk factors of mortality and disability adjusted life years for chronic respiratory diseases from 1990 to 2017: systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.” bmj 368 (2020).

Articolul Smoking during the pandemic, ping-pong between panic and stupidity apare prima dată în Nutrition Services | Nutritionist Dr. Diana Artene.

Coronavirus – batshit crazy spring rolled Devil’s baby

Diana Artene — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 08:22:34 +0000

The story of the virus with a beer name (Coronavirus, so: Have it with lime!) began at a market.

On December 30, 2019, in a small fish and meat market where 1500 worked, in a crowded Chinese city with 11 million inhabitants, some workers got sick. And because they felt quite sick, each decided to go see a doctor in the hope that they still could somehow spend the New Year’s Eve in the family. And this is how the Wuhan on-call doctors got to see these patients suffering from a type of pneumonia that was not very responsive to traditional treatments. (1)

They scratched their heads for days and nights and tried their best to deal with the weird flu until – January 7, 2020 – when dr. Shi Zhengli’s team, a local virologist, informed them that the strange disease is a zoonosis caused by a virus from the Coronavirus family which normally affects bats.

We do not know if the pandemic declared on Wednesday by the World Health Organisation (WHO) broke out because the use of soap is one of the behaviours that distinguish people from animals or because some people have started to eat vampire bats. However, as direct descendants of father Dracula, we should take the stories of humans eating vampires at least with a grain of salty garlic.

Because the panic and the brain work in shifts, Coronavirus managed to divide the planet in two:

either you are scared – and you just realised that soap was invented
either you are rational – and you look in dismay at how seemingly mentally healthy people started to queue up to buy soap

Well… there is also the third category: the careless people continuing to live their lives like nothing happens on the planet.

This article is not a call to carelessness, it is a call to reason.

Because panic amplifies irrational behaviours whose consequences can unbalance us all, it is important to see the situation as it is: neither better, nor worse than it is.

The problem is complicated not only by the fact that fear freezes the brain, but also by the fact that the very brain humans operate on comes with at least one factory defect:

The more we read and hear about a thing that rarely happens the more we expect it to happen despite knowing deep in our minds that it rarely happens – which is called “availability bias“. (2)

The more we hear about Coronavirus, the more it looks like it sits and looks at us through the kitchen window like a vampire – ready to jump and grab us by the shoulders to suck out our lungs.

Researchers warned us for years and years that the way pandemic infectious diseases are communicated and managed has a major financial impact, the perception of risk having a more harmful impact than the disease itself. (3)

In the rare times when we would still decide to use our neocortex, we could look at Chinese officials report which shows that:

81% of infected people had only mild respiratory symptoms if at all, more than half presenting without having a fever
14% of infected people developed severe respiratory disease, needing Intensive Care
and the 5% of the infected people that developed severe respiratory disease who put their lives at risk were sick and old, most very sick and very old (4)

Despite official reports showing that most people who get infected only develop mild respiratory disease, on Wednesday – March 11, 2020, WHO declared the current global situation a pandemic because the number of cases reached 118,000 worldwide, of which 4,291 have died.

Risk perception doubled since pandemic has been declared in spite of the fact that even in Italy – the most affected country besides China – official reports show that 91% of infected people have only mild disease.

The majority of people do not understand what a pandemic actually means, although the flu regularly reaches pandemic levels and although most – even those very ill or exposed – usually ignore it and refuse to get vaccinated.

But what we know from the former pandemics we went through is that the most harmful impact is generated by people’s perception of risk, affecting mainly the economy of the countries not the health of the people.

Pandemic does not mean that the disease has changed or that it became more aggressive.

Pandemic means that many people are affected worldwide.

It shows the disease is highly contagious, not highly aggressive.

– How many of us haven’t had a cough or a fever this winter?

According to the report published by WHO on March 12, Coronavirus mortality is 3.6% – a simplistic figure obtained by dividing the number of deaths by the number of officially known cases.

And this simplistic figure built on the known cases is the root of all mathematical speculations that feed people’s panic. But it’s a fake number.

