Living A Full Life

Immune Defense Revival: Your COVID Protection Plan

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 40

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That familiar feeling of dread is creeping back as COVID cases rise once again—but take a deep breath. This time, we're not starting from scratch. We've learned, adapted, and now have the tools to face this challenge with confidence rather than fear.

The current surge features the LP 8.1 variant, which presents differently than previous waves. With fewer hospitalizations and respiratory complications, we're seeing the natural evolution of the virus as it adapts to human hosts. While media outlets might amplify anxiety, understanding the science behind viral mutations can help put this surge in perspective. As Dr. Dolcecori explains, all viruses mutate as they encounter new environments—it's simply Darwin's law applied to microscopic organisms.

Your strongest defense begins with daily habits that nurture your immune system. Quality sleep (7-9 hours) restores crucial immune cells. Regular movement strengthens your cardiovascular system and immune response. Proper hydration—especially during these record-breaking heat waves—requires both water and electrolytes to replace what's lost through increased perspiration. Stress reduction through breathwork, meditation, or prayer counteracts the immunity-suppressing effects of stress hormones.

Nutritional support forms the next layer of protection. Year-round vitamin D supplementation serves as a crucial nutrient transporter throughout your body. Vitamin C shortens cold duration, while zinc supports white blood cell production—particularly valuable during back-to-school season. Probiotics should be cycled every 2-3 months to optimize gut health without creating bacterial imbalances. Environmental strategies like HEPA filters, proper handwashing, and humidity control complete your defense system.

The emotional component shouldn't be overlooked. Many experience a form of PTSD when hearing about rising COVID cases, but living in fear undermines the very immunity we're trying to strengthen. Instead, focus on empowerment—small daily habits that make the difference between a minor inconvenience and a week in bed. Share this knowledge with anyone feeling anxious about the latest headlines and remember: you don't need to wait for pharmaceutical interventions to take meaningful action today.

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Speaker 1:

It feels like deja vu, doesn't it? Covid cases are rising again, but this time we're not powerless. You have tools, simple natural things you can do to keep your immune system strong and lower your risk for you and your family. Welcome to another week of Living a Full Life Podcast. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori, and, yeah, covid is spiking again. I was hoping I would never have to say COVID-19 in my lingo ever again, but here we are. Realistically, we're going to be saying it for the next 20 years.

Speaker 1:

All new viruses that are manufactured in labs let's just be honest, it's the only real way they're happening or mutate in the wild and come into the human population will continue to mutate because we're a new species with new DNA and as it adapts, viruses adapt. They mutate and try to adapt to their environments. As we kill them off quicker, they try and adapt and survive in other hosts. It's just what viruses do. It's a common cold. There's 800, 900 strands of the common cold and flus that we know of that, we know of that are out there and have been around for a long time, and this isn't the first time we've had a new virus introduced into the population that starts to mutate. It just it happens Swine flu, bird flu as long as we continue having labs around the world that have game to function research, this is going to keep happening. But whenever a new virus comes out, it takes about 20 years to go through all the mutations and what ends up happening is a lot of those variants, like the one that we're on now, the LP 8.1, that's the variant that's going around right now. All these variants, the strong ones stay around and they become the viruses that we know of, and the other ones die off and they don't really, because they don't survive. That's that's Darwin's law, right, survival of the fittest, and it applies to every organism on Earth, and that's what ends up happening with viruses. We've seen this 30, 40 years of I'm only alive 40 years. That's what I know, that I've seen over my lifetime and the changes in the studies that we've done in research through pathology, that this continues to happen. So no fear there, this time we're knowledgeable, right, and this is just a quick update on COVID-19 and the things that we talked about back in 2020, before the vaccines were even out, on how to keep yourself and your family strong. We're going to review those things. I don't think we're seeing the resurgence, like we're going to see when we saw in 2021.

Speaker 1:

This is not respiratory, it's not taking over people's lungs, it's not causing breathing issues, it's not loss of smell, it's not really attacking. The same way, everyone has probably been through COVID or vaccinated or whatever, exposed themselves to the virus one way or another. So I think, as the herd immunity theory applies, it's there around the world, I think. I think we're there. So it's going to be very different. There's rising cases that are happening right now and if it wasn't for my patients coming in asking more regularly these questions, I wouldn't have known. So I researched, it went to the news and, yes, the news is loving this. They're eating this up right now. Media is loving it.

