Ep. 76: Optimizing Health in the Age of COVID-19 With Dr. Matt Dawson- Physician, Author and CEO of Wild Health

We are delighted to have Dr. Matt Dawson back on Health Gig! He is a physician, the author of two iBooks, Volume I and II of Introduction to Bedside Ultrasound. Dr. Dawson has also created popular apps, videos, and successful businesses to promote health and wellness. Currently he is the Founder/CEO of a genomics based personalized medicine company called Wild Health, where they specialize in providing holistic treatment based on individuals' DNA and other biometrics. As the CEO and Co-Founder of the Kentucky Castle, he dedicates his life to bringing care, attention, and wellness to all. One of his big takeaways from what we can learn in this time of crisis is: “There is never a bad time, but there's also never been a better time to optimize your health.”

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Show Notes

[1:14] The natural resource in our country that I think we really need to support as a group and really help right now, are the frontline providers. So firefighters, police, paramedics, E.R. nurses and techs, people in the ICU.
[1:52] Right now, these paramedics are rushing to a scene to see someone and they have no idea what they're going to get, if they're going to catch Sars-CoV-2 to from this patient or not. And the amount of stress that's on them, I feel like if we as a society could somehow relieve just some stress from them, like if they just don't have to worry about how they're going to feed their family that night or what they're going to eat that day, it's not even just an altruistic thing to do, but it's an investment. Just like we need this resource on the frontlines and we really need to do everything that we can to support them and help them out in any way possible.
[2:54] Maybe just call an E.R. nurse that you know and say, how can I help? That would seem like a little thing. But we're a big nation where over 300 million people, if everyone is doing that, we can really get behind these folks and really make a difference.
[4:10] So on the one hand, we're reporting just the news, what's going on with them. We're also trying to translate some of the medical information coming out where we are right now.
[4:50] When we talk about what's going on in the U.S., it's kind of a misnomer because the U.S. is such a diverse area that's a very different place to place. So one of the benefits we have in the U.S. that I feel like we should really be focusing on is identifying the places like New York or New Orleans and everybody else coming together and supporting those areas, because what will happen is they will get through it. Maybe a month. Not sure exactly when they'll be through their peak. They'll have learned a lot of lessons. And then hopefully I think that they will be there for the rest of the country when it comes.
[5:30] And so we're all going to be affected. We can support and send resources to the places as they're going through it in the worst times. I think that'll be a benefit to all of us.
[6:17] The rural places have a little bit of an advantage being spread out. But at the same time, there are bigger risks because there are more comorbidities. The health outcomes tend to be lower and there are less resources in the community when it comes to hospitals. So a lot of people in rural areas think that they may be unaffected, but I'm anxious to see what happens and kind of worried. Those places may be even worse off in the end per capita than some of the more dense areas.
[8:35] So the goal is to decrease the spread like we're doing, to flatten the curve and simply to buy us time. Even without a vaccine, we all wouldn't get it. What would happen is herd immunity. So the options for getting through this are 60 to 70 percent of the population gets it and then enough people are immune that gatherings become less risky. There's less spread and there's what's called herd immunity.
[9:22] And what people aren't talking about is not just the mortality, but the morbidity. So if you do recover, there seems to be long lasting effects for maybe 10 to 15 percent of people, either acute lung injury or cardiomyopathy or other problems. We don't know that exact number, but that's gonna be a massive toll on people, the economy, the health care system, taking care of them. So our real hope is the vaccine.
[10:44] So your cardboard Amazon box that comes in, if your delivery man or woman had it and coughed on the box, for example, and got particles. They hand it to you. There are particles there that you could pick it up from now. That's eight hours. So there are several strategies that people take. One, you could simply wipe it down with an alcohol wipe. Alcohol wipes over 70 percent. Alcohol content will kill the virus. You also some people are doing what you're doing and quarantining their packages. So the guy leaves them out there and you just leave it for a day. You pick it up the next day. That's much longer than eight hours.
[11:39] People were talking about China having a high mortality rate because they smoke a lot. And while that's true, the problem we have in the U.S. is super prevalent is obesity. And we think that confers a big risk as well. To give you some numbers to that. In Colorado if you look at the deaths from coiv-19, only about 20 percent of the deaths have been under 70 years old. So it is kind of a disease of older people. However, in Georgia, the deaths from covid-19 under 70 years old are 49 percent. Almost half of the deaths are in under 70 year olds. And we believe that that is because of the disparity in health there. So there's more obesity, there's more diabetes, more hypertension. We as a nation, I think, are pretty high risk because of our current health status.