Although the 3.6% mortality rate looks enormous when compared to the minuscule 0.1% mortality rate of the flu, most experts remain quite calm stating that if you compare apples with pears lice come out when the aliens no longer land in Antarctica because Tuesday is blue.

Most infectious disease experts remain calm because of the 118.000 people officially infected with Coronavirus those who got severely affected were either very old or already very sick before catching up the virus, having multiple other diseases besides the last drop of corona.

Coronavirus mortality rate by age – Business Insider

And most mathematics experts remain calm because without proper testing the powerful stage effect – obtained by the fervent media coverage of the shiny 3.6% COVID-19 mortality as “huge” when compared with the 0.1% flu mortality – cannot wipe out the only two things we actually know despite the global madness:

of 100 people infected with Coronavirus 96,4 survive
the 3.6% mortality figure is a fake number because it is based on the number of officially known cases not on the actual number of cases

Just that not all mathematicians remain calm, some mathematicians making statistical estimates based – maybe – on accepting the fact that in general the masses of panicked people behave irrationally, and individually many people do not care enough about other people to respect minimum common sense recommendations.

It seems that common sense is not that common.

Besides the low incidence of common sense, the mathematicians who don’t remain calm quote the exponential growth bias – another bias that usually affects human’s thinking. According to this thinking flaw, most people do not understand that a small problem can grow exponentially, so they ignore it. (5)

But the mathematicians that remain calm in this global madness state that Coronavirus pandemics doesn’t present exponential growth and that the prediction models built on exponential growth mathematical models can be misused in pandemics. (6)

So, today we witness a world of panic inflated by assumptions psychologically complicated by the media spot light on the horror stories that try to justify the global problem built mathematically on predictions over which even mathematicians don’t agree upon.

Because of insufficient testing:

and, because the majority of infected people don’t even have a fever, we cannot know that the known number of cases is the number of cases
and, because the mortality figure is obtained by dividing the number of deaths to the number of known cases, the mortality figure would be very different if we would know the actual number of cases
and, because of the induced panic, the mathematically built worldwide problem will end up costing us all financially as the economy will take the actual fall (7)

Based on the fact that current statistics confirm the initial Chinese report proving that more than 80% of the people who get infected with Coronavirus have no or only mild symptoms – purely mathematically – the total number of worldwide cases could be 5 times higher than the officially known number.

And this would mean nothing bad if we’d had the discipline and the responsibility to respect the minimum recommended prevention.

What we know is that the risk of getting the disease is high, not that the risk of mortality from this disease is high.

A higher number of cases does not mean that the disease is more aggressive.

A higher number of cases means the disease is more contagious.

More contagious does not mean more aggressive.

Aggressivity is about the probability of dying from the disease not about just getting the disease.

COVID-19 is contagious. SARS was aggressive.

Theoretically, we are required to do the least possible: to stay in the house when we have respiratory symptoms or when we know that we’ve just traveled back from areas affected by the virus, not to kiss the elderly and to wash our hands. But for common sense recommendations to be effective you have to have common sense. And because many do not have common sense, prolonging the application of these initially minimum recommendations, cumulatively will end up highly expensive for all.

Each pandemic is different depending on:

disease factors: how contagious it is and how aggressive it is
human factors: like the age and state of health or hygiene
health system factors: such as adequate access to protective equipment, the capacity of intensive care units and the fact that physicians and other unprotected medical personnel can become the first line of victims of others’ panic and lack of common sense
science factors: how fast researchers can come up with:
- diagnostic kits able to accurately identify affected individuals
- effective treatments for the current outbreak
- vaccines to prevent future ones

If the disease induced by the Coronavirus infection is more contagious but 80% of the infected people just cough, most without even having a fever, then the global number of cases could be 590.000, and mortality 0.7%.

And yes, 0.7 is still 7 times higher than the 0.1 flu mortality, but this does not erase the fact that from 100 Coronavirus-infected people 99.3 will be ok.

