Page 10 - IMCJ April 2020

CREATING SYNTHESIS

Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic

Jeffrey S. Bland, PhD, FACN, FACB, Associate Editor

Abstract
There is an emerging understanding that the severity of therefore play a significant role in determining both the
viral infections is not only related to the nature of the infectivity and pathogenicity of viruses. Once identified,
viral vector, but also to various social and biological these factors lend themselves to specific personalized
factors, a number of which can be modified. The intervention. This intervention focuses on renewal of
recent COVID-19 pandemic raises the issue as to immune system function through diet, activity, fluid
what approaches might be important in reducing the intake, sleep, intestinal microbiome composition, and
severity of future viral pandemics beyond that of the stress management. As more is learned about the factors
pursuit of specific immunization to the vector and the that influence the function of specific components
development of drugs to treat its unique mechanism of the immune system, it becomes more evident that
of replication. There is now evidence that lifestyle and these modifiable factors have significant impact on the
environmental factors can serve as immunoadjuvants. individual response to a viral exposure.
Personalized lifestyle and environmental factors may

Jeffrey S. Bland, PhD, FACN, FACB, is the president and people globally have been infected with the virus since it
founder of the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute in was identified, and of those, 32 million have died. It’s
Seattle, Washington. He has been an internationally important to understand that this is still very much an
recognized leader in nutrition medicine for more than active and unresolved medical crisis that impacts people
25 years. Dr Bland is the cofounder of the Institute for all over the world. In 2018, 34 million people were
Functional Medicine (IFM) and is chairman emeritus of reported to be infected and 770 000 deaths were recorded.
IFM’s Board of Directors. He is the author of the 2014 book Although there is no immunization to prevent HIV
The Disease Delusion: Conquering the Causes of Chronic infection nor is there a drug that truly eliminates it,
Illness for a Healthier, Longer, and Happier Life. somehow the passage of time, and perhaps also the
awareness that antiretoviral drugs are used for treatment,
has somehow dampened concerns about this virus in the
I clearly remember the day in 1982 when my thinking United States and other western countries.
about viral infections shifted from one point of view to Today, as I write this, the world is grappling with the
another in the space of time it took me to listen to a coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This is also an
lecture. I was living in Northern California then, and infection involving a mutant RNA retrovirus, but
participating in a sabbatical year at the Linus Pauling fortunately it is less pathogenic than HIV. Public health
Institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto. As I sat in crises like HIV and COVID-19 can prompt an array of
a lecture hall among colleagues, a prominent young cultural changes. It should never be forgotten that many
physician from the University of San Francisco Medical health care workers lost their lives while treating patients
Center stepped up to the podium to give a presentation. with HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s. During that era, fear
His name was Paul Volberding. In July 1981, Dr. Volberding was a constant presence, and indeed we are again seeing
had identified one of the first reported cases of Human widespread fear as we watch the number of COVID-19
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Not long after, cases rise while extreme attempts at control involving
it was determined that HIV was caused by a mutant RNA social distancing and stay-at-home orders are enacted.
retrovirus, and its origins were tracked to transmission Historically it has been the case that truthful information
from animals to humans in Africa. Social contact was a can diffuse anxiety at the cultural level.
hallmark of this virus. Everyone in the room that day was While exploring this concept, I came to recognize that
stunned by Dr. Volberding’s account of the severity of the viral pandemics occur on a regular basis. Here is a look
infection and its infectivity. Nearly 40 years on, data back at the some of the viral pandemics of the last century:
related to HIV continues to be sobering. The World the 1918 flu is estimated to have killed 20 to 30 million
Health Organization reports that more than 75 million people; over two years, 1956 and1957, the Asian flu is

8 Integrative Medicine • Vol. 19, No. 2 • April 2020 Bland—Creating Synthesis