Six common beliefs addressed, Part 72 COVID-19 Edition

1. Stress from the pandemic can cause obesity.

Obesity is caused by chronic blood glucose dysregulation and though stress due to illness contributes to excess glucose production, which can interfere in blood glucose homeostasis, it is not significant nor prolonged enough to cause obesity in the already lean. 

2. Stress from the pandemic can prevent weight loss. 

As stated above, obesity occurs from chronic blood glucose dysregulation. The stress from illness can contribute to excess glucose production, which can interfere in blood glucose homeostasis and prevent weight loss in people with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome causes a doubling down of the starvation response with any interference in blood glucose regulation, perpetuating the syndrome further. 

The pandemic and illness can also cause a disruption in your diet and exercise protocol, which can stall your weight loss as well, depending on how long it lasts or if you can't find workarounds for your particular situation. 

Lastly, the pandemic will prevent weight loss if you use it to make excuses, rather than find alternatives.

3. Stress from the pandemic can cause a rise in blood glucose.

The main stressor in metabolic syndrome is chronic, large disparities between highs and lows in blood glucose which can be exacerbated during an illness, further dysregulating blood glucose homeostasis. This can result in higher than normal blood glucose readings. 

Physical stressors like illness or injury can cause a pathological rise in blood glucose in those with metabolic syndrome/diabetes. This effect can also occur with other stressors, such as exercise or fasting. Your reaction to stressors depends on how far along you are in your condition.

4. Stress from the pandemic can cause you to turn to carbs.

False. The only thing that causes you to turn to carbs is yourself. Stress may cause you to be irritable, anxious, become susceptible to accidents, effect personal relationships or make you forgetful, but it has no effect on the mouth or what goes in it. You are solely responsible for what goes in your mouth. That is why obesity/diabetes are lifestyle diseases. They are not diseases of unfortunate circumstances.

If you make poor choices, based on unfortunate circumstances, you might want to seek professional mental help, since life is a series of unfortunate circumstances and diet alone will not resolve how you handle them.

5. Eating plenty of fat prevents N Coronavirus infection.

The virus is spread through person to person contact. Mainly by people who are in close proximity to one another (within about 6 feet). When an infected person (not necessarily a sick person) coughs or sneezes, droplets containing the virus can land in the mouths or noses of people, who are nearby, or be inhaled into the lungs. It may be possible that a person can get N Coronavirus by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

Fat has nothing to do with this. Fat is a macronutrient and it is not proper inoculation against any virus. Isolated fat limits how large bacterial cells can become, in a petri dish or in your bottle of olive oil, but that has nothing to do with your body, which is full of proteins and cells, nor does it have any effect on viruses. N Coronavirus is a virus.

6. Eating sugar causes N Coronavirus infection.

The effects that sugar has on metabolic health is caused in the long term. The dietary sugar itself is directly responsible for metabolic damage, through the disruption of proper blood glucose regulation, but it is not for the compromised immune function that is experienced by many diabetics and people with metabolic disease. Immune dysfunction happens downstream, after the metabolic abnormalities are present, since metabolic function affects immune function. People with diabetes become more susceptible to infections due to the decrease in blood flow caused by excess blood and intercellular glucose. This glucose has very little to do with the sugar that is consumed, in any one meal, as it is mainly coming from the body itself.

So no, there is no linear relationship between dietary sugar and viral infections, but the abnormalities caused by chronic sugar consumption directly contribute to the conditions that complicate infections and compromise immune function. If you stop consuming dietary sugar now, it will have 0 effect in lowering your risk of acquiring N Coronavirus or its complications. You should have stopped eating sugar years ago, since you need to fix your metabolism, in order to avoid the risks that contribute to complications if you are infected.

7. Can having had  N Coronavirus infection cause metabolic outcomes to worsen? 

Yes. Some years after the declaration of the pandemic, and millions who became sick with the virus, many things were learned and are still being researched about COVID infection. 

One of the things that many people with Type I and Type II diabetes have been reporting is a worsening of their ability to control their blood glucose post infection. The effect has persisted years later, irrespective of a Long COVID diagnosis. So, there is a possibility that having been infected with the virus, you might find it more difficult to regulate your blood glucose and return to pre-infection numbers. 

It is still unknown what the long term effects of this will be or the exact mechanism of the cause. Just keep in mind that if you were one of the unfortunate ones who had COVID infection, while having metabolic syndrome/diabetes, you are now at a greater risk of developing a worsening in blood glucose dysregulation regardless of lifestyle interventions.