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VIEWPOINTS

Kiran Krishnan: The Microbiome And The Immune System

Interview by Dick Benson

Kiran Krishnan is a Research Microbiologist who has clear, how the virus infects has become much more clear,
been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition and even how it’s spread has become much more clear.
industry for the past 17 years. His early work involved Fairly recent work over the last week has really
hands-on Research and Development in the fields of illustrated the true risks of catching it, depending on the
molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of types of behaviors you’re practicing. So a lot of those
Iowa. He is a frequent lecturer on the human microbiome understandings are different, and I have had to talk
at medical and nutrition conferences and health summits through many of them with doctors and consumers.
and a regular expert guest on national and satellite radio.
He is currently involved in six novel human clinical trials IMCJ: Do you think if we what we know today in March,
on probiotics and the human microbiome. would we have done things differently?

Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ): To Mr Krishnan: Yep. We would have done things differently,
start maybe provide some background on how you have and in general, in my view, I think we’ve responded in the
been involved in education regarding COVID-19. right way because you just don’t know what you don’t
know at that point. It was a scary thing because there were
Mr Krishnan: At Microbiome Labs we found that this was these pockets of infection. The rates of infection were
a natural fit for us because a lot of what we do has going really high, very fast. It seemed like the mortality
everything to do with the structure and function of the rate was quite high, certainly in certain populations, which
immune system. The microbiome and the immune system always scares people when you’ve got a presumed mortality
is one-in-the same in many ways. We can talk about the rate of three percent or four percent. In some cases, Italy
details around that. But the moment this COVID thing was reporting eight, nine percent. That really freaks
hit, and this is even before it was really recognized as a people out. The community spread degree was uncertain,
problem, I started getting interview requests and questions and the virus seemed to simply pop into existence in
about, “Is this a real problem? Tell us about RNA viruses. different places. The infectious curves were starting to
What can we do to defend ourselves?” and all that kind of look really scary and worst case scenario modeling was
stuff. I have done over 35 webinars, podcasts, interviews, showing some really grim outcomes.
etc. on the topic. When you look at how quickly this thing can spread,
We think that the microbiome plays a significant role when they started seeing that ventilators were a big part of
in the impact of COVID-19 and we’re trying to do a little the therapy, that become a big issues because, obviously,
bit more research into that side. we weren’t equipped to handle that much ventilation. And
many of those things, however, have changed. But at that
IMCJ: COVID-19 is less than six months old, have you time, it made sense, and what was good about it is the
seen an evolution and learned a lot, or is it still the same as medical and scientific community really responded fast to
what you thought of back at the end of February, when you this thing. My mind is boggled at the speed of research
first started looking at it? around this. So, we’ve got really good, smart people doing
a lot of important work, and that’s really what will bring us
Mr Krishnan: No, there’s definitely been an evolution. The out of this.
view of the virus is different. The virulence and And here’s another big part of it that is both exciting
pathogenicity of the virus, the view is different. The and a bit of a relief to me, is that I think with this kind of
clearer picture of what makes you more vulnerable to a contagion, functional medicine will play a bigger role in
severe response to this virus, that’s become much more this than allopathic medicine because all of the things that

68 Integrative Medicine • Vol. 19, No. S1 Krishnan—Viewpoints