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Vit C,D and zinc- What you need to know!

[00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to this week's five minute Friday. Okay, so first of all, I decided to wash my hair for the first time in a week, so that's very exciting. And I also decided to get dressed up for this video and wear my favorite, I love tacos so much, T-shirt. So those are some exciting highlights for me today, but more importantly, let's get on with this week's five minute Friday, which. 

Most of you will not actually receive on Friday because well, it just didn't get done. Okay, moving on, if you haven't seen it yet. In my last episode, I talked about my favorite foods, supplements, herbs, and essential oils to use to boost the immune system. This week I'm going to dive a little deeper into vitamins and supplements. 

Yesterday a watched ace. Six hour webinar that included 12 of the country's leading functional and in integrative physicians. These 12 doctors talked about everything they know and understand about the immune system and the best ways to deal with this pandemic that's going [00:01:00] on. I literally felt like I was in med school for six straight hours and I learned so many interesting things that I wanna pass along to all of you in the Cliff Notes version. 

As I know, most people don't have six hours of time to. While you're homeschooling your children on the side, I apologize in advance that this is longer than five minutes, but this information is just too important to cut corners on. First, I wanna start by saying that as with anything in the health and wellness space, information is always changing and so much of what is going on, the doctors are learning as they go. 

So what I'm going to talk about seems to be the most recent updated information. I am obviously not a doctor. I am simply distilling down all this incredible important information into layman terms that's easier to. But for any specific advice, please talk to your personal doctor. Second, everything I talked about in my last episode still stands true and it's worth rewatching, but I wanted to get a little more specific about certain supplements and the details about how the coronavirus works that you may not already know. 

Okay. First, a basic lesson on the coronavirus. The virus gets into our body and it latches onto a receptor in. [00:02:00] Once it latches onto the receptor, a molecule with a very complicated name of which I won't confuse you, you with is activated. Once this molecule is activated, a substance called the cytokine is secreted from the cells of the immune system. 

Now, normally we need this to happen because it triggers our body to do what it's supposed to do in the case of a normal colder illness. Think of your immune system as a group of army men all lined up ready for battle. The cytokines are the bullets that are coming from the guns the army guys are holding, and these bullets attack anything that comes in that could harm us. 

Here is where the problem comes in. Imagine if the trigger on the guns that the Army men are shooting. Get stuck and the guns won't stop firing bullets. Then all of a sudden you have bullets flying everywhere and everyone, and there's total chaos, and all the army men are now shooting each other with all this confusion. 

That is what the doctors are referring to as a cytokine storm. The virus is overwhelming the immune system and causing this huge release of cytokines. Which then creates this analogy I described where bolts are flying everywhere and there's total unruly [00:03:00] war raging inside of the body and no general in charge of the troops. 

Now here is what is so incredibly interesting, so imagine the scenario I described with the gun that has a trigger that is stuck and can't stop firing bullets. They are learning that the spring on the gun trigger is controlled by vitamin D, and if your vitamin D levels are too low, you run the risk of the spring on the trigger not working the way it's supposed to. 

So taking Vitamin D three is definitely something that is being recommended. According to these doctors, the appropriate dosage is 2000 IUs per 50 pounds of body weight. So 150 thou pound person would take 6,000. So check your labels. For those of you that take a multivitamin, you do get some in that, but most people should supplement with extra. 

If you have worked with me in the past, you are likely already taking more of vitamin D three in your daily routine. The next major thing I took away from this six hour webinar is the role of vitamin C in zinc. We already know that these are two of the top choices to boost the immune system, but let me explain why both zinc and vitamin C down-regulate this whole cytokine [00:04:00] storm I described before. 

First, let's talk about vitamin. Every doctor I listen to suggested between 1,002 thousand milligrams of vitamin C per day, but here are a few things to be aware of. One vitamin C is water soluble. So what does that mean? The body can only absorb so much at once, and the rest will be eliminated out of the body. 

So taking it in smaller doses throughout the day is more beneficial than all at once. And if you start to notice loose stool, this likely means you are taking too much vitamin C. What's interesting is that when we get sick, our body naturally increases its ability to absorb more vitamin C. So the idea is if you're healthy, take a thousand milligrams every day as a preventative measure, and then if you get sick, you can up the quantity. 

Some of you may have heard about the fact that some hospitals are treating covid patients with high doses of intravenous vitamin, vitamin C, and in this case, they're using dose. Six to 12,000 milligrams, so much higher than what we would take orally. Giving the vitamin C through an IV allows it to go directly into the bloodstream versus when we take it orally, it has to be processed through the GI tract. 

There are very [00:05:00] promising results of using the high dose vitamin C intravenously for very sick patients, but the takeaway is that you can't replicate this by taking a whole bunch of Vitamin C or it doesn't work the same way, and you'll likely have terrible. So I don't recommend. The last thing I wanna say about vitamin C is to discuss the best places you can get it in your diet. 

