The Coronavirus, COVID-19, has become a world-wide concern and it's finding its way into all our daily conversations, social media feeds, Facebook pages and our TV news shows.

This virus has impacted much of the way we now live and interact with one another, leaving many feeling alone and fearful. I feel supporting your immune system with the correct foods, supplements and following CDC guidelines are absolutely vital.

Why do viruses like the Coronavirus COVID-19 make us sick and how dangerous is it really?

What foods should I eat to keep my immune system strong?

What are the supplements I should take and why?

What are the specific supplement products that I recommend?

Why do viruses like the corona virus make us so sick?

It's actually the inflammation that is produced by the human body in response to these kinds of viruses that makes people sick not the virus itself per se. Meaning, it's your own body that makes you sick in response to killing the virus not really the virus.

So how do we help our bodies kill the virus without our bodies killing themselves in the process? Well, you are about to find out!

The Corona Diet

What foods should I eat to keep my immune system strong?

Essentially the goal is to eat foods high in the below nutrients, especially vitamin C, but are low in sugar. Sugar destroys the immune system. We also want foods that lower specific cytokines (IL-6).

Foods such as:

• Vegetables:

  • Kale, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, asparagus and radishes.

• Fruits:

  • Kiwi, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, mango, apple and brown pear.

• Nuts and seeds:

  • Hemp seeds, chia seeds and flax seeds (more for women than men)

• Grains:

  • Gluten free oatmeal

  • Organic black rice

• Animal Protein:

  • Wild caught salmon, wild caught tilapia, sardines, wild caught calamari and wild caught octopus.

What are the supplements I should take and why?

Here's a list of the supplements and right below the list is why you should take each one.

• Mushrooms

  • Fui-Ling

  • Maitake

  • Shiitake

  • Reishi

  • Turkey Tail

• Vitamin D3

• Zinc

• Selenium

• Vitamin C--as mineral ascrobates with bioflavonoids not as ascorbic acid

Mushrooms

Maybe the topic of the Coronavirus is not super fun but these fungi might put a smile on your face after all...LOL

• Fui-Ling--has been shown in clinical research to raise the production of certain substances called cytokines. Certain cytokines help the white blood cells fight infection more effectively, as well as, play a role in the inflammation and tissue healing response. (5).

• Maitake and Shiitake--where found in clinical research to significantly stimulate the immune system's defense reactions. In all cases studied, the most active was the Maitake-Shiitake combination, with Maitake alone being the second strongest, followed by Shiitake on its own. (6)

• Turkey Tail--Is a very strong immune-stimulating mushroom. It contains a substance called PSK, which has been studied for decades and has been show to increase the number of cancer-killing immune cells and in a review of 1,094 patients with colorectal cancer found that patients who received PSK were less likely to have recurrent cancer and lived longer than those who did not. (7)

• Reishi--contains certain antioxidants that are able to be absorbed quickly after ingestion, which resulted in an increase the amount of antioxidant activity seen in the blood. These antioxidants are very important and I'll discuss them more below.

Vitamin D3

It's D-day for you Coronavirus because my family and I will be protected with high quality D3!

• Vitamin D3 has a direct impact on over 200 different genes many of which effect the immune system. (8)

• Vitamin D3 helps to cause the white blood cells to eat up foreign invaders and may improve important immune substances such as, definsin B. (8)

• Vitamin D3 may be best to take take with a meal containing fats to improve absorption.

Zinc

I "zinc" I can beat you Coronavirus because we are all taking a high quality zinc supplement.

• A 2015 analysis of clinical trials found that oral zinc helps to reduce the length of colds when taken within 24 hours after symptoms start. (9)

• Essentially, zinc is needed for the development and function of the immune system. If you don't have enough zinc you might have a harder time fighting off the Coronavirus and other illnesses.

Selenium

Selenium...um...I don't have a pun or a dad joke for this one...can anyone help.

• When our body has an immunological response to the Coronavirus it creates a lot of free radicals. These free radicals increase inflammation in our body and general tissue damage. It's this tissue damage that is the real cause of many of the symptoms. Selenium helps to reduce the free radicals that get produced in response to the Coronavirus so we want fantastic levels of this mineral.

Vitamin C

I won't C you around my house COVID-19 because we are all going to be protected with vitamin C as mineral and vitamin ascorbates NOT as only ascorbic acid.

• Prepare your body for exposure to COVID-19 by making sure you have enough vitamin C.

• Studies consistently show that vitamin C is beneficial against these types of viruses.^1,2,3,4

• When the immune system attacks the virus, it creates massive amounts of inflammation. Inflammation creates free radicals and vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant, combined with other antioxidants, soak up and absorbs these free radicals, reducing inflammation and keeping the body healthy.

• My opinion, the best form of vitamin C are mineral ascorbates with bioflavinoids not just ascorbic acid that is commonly sold in products. Bioflavinoids are naturally occuring substances

Note: These types of viruses cause your body to burn through vitamin C like a bush fire in the middle of the desert. Loss of vitamin C, combined with high levels of lung inflammation, could cause severe damage to the lungs and allow fluid to accumulate.

The problem with vitamin C as "ascorbic acid."

Ascorbic acid by itself is an inferior version of vitamin C that is theorized to create deficiencies in the human body. Meaning, no one on the planet has ever eaten an orange and consumed 500 milligrams of ascorbic acid for that orange. What has happened is they ate the orange and consumed lots of bioflavinoids, vitamins, P and J along with about 60 milligrams of vitamin C.

Nature is built off balance. Our bodies are built off balance. If you have too much fat and no protein or carbs you are going to get sick. If you sit all day long and never move your body you'll develop problems. If you work all the time and never sleep your body will shut down. The body needs balance. We don't just need the ascorbic acid, we need the entire what I call, "Vitamin C Complex." This is made up of various forms of vitamin C as mineral and vitamin ascrobates, as well as, bioflavinoids.

Now with Corona virus, we see lots of concern about it potentially having a higher mortality rate. But please don't freak out as the latest data shows people who are 50 years old and younger really don't have too much to worry about, aside from feeling possibly God-awful for a week or so.

However, the virus does seem to become increasingly dangerous as people progress above 50, which is fairly common for all viruses, especially the flu.

Interestingly enough, it becomes harder for the human body to hold onto vitamin C and other nutrients as we get older. Without sufficient Vitamin C it increases the possibility of an elderly person getting seriously ill from the inflammation created from the infection. If the inflammation is bad enough, it will kill the lung cells and produce fluid to fill in the lungs, which we call pneumonia, effectively drowning the individual.

We can’t make vitamin C, it must come from our diet!! It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, if you don’t have enough vitamin C when you get sick, you will suffer more tissue damage from the immune system’s inflammation.

In a recent article Dr. Rostenberg stated, "If you are too low in vitamin C, and then you get a bad virus like corona (or Ebola, SARS, swine flu, etc.) you will effectively develop scurvy – a disease that killed an estimated 2,000,000 sailors between years 1500 and 1800! Incredibly the main cause of death with scurvy is developing severe pneumonia which is exactly how corona virus kills people too!"

I think you're seeing the connections here?

Essentially the Coronavirus is causing people become to ill from the exact same problem that occurs when we run out of vitamin C.

I recommend having all the below on hand

My supplement recommendations: I recommend having all the below on hand...I do :-)