COVID-19 Blindness: It’s Time to See the Big Picture
There are many things about the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic that are unnerving, and not just for the obvious reasons (being a novel virus that is highly contagious and not yet well understood). I’m not a doctor or researcher, so I’m not going to address those aspects here.
Instead, what I feel compelled to talk about is the blindness. No, it’s not a symptom of the virus, but it is a serious problem within our medical and healthcare system that needs to be addressed. Of course, being here in the USA, everything becomes politicized. So I’ll say upfront, this is not a political argument (though somehow I’m sure someone will manage to turn it into one).
What this is, is an argument for seeing the big picture and coming together to solve our problems. For not throwing proverbial babies out with the bathwater. For not pretending that any of us has all of the answers. And for not assuming that your point of view precludes other points of view from also being right.
So what do we have here?
We have great scientists and doctors from the conventional / allopathic side of medicine busy at work looking for ways to treat, cure and prevent this virus from continuing to ravage our population. This is wonderful. They are smart people. They are working at lightning speed. They are focused on conquering the virus.
We also have purveyors of integrative, alternative and lifestyle medicine calling for us to pay more attention to the preventive aspects — shoring up our immune systems with better diet, exercise, stress management and the use of vitamins, herbs, nutraceutical supplements and alternative treatments. This is also wonderful. They are also smart people. They are bringing up really important issues related to prevention and potentially new and adjunct treatments for the virus.
And there are functional medicine practitioners and leaders like Jeffrey Bland, PhD, Patrick Hanaway, MD and Mark Hyman, MD who are calling for doing all of the above.
The core of this issue is that there really are two parts to this pandemic: there’s the virus and there’s the host (the person who potentially gets it). And it seems like too few people are considering both in a robust way.
The virus cannot survive without a host. A strong host is less likely to succumb to the virus. And the virus cannot spread if the host isn’t distributing droplets that have the virus in them to other potential hosts. That much we know.
If we are only looking at the virus side of the equation and not paying attention to the host, we are, quite literally, only looking at half of the problem. Likewise, if we’re only focused on the host and not considering the very real severity and highly contagious nature of this novel virus, we are still only looking at half of the problem. We need to address both.
The blindness that is preventing us from doing what needs to be done comes from the refusal to listen to people on the other side. It’s a blindness borne of the cock-sure attitude that whatever side one is on is the one that has the answers. In this culture of “us and them,” we have come to expect this dichotomy. And it is, quite literally, killing us. Now, more than ever, we need all aspects of medicine and wellness to come together in order to pull the world out of this viral tailspin.
We are still learning about the virus and how and why it affects people so differently, from no symptoms to dead within days. There is an immediate and urgent need for the conventional medical approach to look for effective treatments, to develop a safe vaccine (if possible), to find the most expeditious and helpful ways to keep people alive in the hospital.
Their advice for the rest of us is to protect ourselves and other people by wearing a mask and socially distancing. We must flatten the curve so we don’t overwhelm the ICUs and to buy us some time to figure this thing out. We rely on science to make discoveries and help us find our way through. This is the acute care stuff that scientific research and allopathic medicine are really good at.
But what’s also clearly coming out of the research so far is that the severity of this rapidly spreading virus appears to be directly related to the host’s health status and pre-existing conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular issues and high blood pressure — all of which are chronic issues that fall squarely in the realms of preventive, alternative and lifestyle medicine.
Yet I rarely see the aspect of strengthening the host coming up in the articles, speeches and media stories about the latest efforts to combat the virus. Perhaps that’s because we’re approaching it like combat, like a war where it’s all about the enemy and the weapons, instead of approaching it like a multi-faceted public health emergency.
Likewise, I see some people on the alternative medicine side treating this more like a cold war, where conspiracy theories flourish and create doubt about science, media and our public institutions. In some cases this distrust has been earned (more on that later). Honestly, both sides could do better.
That’s why we need functional medicine now, more than ever.
Functional medicine is systems medicine. True functional medicine is deeply rooted in science and it’s not an either/or between allopathic and alternative medicine. It encompasses both, but it’s much more than integrative medicine because it has an underlying operating system and methodology. (It should be noted that some people who market themselves as doing functional medicine don’t follow its basic tenets; they do not represent the field at large.)
Functional medicine practitioners may be MDs, DOs, NDs, DCs, RNs, NPs or any type of licensed healthcare professional (and there are Functional Medicine Certified Health Coaches as well, although we don’t diagnose or treat disease). What functional medicine professionals have in common is they recognize that there are complex root causes for disease — be it acute or chronic — and work to alleviate those upstream issues, not just treat the symptoms.
While the coronavirus is in today’s headlines, and will be for a while, the most prevalent health issues today relate to chronic illnesses. And now we know that this virus does as well.
