I notice that my article from last week generated quite a bit of controversy on Facebook. This was not unexpected judging from the very heated debates taking place on the social media. I tried to address some of these concerns in my Facebook response, but perhaps it would be best to spend this week on this blog broadening my response.
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One reader asked what vaccines have to do with healthy living? Everything, actually. We have an incredible immune system which is exquisitely designed to monitor foreign proteins (antigens) that come into the body, recognise those that could potentially cause disease, store memory to protect in the future, and mount an appropriate response to destroy foreign invaders when needed.
An effective immune system is supported by a healthy body – which is the product of a healthy lifestyle – plenty of fibre and phytonutrients to enhance our microbiome; enough exercise, stress management, sleep, and emotional health which ensures efficient and optimum functioning of our body. For ordinary day to day exposure to pathogenic micro-organisms, our body is able to cope quite well.
However, when we are exposed to novel viruses or infections – organisms for which our bodies have not been primed, particularly if they are very virulent, our protective immune systems can very easily be overwhelmed, resulting in the very thing we have witnessed in the world over the last year – pandemics resulting in high infection rates and high morbidity and mortality.
Covid-19 has not been the most virulent pandemic our world has seen, but it is certainly bad enough, in spite of the massive onerous attempts by governments to slow the spread down through lock-downs, social distancing, wearing of masks and decreased social contacts.
Speaking to staff on the front lines of treating Covid patients – the second wave of Covid in South Africa is having a huge effect on their morale, physical and emotional well-being – as they see medical and nursing colleagues, friends and family dying from this disease, in spite of their best efforts.
More and more of my patients have personally experienced Covid-19 – either they themselves having been infected, or close family or friends ending up in hospital or dying. Very few people have not been touched somehow by the disease through death or severe illness of someone they know. I would be interested to see the results of studies measuring antibody levels within the community to assess the level of exposure.
So what does all this have to do with my writing about Covid vaccines on a Lifestyle Medicine blog? Judging from the responses, I sense that many read my previous blog hurriedly, with major preconceptions. It was as if I touched a raw nerve, and I got a very emotionally charged automatic response that I sense is based on some very polarised viewpoints.
Let me be frank. Covid is is a very dangerous disease. Only those who are far removed from the front lines, sitting in the comfort and safety of their homes, endlessly reading/listening to debates about this or that ‘expert opinion’ and all the conspiracy theories, would not agree that there is a crisis.
Those of us who are seeing patients every day, and experiencing the heartache and fear of patients and their loved ones, recognise that we desperately need a lasting solution to overcome this devastating disease.
We have been through the trauma of the first wave, and now the second wave is still very much with us (thankfully there are some signs of reduction in incidence). Unless something dramatic happens, it is predicted by the experts that we could see a third and maybe even a fourth wave.
There is much that is right and wrong with the way this country has handled Covid thus far. Although somewhat flawed and not always transparent, I take my hat off to the leadership of our President and our Health Minister who have certainly done a whole lot better than the previous administration would have done. I shudder to think what might have happened if this pandemic had occurred three years ago.
It is essential that our leaders stand up and be counted, and not allow party politics and political scoring to influence decisions being made for the good of the country. We do need to give appreciation where it is due. I would hate to be in charge at the present.
Nevertheless, those scientists who are in the know (Prof Shabir Madhi who is head of Vaccinology at Wits University is the most eminent), warn us that the government is setting itself an impossible task if it hopes to vaccinate 70% of the population by the end of the year. For one thing the demand for vaccines around the world is enormous, and the ability of manufacturers to produce billions of doses in a few months is just impossible.
South Africa also woke up too late when it came to pre-ordering, so we are near the back of the queue. So at least for anti-vaxxers, by the time South Africa eventually gets around to a mass vaccination campaign, there will be huge experience of the benefits and risks from other countries!
What this does mean is that we better be sure that we are doing everything we can to secure a healthy body through eating a wide variety of protective phytochemicals found in a diverse spread of plant foods, and ingesting also a wide variety of plants containing dietary fibre. Both phytochemicals and dietary fibre help the gut and respiratory tract microbiome to modulate the immune response to Covid-19, and in most cases, we believe, prevent the cytokine storm – the real killer.
By the way, the best way to ensure a healthy, protective microbiome is through a whole-food plant-rich diet, and the best way to counteract a healthy microbiome is through eating an animal-based diet, rich in refined and processed foods.
I plan to revert back next week to our more mundane, and less emotionally charged, discussion of lifestyle factors that prevent and even reverse chronic diseases. The subject will be an introduction to exercise – or lack thereof – and the effect upon health.
Stay safe.
Dave Glass
Dr David Glass graduated from UCT in 1975. He spent the next 12 years working at a mission hospital in Lesotho, where much of his work involved health education and interventions to improve health, aside from the normal busy clinical work of an under-resourced mission hospital. He returned to UCT in 1990 to specialise in obstetrics/gynaecology and then moved to the South Coast where he had the privilege of, amongst other things, ushering 7000 babies into the world. He no longer delivers babies but is still very clinically active in gynaecology. An old passion, preventive health care, has now replaced the obstetrics side of his work. He is eager to share insights he has gathered over the years on how to prevent and reverse so many of the modern scourges of lifestyle – obesity, diabetes, ischaemic heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, common cancers, etc. He is a family man, with a supportive wife, and two grown children, and four beautiful grandchildren. His hobbies include walking, cycling, vegetable gardening, bird-watching, travelling and writing. He is active in community health outreach and deeply involved in church activities. He enjoys teaching and sharing information.
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