From the Desk of Dr. Karl R.O.S. Johnson, DC.....

Exhaustive Research Endeavors Aim to Combat Long COVID

Scientists don’t know for sure what causes Long COVID, but the prevalence of the condition and the lack of answers has increased research studies looking for answers.

ClinicalTrials.gov currently lists 386 trials under the search term Long COVID and comments that there is a desperate need for effective long COVID treatments.

COVID 19 is a coronavirus. The coronavirus has one very important component – a spike protein.  It's the key player responsible for how the virus enters your body's cells.

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COVID-19 can sometimes overwhelm young and old immune systems and in some cases can result in ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome’ pneumonia and death (CDC (2020). The risk is greater for older people who may simultaneously be dealing with cancers, heart disease, diabetes, emphysema or other health issues.  As we age the immune system deteriorates  (immunosenescence) which reduces the response of the adaptive immune system that needs to respond to the virus infection (Aw, Silva & Palmer, 2007; Osttan, Monti, Gueresi, et al., 2016).

Severity of disease may depend upon initial dose of the virus

In a brilliant article, How does the coronavirus behave inside a patient? We’ve counted the viral spread across peoples; now we need to count it within people, assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and cancer physician Siddhartha Mukherjee points out that severity of the disease may be related to the initial dose of the virus.  Namely, if you receive a very small dose (not too many virus particles), they will infect you; however, the body can activate its immune response to cope with the infection.  The low dose exposure act similar to vaccination.  If on the other hand you are exposed to a very high dose then your body is overwhelmed with the infection and is unable to respond effectively.  Think of a forest fire. A small fire can easily be suppressed since there is enough time to upgrade the fire-fighting resources; however, during a fire-storm with multiple fires occurring at the same time, the fire-fighting resources are overwhelmed and there is not enough time to recruit outside fire-fighting resources.

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This blog is based upon research on breathing that Dr. Erik Peper, Ph.D. began in the 1990s, This  research helped identify dysfunctional breathing patterns that could contribute to illness. He developed coaching/teaching strategies with biofeedback to optimize breathing patterns, improve health and performance (Peper and Tibbetts, 1994; Peper, Martinez Aranda and Moss, 2015; Peper, Mason, and Huey, 2017).

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Because of the Corona virus scare, people have been asking what they can do about it.  In addition to being a doctor of chiropractic, I'm also a certified clinical nutritionist, certified functional medicine practitioner and have been helping chronically ill people for 36 years.

Who is at risk with the Corona virus?  Those whose immune systems are compromised, and people who are malnourished.  Also, older people are more susceptible. If you are not immunocompromised or malnourished, you aren't going to die.  And there is no reason to panic.

Here's some of the things you CAN do:

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