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pathway is part of the pathology of COVID-19. Vitamin D thing, to be able to get significant amounts of these
is one of the things that’s shown to modulate ACE2 and different nutrients when everything’s out of season. And
keep the ACE/ACE2 ratio in the center; because it’s that vitamin D does not really come from food and it’s in the
ratio of ACE and the ACE2 keeps things stable. But sun supply, and the sun supply is extremely low right now.
because the ACE2 is where the coronaviruses are actually
docking to, some people are afraid to supplement Vitamin IMCJ: What about the mineral side, like magnesium, zinc,
A and D, which support that receptor. But the virus lowers those types of things?
the activity of the ACE2 receptor, and that’s part of why
those pathologies, which already are impacted in the Dr Shade: Oh, zinc is a huge one. Magnesium and zinc,
ACE2, those pathologies are showing the worst zinc is the biggest one for the immune system; it’s all over
manifestation. People with those pre-existing conditions different immune reactions, I had read that selenium is
are showing the worst pathology of the virus, and so contraindicated for COVID, but I didn’t get the mechanism
anything to help control that is going to control the there, so I don’t really know. But zinc, yeah; you go into a
inflammatory response. store, a health food store and the zinc section is all
Vitamin D does that, vitamin C is very good for that, completely sold out. Magnesium is not as powerful for the
and one of the things that’s emerged has been melatonin; immune system as zinc, but it is super important. And one
and melatonin is very big at controlling the very extensive of the things that people have to do now is not panic so
inflammatory reactions that happen as you get deeper into much, not stress so much and just sleep a lot. There you
the disease, and some of the people that brought this out can see things like CBD and GABA and magnesium,
referred to melatonin levels in children, which are vastly, things that calm you down, have this other need, and that’s
vastly higher than in older people. They’re even much to get your body out of this sympathetic fight or flight
higher than people in their thirties, and the youngest situation.
people are the ones who have almost no symptomology
from the COVID, from the coronavirus. IMCJ: Right now we’re in the crisis mode, because we’re
So, those have been big in control, and then you’ll trying to avoid a fourth of our population coming down
find that CBD is really big. CBD is affecting the cannabinoid with the COVID virus, but reality is probably a fourth of
receptors and the CB2 receptor is very big at dimming them are and hopefully 90% of them are going to survive
down the excess inflammation. Now, they’re finding just fine. But what’s going to happen six months from now,
things that are immune suppressants, like ibuprofen, when this thing rears its ugly head again?
worked very negatively in these cases and allowed the
virus to penetrate much deeper because the inflammation Dr Shade: Yeah, well... These are things we don’t know,
is your body’s reaction and attack back against the virus. theoretically everybody who had it the first time is going
So, you don’t want to stop inflammation, but you want to to be immune the second time. They’re already talking
control it, so the most extreme manifestations of about taking antibodies from people who survived it, and
inflammation don’t happen. And so we’ll see, as we move you know... Plasmapheresis to get IgG from people who
into that side of managing patients, it’ll be around survived it, and give it over to people who are sick, or
managing inflammation. And just to reiterate, it’ll be people who are at risk. So, second time around is one of
vitamin D, C and Glutathione, I believe will come to be a the things we don’t know. Because there have been reports
big player there along with Melatonin and CBD. Also of people getting it a second time, but maybe that was just
molecular hydrogen is showing promise. That’s been that it had gone dormant and then it raised itself back up,
researched in China and is showing a lot of ability to or they didn’t know what virus it actually was the first time
control that runaway inflammation in a similar fashion to or misdiagnosis the second time. But when it does come
melatonin. back, which it likely will, I think we’ll know a lot more
about which populations were not infected or which
IMCJ: And so most of these nutrients that you’re talking populations had totally mild, minor symptoms and what
about there, are things that we should get in our food was their lifestyle like versus the one that had a really hard
supply, but is there just not any way we can get enough of time.
it? So, hopefully good information propagates quickly
and when we get back into the winter again, when this
Dr Shade: Well, it’s hard to get really relevant amounts of thing will probably raise its head again, hopefully we’ll be
all of these things unless you’re really spending a lot of better prepared for that.
time getting a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables from
different areas. All that stuff’s out of season right now in IMCJ: You mentioned a little bit about the CBD side, this
North America, so you’re going to have to move stuff in is probably one of the first conditions that CBD has been
from the rest of the world and concentrate it down. So, this around legally for, that we could use to fight it.
is an example of where supplementation is really a great

Shade—Immune Support Integrative Medicine • Vol. 19, No. 2 • April 2020 39