Speaker 1:

Um, this, you know, while we wait for vaccines and medicine, the strongest protection starts with our own health habits. Just like last time, it's always going to start with you. If you're going to wait for someone else to manage your health well, you're doomed. You're doomed. If you're waiting for someone else to take care of your finances, you're doomed. If you're waiting for someone else to take care of your spirituality, you're doomed. If you're waiting for someone else to take care of your family, you're doomed. If you're waiting for someone else to take care of your health, you're doomed. You're doomed. You have to do this stuff. This is the point of these podcasts, and everything is to just inspire and give you some vigor about health. So you need to do this. While we wait for this stuff, the strongest protection starts with your own daily habits. So this surge is different.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about what's going on in the news a little bit Hospitalizations not really happening. It's more about spread and symptoms that are happening right now. The natural immunity is there. The media is actually talking about it. Lifestyle defense matters more now than ever because people are exposed to it. So I think, as it's back to school season, parents are bringing their kids back to school Now. They're watching the news and they're coming in like wait, hang on a second. I'm bringing my kid to school. Covid's going around. They're going to bring it back to the house. They're going to spread it to the family. Everyone's freaking out. It's like PTSD from 2021. They're like, oh my gosh, here we go again. It's not going to be like that. So here's some things that we need to do right now for a natural and some practical steps that you can take right in and just reminding you, you probably know 90% of this, but that 10% that you forget will really help Lifestyle foundations. Get back into the school routine. Get back into the sleep routine. Seven to nine hours of sleep If your kids are younger, they can do a little bit more it restores your immune cells. It restores your T cells and your killer cells. These are really important in immunity. So sleep, prioritize sleep. Movement got to go for a walk every day. Got to get the cardiovascular system moving. You got to strengthen their immune response with movement.

Speaker 1:

Hydration, man, it's been a hot summer around the world record-breaking in Europe, record-breaking in North America. Hydration is really important. Yes, you got to drink your gallon of water per day. This is just to help you perspire and push urine and waste products out of the body. That's not hydration. Hydration is mineralization into the body. That's it bringing the salts into your body and we consider magnesium, sodium chloride, all these things as salt. So all of these things is what's called electrolytes. We need to keep our electrolytes up, especially during the summer months, because we just perspire all the time. Even if you're in an air-conditioned building, you're going to perspire more because the hotter temperature difference there is outside to inside temperature difference there is outside to inside. If you're going from 34 degrees Celsius outside to 20 degrees Celsius inside, or from 95 degrees Fahrenheit outside to 71 degrees Fahrenheit inside, we have now a massive shift in temperature of 25 degrees 14 degrees Celsius, change which creates humidity responses in there, which makes you perspire more. So summer we just sweat more. So you've got to hydrate more.

Speaker 1:

Stress reduction, breath work, prayer, meditation, slowing down this stress hormone is an issue with our immunity. Stress will just make us more susceptible to getting sick. There you go. Quick recap on the lifestyle foundations that we really need to focus on, but let's get into the depth of this, of the nutrition. What are the things we need to bring back If you stop?

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we go through seasonal things, like with vitamin D. There's this fairytale belief of like vitamin D you take in the winter and you don't need to take in the summer. No, you take it every single day, 365 days a year. Vitamin D, you know? Sunlight, yes, we get it, but we're not walking around naked all day. And if you do, let me know how you've done this without getting arrested. But let me know if you're getting enough sunlight, because we're all clothed, we're not getting enough sunlight. This is critical for respiratory defense. Vitamin D is pretty much the catalyst that brings around all nutrition through the body and minerals, and it's a massive transporter for many things. So when we're deficient it's like not having enough semi trucks in your body to move the goods. So vitamin D plays a huge role in that.

Speaker 1:

Vitamin C absolutely through citrus, through vitamin C supplements, bell peppers, berries this shortens your cold duration. This has been shown and documented through numerous case studies over the last 70 years on vitamin C and what it really does is well, maybe you do it, you take it and you still get sick. You're like, yeah, I'm doing all the right things, why did I get sick? But watch how fast you recover because you did the right things. You'll be out for a day and then you're back at it.