For whatever reason, we all assume citrus fruits are the highest sources of vitamin C, but that is totally not true. I made a list of foods with the highest levels of vitamin C, so check out the link in the blog post to get the list. But just as one example, an orange has approximately 70 milligrams of vitamin C, whereas a cup of yellow bell peppers has over 300 ku. 

Right. So check out the list of all the best foods to get natural sources of vitamin C to increase your intake. Next, let's talk about zinc. They're understanding that zinc can block coronavirus by inhibiting the virus from replicating more virus. So zinc is blocking a viral replicative process. Now, here's the problem. 

Zinc has to get into our cells in order for it to work, and the amount of zinc we take in that actually gets absorbed is quite small. [00:06:00] But what they understand now is that there is a travel companion that if you consume along with the zinc, it allows the zinc to be absorbed into the cells more easily. 

An example of these travel companions is a polyphenol. Now note, do not get scared. I promise I'm not gonna get too sciencey. But here's what you need to know. A polyphenol are the molecules that give fruits and vegetables all their pretty colors. So what does this mean? The more variety of polyphenols you consume, consume, the better your body can absorb zinc and the more likely you can. 

Any virus from replicating. So the statement you cannot supplement your way out of a bad diet has never been more true than it is now. If you're eating crap all day long and then shoveling zinc and other supplements in, it's not gonna do you much good. You need all those polyphenols from the fruits and vegetables in order to properly absorb a mineral like zinc. 

Now, I mentioned this in the last video, but make sure you never take zinc on an empty stomach because it often causes nausea. And in terms of the dosage, dosage, the doctors in the webinar suggested CH 20 to 30 milligrams of zinc a day. Okay, [00:07:00] so the last thing I wanna talk about is the role the gut is playing in this pandemic. 

Although this virus is causing most of its chaos inside the lungs, they're starting to understand a few new. First of all, the vast majority of immune system resides in the gut, like 80%. So if we're having an immune system crisis right now and we are simply ignoring where 80% of that immune system resides, that's just ludicrous. 

They are starting to understand a fairly large connection between patients with the virus, also having gastrointestinal issues. Along with the fact that they're also seeing a connection that people who have leaky gut aren't faring as well once the virus takes over. So what does this mean? Doing anything you can to support your gut is extremely important. 

I work at length with my clients on healing their gut, and it's way too much to discuss in this. Video, but at the very least, taking probiotics and eating probiotic rich foods is certainly a good place to start. And lastly, let's quickly chat about the whole controversy over taking Advil. I am giving no advice one way or the other, but here's what I think is important to understand the controversy is occurring because some reports [00:08:00] say that taking ibuprofen can dampen the immune system and can prolong or increase risks of complications from viral pneumonia, which of course is coronavirus. 

But the evidence apparently, Super, super strong. However, for all regular people out there who aren't gravely ill, what's important to understand is that all NSAID medications like Advil cause issues to the gut, both to the intestinal lining and to the kidneys and liver. If we think back to the idea of the majority of our immune system residing in the gut, and we know that NSAIDs like Advil cause damage to the gut, this to me is the more important factor to think about, but this is something to think about and understand regardless of cor. 

Taking NSAIDs all the time is not a great idea for the health of your gut and your immune system. Okay, so that was a lot of information and I was talking fast. So let's do a quick recap of what all these doctors are suggesting. For most people. One, taking vitamin D, approximately 2000 IUs per 50 pounds of body weight is recommended. 

As they're understanding that vitamin D levels impact the body as it relates to that whole cytokine storm thing I described in the beginning. [00:09:00] And a reminder, vitamin D is fat soluble, meaning you need to take it with a large meal. Fat so you can properly absorb it. Number two. Taking a thousand to 2000 milligrams of vitamin species ceased sporadically throughout the day is recommended. 

But watch out for loose stool and take a look at my list of how to get vitamin C through food. So many vegetables have way higher vitamin C than citrus fruits, for example. The link is in the blog [email protected] slash blog. Three. Taking zinc can inhibit the viral replicative process, and it is suggested to take 20 to 30 milligrams a day. 

Do not take on an empty stomach and make sure you're eating the rainbow and getting all those polyphenols in your diet so you can more readily absorb zinc as you are taking it. And number four, focus on your gut health as the majority of the immune system resides there. Take a high quality probiotic and eat a diet rich in both prebiotics and prob. 

There are so many things you can do to heal your gut. Check out one of my very first episodes, episode number two, where I give you my gut healing smoothie recipe. Okay, I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion out there. [00:10:00] Please pass us along to anyone you think could benefit from these Cliff. 

This Cliff notes version of the six hour webinar I watched. I'm also posting short little videos on my Instagram page on ideas to make quarantine eating slightly healthier, so check some of those out as well. I truly hope you and your families are faring well during this tumultuous time. As always, thanks for watching.