[12:38] There is never a bad time, but there's also never been a better time to optimize your health.
[12:48] If there's one lever to pull one big thing to do, it would be optimizing your sleep. Sleep is critically important. It's difficult when there's a global pandemic knowing how to sleep well. But that is probably the one thing that if people focus on the most, that's the biggest bang for their buck because it affects so many other things.
[14:50] What I'm doing for myself just from collating the information. Vitamin D. There is good evidence that having optimized vitamin D levels decrease cold and flu symptoms. There is a theoretical risk because vitamin D does tend to regulate a side to receptors and that's the receptor the virus binds on. So I still think the benefit of having optimized vitamin D levels outweighs this theoretical risk.
[16:32] So the vitamin D-3 and K-2 I take 5000 a day. The quercetin I think the dosage is around 500 milligrams is what I take right now. The zinc most of the time we recommend kind of 15 to 30. I'm taking 60 milligrams right now and of course, hydration.
[17:30] If your great great grandmother wouldn't recognize it as a food, then don't eat it. Another good rule of thumb is if you pick up something at the store and it's got an ingredient that you can't pronounce or don't know what it is, then don't eat it. Eat actual foods that your great great grandmother would recognize.
[20:36] So when we look in China, there was a really great study showing really high rates of depression, insomnia, PTSD and the workers on the frontlines. It's also happening to just people in general at the epicenter. I think that's going to be the next wave we deal with after the pandemic is the mental health repercussions. And that's why I'm so excited about working with co-mindfulness. You are already working on the solution to that. We're social beings. We're not meant to be isolated like this. So when you combine the isolation with the fear with actual illness, it's a pretty bad combination.
[22:10] The risk and what I'm worried about is the opening back up because we've already seen it in other countries. This is a nice thing about this is we can look into the future because we've already had the future in other places.
[22:27] Until we have a vaccine like we talked about, the risk is that there's gonna be another big spike in the fall or in the winter or whenever we loosen back up and people just can't take being inside anymore. So hopefully we will all be able to develop these protocols together. We increase our testing capacity. We increase our ability to track and trace contacts, and then we'll have an organized opening back up that allows us to function somewhat normally. Not normally, but closer to normal.
[23:14] But I really think just the psychological scars and what we've experienced, I don't think we're ever going to be back to normal. Once we have a vaccine, we'll be back to the place where we were. But just the mentality will be very different.
[24:04] Just like 9/11 changed air travel, I think this is going to change the world just 10 times more.
[24:30] I think it'll get out to us faster than any vaccine has ever gotten out.
[24:44] But once we have a good vaccine, then I think what's going to happen is every manufacturer around the world who can produce it will produce it and we'll have mass quantities.
[25:16] It's a devastating thing for us, but I also think it's going to really push humanity forward when it comes to global cooperation.
[25:41] So it's kind of a little bit of a nice realignment of priorities in society with what's important.
[25:58] It's difficult because on one hand you want people to stay informed, but on the other time it kind of becomes an addiction and almost a tic that we have constantly checking the numbers and what's going on.
[26:29] Maybe setting up some boundaries, like I'm going to get my news from this source 30 minutes a day and the rest of your day planning around it. I think if you don't set those boundaries around watching the news, you can easily get sucked in and it can just consume your whole day without any actual positive effect.
[26:48] We've been thinking about Gasparilla, you know, how to do something like that safely. That's what gets me excited to start thinking about the future, how to do something like that. So, for example, people who want to come if you did antibody testing before, you could right off the bat identify a certain percentage of which were immune.
[27:51] I just want to get those minds kind of started on that so that we can be ready to do that in a robust way as soon as it's socially acceptable and our leaders say we can do it.

Thank you for joining us on HealthGig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com.

“There is never a bad time, but there's also never been a better time to optimize your health.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“It's a devastating thing for us, but I also think it's going to really push humanity forward when it comes to global cooperation.” - Dr. Matt Dawson
“If your great great grandmother wouldn't recognize it as a food, then don't eat it. Another good rule of thumb is if you pick up something at the store and it's got an ingredient that you can't pronounce or don't know what it is, then don't eat it. Eat actual foods that your great great grandmother would recognize.” - Dr. Matt Dawson

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