One of the driving forces behind CVD Labs has been better understanding Long Covid. What can we do to prepare our bodies for infection? How can we aid in the fight and recovery to best avoid the worst outcomes? Understanding Long Covid enables us to formulate our supplements to help your body counter the mechanisms driving the disease, at least as much as we can with nutritional supplements and nutraceuticals.
A new paper published in Nature Microbiology goes to great lengths to detail why and how Long Covid (sometimes referred to as ‘post-acute sequelae of COVID-19’ or PASC) develops and its different manifestations. It is available here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2
You can breakdown Long Covid into multiple pieces: Mechanisms, Symptoms, Treatments. The mechanisms are the processes in the body that are going wrong, driving the disease and the symptoms. As we read the paper, these proposed mechanisms stood out to us: Immune Dysfunction, Abnormal Clotting & Endothelial Dysfunction. The study suggests that abnormal levels of spike protein are a likely cause of these disease mechanisms. The spike protein is cytotoxic (meaning it is toxic to cells) and we know it drives abnormal clotting and damages your blood vessels. If your vascular system and immune system are under attack, bad things happen.
The disease mechanisms, vascular and immune, drive a wide variety of symptoms described in the study: Cognitive Impairment, Brain Fog, Fatigue, Memory Loss, Microclots, Coagulopathy, DVT, Stroke, Dysautonomia & Autoimmune Dysfunction. It’s a long list of unpleasant outcomes.
Further, as we discussed in another post, and as the researchers in this study noted: “early research shows an increasing risk of long COVID sequelae after the second and third infection, even in double-vaccinated and triple-vaccinated people.” Your risk goes up for Long Covid with every new infection. It’s an unpleasant truth, particularly for those of us who had hoped the pandemic was over.
Unfortunately, as the study lays out, there really aren’t any effective pharmacologic treatments for most of these issues: “treatment options are currently insufficient.” So what can you do?
CVD Labs does not pretend to have all the answers. The whole world is learning more every day. But we do know this, you want to be as healthy as you can when the next wave comes. Eat a healthy balanced diet, get exercise and watch your weight - obesity is a major risk factor for poor outcomes, including Long Covid. Beyond that we would recommend adding our Immune Variant to your routine, to ensure you are getting sufficient Vitamin D3 + K2 and Spermidine. An optimized and healthy immune system is your best defense.
If you are recovering from infection or have Long Covid, our Cardio & Brain Variants are optimized to help your body counter a number of disease mechanisms. Our Cardio Variant contains Nattokinase to help degrade residual spike protein and improve blood clotting. NAC, Glutathione & Arginine are included to reduce endothelial damage and improve vascular function. Our Brain Variant is designed to improve cognitive function with Creatine & a Caffeine/L-Theanine stack to improve energy as well as Vinpocetine and Huperzine A to increase cerebral circulation (blood flow to the brain) and Spermidine for neuroprotection and autophagy.
As new research comes out, we will deliver it to you and update our formulations to ensure we are delivering the best possible products to help you Prepare - Fight - Recover.