Speaker 1:

Zinc Zinc is great. I've been telling a lot of parents the back to school regimen zinc pumpkin seeds, legumes no one's eating oysters supports white blood cell count, which is your defense system. So in your kids you can do a zinc drink or just get them to take a little bit more zinc right now, at the before to school week, the first couple weeks of school and everyone's now sharing all their boogers, that's the time to put the zinc in, and then you're getting back to your immune boosting stuff Acai, elderberry syrup whatever it is that you're taking and giving your kids it's tasty that works really well. Elderberry is shown to reduce severity and duration of colds as well, because it's a high antioxidant concoction of berries and good stuff that helps support your immune system.

Speaker 1:

Probiotics I think this is one that always gets forgotten. Probiotics should be around all the time and we talked about we have about three podcasts on probiotics. So just go into the search feed on the podcast on Spotify or wherever you're listening to this, and put in probiotics. You'll see the two or three pop right to the top Great ones. These are some of our most popular podcasts and we want to cycle them. So we want to go through a cycle of probiotics stop, let our gut adapt and then bring in a different probiotic and we cycle this. So two to three months on one, depending on the dosage of the container that you buy. If you buy a 90 day supply or 60 day supply, you go through it for 60 days, you're off of it for 60 days and then you get a different one for 60 days to just change the cultures that you're putting into your body. Once you cycle through this over a couple years, you'll know the ones that are good for you and the ones that are not, the ones that kind of gave you some upset stomach or the cultures that you probably didn't need or maybe created some overgrowth. Then you stay away from those and you pick your three winners and you just cycle through those and that's the best way to regulate gut health.

Speaker 1:

Garlic and ginger add these to your cooking. These are just fantastic. Put them in there. Eat with garlic. If you're Italian, you're set, you're all good. Green tea using the EGCG compounds inside of green tea support antiviral immunity. This is more for adults because green tea typically contains a little bit of caffeine in that. Don't have to give it to your kids. But all these little things work really well. So the snippet of this podcast is bringing back your vitamin D dosing, vitamin C and probiotics. Those are the three highlights I want you to walk away as your doctor. I might not be your doctor, but as a doctor, listening to me is those are the three things I want you to walk away from.

Speaker 1:

Air quality, environmental defense Well, pathogens and viruses love to be spread through the air through contact, and air quality plays a big role. Making sure you have HIPAA filters or HEPA filters in the house is really important, opening your windows if you can. In Florida it's a great way to get mold in the house because of the humidity. You just really can't do that right here. But getting some fresh air, you know getting the house. So in Florida and in the southern states you want to be using good filter systems, both in the house filter that filters the air handler, and two in the rooms. You want to be using HEPA filter, air filter in bedrooms, in major living spaces, and cycle those through. Make sure you change those filters. Read the package on how often you need to do that. Those are really important. Measel rinses and saline sprays to just keep your filtration system clean.

Speaker 1:

Hygiene washing our hands. Going back to that, I did a video. I remember it was like March 25th 2020. And I shot a quick video on how to wash your hands. I'm like am I really doing this? Are my social media followers this stupid? But you're not. It's just a quick reminder. That we spend that extra 10 seconds washing our hands or singing the happy birthday song just ensures that we're giving the soap, the basic compounds that we're putting on our hands, which is the transporter of most viruses because it touches everything. Enough time to kill 99% of everything that are on our hands. If we do a quick rinse with cold water, we may not get all of it. So it was a great tip and I was feeling silly doing it.

Speaker 1:

But going back to that, remembering to wash your hands for that extra 10 seconds with warm water, and then humidifiers humidifiers in humid areas we want to be putting that in sorry. Humidifiers in dry areas, right is where we want to put into our home to help humidify the air. I grew up in Calgary, alberta, dry as dry as dry can be. It's very desert-like conditions, believe it or not, kind of like Arizona, colorado, montana, very dry, and you do need a humidity. It works really well. Humidity feels really good in those areas. But aside from that, if you're other parts of the country, you're probably getting enough humidity in the house and outside the house. You don't need to put too much thought into that. Some more supplements to think of If your family is susceptible to respiratory conditions and these viruses that are mutating and going around.