But you cannot say anymore that 99.3 of 100 infected people will be ok after the economic consequences of the assumptions you officially trumpeted began to emerge, exactly as you patchily did in 2003 with the far more aggressive SARS. (8)

Aligned with the many thinking biases described by Tversky and Kahneman in the 1970s, once they take an official stance most people tend to continue to defend it even when their own evidence contradicts them. And those managing the COVID-19 pandemic are people too. So the global madness will continue based on the only factor they can pin down: the high contagiousnessț impact on the exponential growth.

But the evolution of the disease does not show exponential growth.

When the reality of the disease contradicts you but the economic consequences of the wrong statistic presumptions you made have begun to appear, you cling to any evidence that might justify what you assumed:

the population at higher risk
and the fall of the medical system

To protect yourself from the economic consequences of the panic created globally, of the 100 infected that mostly have nothing you fervently put the spot light on the only 1 that’s doing worse and hope that no one with sufficient economic and political power will grab you by the collar to ask why the hell do you put the spot light on this 1 when 99.3 are fine.

Just that treating the population at higher risk and the resources required for the medical system to keep working cost money and all systems risk to fall including the medical system when there will be no money because we neglected economy while trying to preserve health.

The disease induced by Coronavirus is mainly mild.

Without proper testing, mortality seems higher than influenza’s but officially available mortality figures don’t indicate an exponential growth.

People that were already damaged by advance age or advanced disease before Coronavirus will be more affected.

Health care systems that were already damaged before the Coronavirus will be more affected.

Officially, WHO recommends:

to greet each other at least one meter distance
to cough in the elbow
to stay home if we feel ill
to wash our hands
and to clean up our homes and spaces

Officially, WHO doesn’t even recommend to wear a mask without first having cough or a fever, specialists recommending them only to those having symptoms and to those taking care of them because:

most masks available on the market are not appropriate
most people who have access to appropriate masks do not use them properly
and because the actual number of masks and other protective medical devices available on the planet is limited, even the medical personnel risking to remain without them due to the panic created in the general population

However, in spite of the fact that unlike the flu Coronavirus doesn’t seem to severely affect children and teenagers and in spite of the available analyses of past pandemics showing that school closure has tripled economic harm in countries such as England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands (9), the UNICEF and WHO stands is the quoted reason behind the closure of schools.

– Who cares that school closure and the absenteeism generated by panic worsens the economic impact? (10)

Ignoring the fact that everyone’s access to any medical treatment decreases if our financial capacity drops down to caves levels, we close schools to protect the 3.6 grandparents out of those 100 grandparents over the age of 80 or with more illnesses than they can carry assuming they might get infected by their grandchildren who’d go to school.

And while schools are deserted to protect the vulnerable grandparents, the parks are full with vulnerable grandparents taking their grandchildren out to have some fun like in a global unplanned holiday.

The disease is mild and the spread might end if 76% of transmissions would stop. (11) But adding to the fact that the vulnerable population seems to mock our efforts to protect them, some of the people officially diagnosed as being infected with Coronavirus do not respect the fact that by leaving the house others will be infected.

Just like for years, as a mother, I had to deal with the consequences of other parents bringing their sick children to school despite the risk of infecting other children – of a mild flu – now we witness in dismay how people at risk and people officially infected or people who traveled back from high risk areas of the globe just casually go outside, enjoying the spring warm weather.

We respectfully stay home to protect the vulnerable population, while the vulnerable population casually goes out to the beach, having barbecues, meeting their friends at the mall then panically buying everything that falls into their hands, sitting at endless queues for food and soap.

We stay home although we could work.

Old people and those diagnosed with or at risk of a coronavirus infection are walking the streets spending their last dime on beans, vitamins and soap resting assured that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus will take care of them when they will eventually run out of money.

– What are you going to eat a month from now if you spend all your money today on perishables?

– Face masks and soap?

Reading official reports, during the past few weeks I wondered if we globally went batshit crazy …

Not that I complain of the light traffic in Bucharest or of the joy of my children generated by the unplanned holiday that gradually translated to boredom. But Coronavirus has filled my Inbox with two types of emails:

some making the same demand: “What should I buy to increase my immunity?“
and some making the same offer: “What can we sell you to increase your immunity?“

Like at the market: demand and supply.