Functional medicine looks at the whole person in order to determine how and why things are out of whack. They look at underlying issues with immune, cardiovascular, digestive, hormonal and other bodily systems. And the underlying, upstream contributors to these things usually have to do with a combination of:
- lifestyle (how we live, what we eat and drink, how we sleep, how much physical activity we get each day, how we manage stress, etc.),
- environment (air, water, soil, indoor home and work spaces, toxins, pollution as well as social determinants of health including racial and income inequalities, food deserts, lack of access to good healthcare, social stigmas that create stress, etc.), and
- genetics & epigenetics (how our genes predispose us to certain conditions, how they affect our ability to detoxify certain drugs and chemicals, and if/how some genes are modified depending on our lifestyle and environment).
This is complex heady stuff. And it is the most effective way of approaching overall health and wellness — from prevention to treatment and reversal of illness.
And it’s the perfect model for looking at the host and exploring how and why this virus affects people so differently. For example, the fact that Black people, Hispanic people and Native American people are more likely to succumb to COVID-19 has a lot to do with the environment and social determinants of health, as populations who may be disproportionately earning lower incomes and living in toxic and polluted areas, food deserts, areas with poor healthcare, etc. — on top of the ongoing, lifelong stress of racial inequality and quite possibly genetic issues we haven’t yet uncovered.
Functional medicine addresses all of these things. Functional medicine doesn’t assume that allopathic medicine is wrong — rather, most functional medicine doctors prescribe drugs, surgery or other interventions when they are the best course of action to address a health issue. And they’ll use herbs and supplements, lifestyle and food-as-medicine to address patient needs as well.
Doctors can’t solve deeply entrenched social issues on their own, but functional medicine practitioners are among the most outspoken and action-oriented when it comes to addressing issues like healthy food availability and healthy communities.
And, most of all, what I love about the leaders of functional medicine is that they are voices of reason in this crazy COVID-19 world. They see that this pandemic must be addressed both in terms of the virus and the host.
A call to action…
For the conventional medicine/allopathic side: To continue marching forward without considering how diet, lifestyle and environment are impacting the ongoing spread and severity of this virus is operating with blinders on. Do we need to find new drugs and vaccines? YES! But we also need to take the blinders off and start dealing with the host — because this virus isn’t as likely to kill people if the host is healthy.
We need functional approaches that look at the whole person. We need to take seriously the research that has been done all over the world and the promising COVID-19 treatments and approaches compiled by the Institute for Functional Medicine. There’s a treasure trove of great stuff in there.
For the alternative/holistic side: I’ve long been a supporter of exploring alternative medicine approaches — after all, this is how progress happens, by looking broadly with an open mind and seeing what works. Many excellent alternative practitioners have spent years fighting for legitimacy in an allopathic-dominated medical world.
It’s because of that struggle, and the need to bring new approaches into the medical toolkit, that I have been very disturbed recently by some people who call themselves alternative or holistic (or even functional) practitioners who are actively pushing an anti-science agenda among their followers on social media. While they may rightfully promote lifestyle and natural medicine as a way to help prevent the virus, some also say the virus is being over-hyped and we should just let our immune systems sort it out. Some take it a step further and advocate for not wearing masks (even actively promoting that masks are dangerous). And some, at the far end of that spectrum, have put their faith in conspiracy theories over science, promoting highly politicized rhetoric that has its roots in places like QAnon and pushes the narrative that the virus is a nefarious plot by the “deep state” to get us all vaccinated and microchipped.
Sadly, by refusing to accept the scientific evidence and social realities of this virus — and by refusing to acknowledge that allopathic medicine has an important role to play here too — these more extreme points of view are creating more fodder for the skeptics who try to paint all holistic and lifestyle approaches as quackery. This is not helping anyone see the light.
To be fair, there are some valid concerns about the power of corporate interests and so-called “big pharma” in influencing our healthcare options. The opportunity to make huge profits from pharmaceuticals is an undeniable force in our capitalist society, and it has led, at times, to toxic chemicals, bad drugs and questionable vaccines getting into the market without adequate testing and oversight. But that doesn’t make all drug or vaccine development evil. It just means we need more rigorous testing and oversight by a government that is committed to public health over crisis profiteering.
And we need to consider that every host — every person — is different when it comes to drugs and vaccines as well — some people have genetic or other underlying conditions that make them more likely to have adverse reactions to drugs and vaccines, and one size does not fit all. This has to be considered in the mix.
This is a time to come together. It’s time to pay attention to the functional medicine leaders who are unpacking what’s going on in a big-picture, systems-thinking way that is reasonable, understandable and, I believe, imperative for both sides to listen to.
I hope we all can learn to look past our own blinders, whatever they may be, in order to remain open and receptive to different approaches. Because we need all the great minds across the spectrum of science and medicine to work together to solve the great problem before us.
Jennifer Allen Newton is a writer, communications consultant, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach and Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach. She enjoys exploring the interplay of health, environment and technology.