Speaker 1:

Quercetin is an antioxidant and has antiviral properties. This is something you can add into your diet safe for most people to take, and these are for, like, higher risk areas or if you know there's a outbreak at the school or wherever your work, you may want to put these. Keep these on the shelf so that you have access to them quickly. Nac N-Acetylcysteine supports lung health. I felt like here in my local area, I was one of the first people to bring this in in 2020 at the NAC and telling my older population to take it. The response that was coming back from them whether they had COVID or not, this was in 2020, they were like I can breathe better. It helped me breathe better, helped break down the mucus, it helped me clear out my lungs and even up to today, anyone comes in with some lung issues. I tell them NAC if they're over the age of 50, all of them come back within a week or two telling me that's amazing, like I feel like I'm getting stuff out. So that's how that works for the respiratory. It also has some great properties throughout the body as well.

Speaker 1:

And omega-3s Please eat your omega-3 supplements. It's anti-inflammatory and it supports your overall immunity Really important with the omega-3s. Just because we can't get these oils enough in our diet. Unless you do, unless you've truly measured this and know you're getting enough, you're eating the right oils, you're getting some salmon, you're getting fish almost daily, it's part of your diet, then you're probably doing pretty well. Almost daily it's part of your diet, then you're probably doing pretty well.

Speaker 1:

There is an emotional side to getting sick too, which I like to talk about, and we have to acknowledge fatigue. This isn't about living in fear about COVID coming back. Please do not. Please do not do this. I know it's PTSD for all of us as a culture and a society, and when we hear that it's going to be looked back on 20 years from now as the same effects of World War II or maybe even the Vietnam War, when we look back at this and the amount of stress it caused on our society, so when we hear this there's going to be a trigger right COVID-19.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh. Everyone kind of figures out, but this isn't about living in fear. It doesn't help you to be fearful and what's going to happen. There was people that truly got hurt eating or getting COVID-19. So we need to be on top of that too. People have been hurt. Their families were hurt. People have lost people. People did die because of this, just like the flu. So it instills fear in families as well. So people know people that have been hurt by it and people are living with long COVID man. They don't want to hear this right. They don't want to hear any of this. So living in fear doesn't help us. It's about living empowered, and now we have a lot of control we can use to help ourselves live healthier. Small daily habits can make the difference between a mild sniffle and a really bad week in bed. So do the right things, take care of yourself and you'll notice how strong you really are from the inside out.

Speaker 1:

Vaccines that they're talking about may be available by mid-September, but the vaccine boosters that have been going around it's kind of paused in 2025 here we haven't heard much about the, but up until 2024, we had all the boosters coming out. I think the trust issue overall around the world just went down. So the utilization of the boosters went way down, crashed and not real much change, with infectious rates and critical morbidity rates and hospitalizations around the world from that. So I think the rage about it is down. But they're saying for the LP8.1 virus that's coming out. Sorry, that's out. The vaccine in mid-September might be out.

Speaker 1:

So for those of you that utilize that type of medicine, they are coming out for you. So there's something to look forward to. That's more to manage your stress. For the rest of you, like me, you're like I'm going to do all the right things and COVID may be rising again, but you don't need to wait for the next shot in your arm to take your action. Your kitchen, your sleep, your habits these are all tools that give you resilience.

Speaker 1:

Share this episode with anyone that's been a little bit spooked with the recent news, because they like to watch the news every day. I didn't know anything about it till last week when patients were coming in and then some patients were missing appointments, you know a couple of weeks ago, like sorry, I had COVID, I didn't want to come in and spread it. I'm like, oh, interesting, I didn't even know it was going around again. So I looked at it and I looked it up and I'm like well, 34 out of the to be a little bit of a wow factor for you if you don't listen to the news. But nothing to fear, you're probably doing, like I said, 80 of this stuff already. That extra 20 may just be the things that you need to help prevent you and your family from suffering from any of this or being out for too long and impacting your life much.

Speaker 1:

We're all going to get a cold. We're all going to get a flu. What we need to do is minimize the amount of symptoms we get so that we can just live through it. Have a great and healthy week. If you have any questions, reach out to us at info at fulllifetampacom. We love answering questions. Thanks for listening. Share this podcast. I know you already thought of one person that needs to hear this. Go ahead and share it with them. That's how we get more listeners and more people listening to this. And if you have any topics you want us to talk about, again, info at fulllifetampacom. Send us your comments and shares and we'll be more than happy to touch on those topics as well. Stay well, stay healthy, take care.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host