And if the answer to the second question is a simple SPAM report thinking “the mother of the idiots is always pregnant“, the answer to the first question seems somewhat more complicated because the vast majority of people think this is THE time when you have to take something to increase your damn immunity.

Obviously, the vast majority of people does not want to address the fact that eating fast food and drinking soda drinks on the run (12) during stressful days followed by nights with low quality, insufficient sleep (13) decreases immunity.

The vast majority of people has no idea what “immunity” is, the subliminal message passed on from one good doer to another being that you have to take vitamins, antioxidants or something.

Most believe that “immunity” is bought at the pharmacy.

Just that only “immunity” is bought at the pharmacy.

Immunity without quotation marks depends on the healthy eating (14), on the regular life-long practice of sports (15, 16), on the high quality sleep (17), and even on the well-being and overall happiness level of your life (18). So yes, it seems damn tricky to increase immunity so suddenly now with this Coronavirus sneaked out of the dark Chinese vampires’ caves in the fast food-sedentary-stressful-unhappy life.

Just that, although we are encouraged to take all sorts of stuff to somehow defend ourselves against this dark virus, the only two things you can actually do to increase your immunity specifically against Coronavirus are:

to get infected with Coronavirus
to get vaccinated with a vaccine specifically created against this virus

We have no vaccine yet.

And exactly as everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die, there isn’t anybody who’d want to get infected.

Without getting sick and without the vaccine, the only thing you can increase by taking all sorts of vitamins, plants and miracle natural remedies is is the non-specific part of the immune system, the innate immunity.

But increased non-specific immunity does not specifically defend you against Coronavirus or against anything else for that matter.

Non-specific immunity is called “non-specific” because it is non-specific.

And increasing non-specific immunity does not mean improved health.

Increased non-specific immunity means deregulated immune system, bone and gastrointestinal inflammatory disease, allergies, autoimmunity. (19)

And it is absolutely pointless to take any magic plant or vitamin for the purpose of increasing non-specific immunity.

Non-specific immunity is directly increased by stress, sedentariness, insufficient sleep and by the very western diet by their pro-inflammatory effects. (20)

Immunity without quotation marks is a much more complex system than it seems when talking about immunity while having a Corona.

The upside of the Coronavirus story is that it has managed to increase interest in seemingly uninteresting products. Like soap.

The downside is that if this global panic continues, we will not die of Coronavirus but of poverty.

It all started at the market and it will all end at the market.

I’m not sure if it’s like at the small fish and meat market in Wuhan where some of the 1500 workers got infected, but all this seems kind of an expensive trade that ignores the fact that in order to have something to sell someone still has to actually work.

References

(1) Phelan, Alexandra L., Rebecca Katz, and Lawrence O. Gostin. “The novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China: challenges for global health governance.” Jama 323.8 (2020): 709-710.

(2) Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. “Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability.” Cognitive psychology 5.2 (1973): 207-232.

(3) Smith, Richard D. “Responding to global infectious disease outbreaks: lessons from SARS on the role of risk perception, communication and management.” Social science & medicine 63.12 (2006): 3113-3123.

(4) Wu, Zunyou, and Jennifer M. McGoogan. “Characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.” Jama (2020).

(5) Levy, Matthew R., and Joshua Tasoff. “Exponential-growth bias and overconfidence.” Journal of Economic Psychology 58 (2017): 1-14.

(6)Chowell, Gerardo, and Cécile Viboud. “Is it growing exponentially fast?–impact of assuming exponential growth for characterizing and forecasting epidemics with initial near-exponential growth dynamics.” Infectious disease modelling 1.1 (2016): 71-78.

(7) Ayittey, Foster Kofi, et al. “Economic impacts of Wuhan 2019‐nCoV on China and the world.” Journal of Medical Virology (2020).

(8) Lee, Jong-Wha, and Warwick J. McKibbin. “Globalization and disease: The case of SARS.” Asian Economic Papers 3.1 (2004): 113-131.

(9) Keogh-Brown, Marcus Richard, et al. “The macroeconomic impact of pandemic influenza: estimates from models of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and The Netherlands.” The European Journal of Health Economics 11.6 (2010): 543-554.

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