Corona virus and healing: a possible teachable moment?
Can our moment of pause in the eerie light of the corona be also a “teachable moment”?
The sea was wet as wet could be, the sand was dry as dry. You could not see a cloud because no cloud was in the sky. No birds were flying overhead. There were no birds to fly. (Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, 1871)
As the world began to comprehend the measures required to slow the spread of the new pandemic, a sharp decrease in human activity has occurred. In many places, flights and road traffic have been reduced to a minimum, and factories have halted their production of goods for sale as well as such harmful elements as smoke and sewage.
The corona is what we can see when the moon eclipses our sun. Having once experienced a full solar eclipse, these corona days remind me of that strange moment of pause, with its eerie light, cessation of birdsong and disappearance of shadows, with a chill in the heart, a stillness, a wondering what happens next.
As humans went into a fearful and indefinite lockdown, there seemed to be a new stirring of life on plane earth. Reports and images came in of Himalayan peaks visible from the Punjab after a thirty year lapse, of the rare large spotted Malibu civet going for a stroll in broad daylight, of jellyfish and dolphins reappearing in the canals of Venice, of sea turtles thriving on beaches in Florida and Thailand, of breathable air in L.A.
Reports of a planet beginning to heal after so short a time touched the hearts of many, and as we still say, with no trace of irony, these reports have gone viral. Even if these accounts contain a mix of fact and fiction, there may be another message here, and that message is this: we want them to be true.
There is a deeply felt wish for all to be well, for the air to be fresh, for the sky to be clear, for the animals to come back and live their own mysterious lives. There is a yearning for the primordial forest, for the earthly Garden of Eden, and for how it was before. Before what? Before us.
Along with this yearning is an inner admission of the harms to this world, harms that have been done by us, not on purpose but by our heedless way of life. Can these harms really be undone, just like that?
The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking hand in hand. They wept like anything to see such quantities of sand.” If this could all be swept away,” they said, “it would be grand”. “If seven maids with seven mops swept this for half a year, do you suppose,” the Walrus said, “that they could get it clear?” “‘I doubt it, said the Carpenter,” and shed a bitter tear. (Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, 1871)
If the earth is indeed beginning to heal, it is not being achieved by busyness and doing, but rather, by cessation and ‘non-doing’, by reducing emissions and effluents, and giving time and space to the regenerative vitality of natural systems.
I am not an ecologist and I do not claim to understand the intricacies of the web of life on earth. But, as a doctor, I can speak of regenerative processes in the human body that are documented to happen in an analogous way. This is a phenomenon called “disease reversal’, a kind of turning back of the physiological clock.
This term was never used in the long gone days of my medical studies and training, but I hope that it will be part of the foundation of health and medical culture in the future. So, what is disease reversal?
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Dr Dean Ornish and Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, working independently of each other, demonstrated for the first time, regression of atherosclerotic plaques and improvement of severely impaired cardiac function. This was achieved through the elimination of harmful dietary elements, chiefly animal based foods. By relying on whole unprocessed plant foods, patients with advanced and symptomatic coronary artery disease experienced symptom reduction and increased exercise tolerance within weeks. Radiological evidence of plaque reduction was demonstrated at one year and further improvements were observed over time. Patients were able to avoid recommended elective stents and bypasses, and instead of the predicted decline in health, they got better.
This is disease reversal.
Until it was demonstrated, the medical community assumed it was not possible to observe the regression of atherosclerotic plaque and therapy focused on on slowing down the progression of plaque and resorting to surgery to repair critical blockages.
There is currently abundant high quality scientific literature on the subject of disease reversal. One merely has to look. However a recent case history is worth of our attention. This case report, published in BMJ Open, describes an 82 year old man with coronary artery disease, hypertension, recent stent placement following a myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, and subjective brain fog. Many medications were required to keep his physiology balanced. He ate according to the Mediterranean diet, which is what many guidelines recommend, although it remains poorly defined. The case report describes how he transitioned to a whole food, plant diet containing no animal products, and no added oil, sugar or salt. Over a brief period of only 4 months, with medical supervision, he was able to discontinue many medications while increasing his activity, improving metabolic parameters and feeling much better in himself. He said that he felt he got his life back.
Again, disease reversal.
It is commonly understood now that “underlying conditions’ such as hypertension and diabetes, are found in many of the Covid-19 patients who don’t do well. But we should understand that such underlying conditions have the potential to improve. If only given the chance, such ‘intractable’ conditions may be able to dissipate just like the smog over Los Angeles. This can happen when harmful dietary elements are avoided.
Of course we should not be overly simplistic. A few weeks of quiet may let the smog clear, but the plastic continents floating on our oceans will not melt away by themselves in our lifetime. The persistent radioactive poisons from atomic bombs and atomic accidents will not go away in the lifetime of our planet. There still is so much mopping up to be done. This beautiful and benign disease reversal is not the only answer to all planetary and human ills, but neither should it be forgotten, as a powerful possibility and even as a birthright.
Can the sinister and dreaded corona virus help us to see analogous processes at work in planetary and human health? Can our moment of pause in the eerie light of the corona be also a “teachable moment”?
And what happens next?
It is very much in our hands.
Resources:
1. Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, 1871
2. The Lifestyle Heart Trial, D. Ornish et al, Lancet 1990 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PII0140-6736(90)91656-U/fulltext
3. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, C. Esselstyn, www.dresselstyn.com
4. International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention, https://ijdrp.org/index.php/ijdrp