Breaking Down the Science of Long COVID

20 Million Americans are experiencing long COVID. And listen, I actually think there's a lot more people that are still experiencing the side effects of when they had COVID. Any one of these symptoms, it could be due to long COVID. According to Mayo Clinic, it's number 1 is fatigue, muscle pain, number 3 digestive disorders, number 4, and this was really common in women, abnormal menstrual cycle.

Next up, mental health issues such as depression, anxiety. Next, neurological issues such as a loss of taste and smell, brain fog or lack of concentration, headaches, heart issues like palpitations. Next is blood clots. If you want to improve long COVID, we've got to address the health of your blood. This is the Dr. Axe Long COVID Protocol. Hey, everyone. I'm Dr. Josh Axe. Welcome to the show.

On today's episode, I'm going to be digging into the science behind long COVID and giving my exact protocol and recovery plan for long COVID. Now, here's the reality. Today, 20 million Americans are experiencing long COVID. And listen, I actually think there's a lot more people that are still experiencing the side effects of when they had COVID and they don't even realize it.

And I would ask you this, remember when you might have had COVID in the past. Is there anything since then— fatigue, brain fog, just something that's going on that you still had since then? Well, there are millions, tens of millions of people where that's the case according to scientific studies.

And basically what long COVID is, is if you had COVID, 4 weeks after having COVID, if you still have symptoms, sometimes even months or years later, that's the definition of long COVID, anywhere from a month or longer where those symptoms keep going.

You know, more than 1 in 4 long COVID patients reported having severe limitations in their ability to perform even day-to-day activities, even in 2023. And so the reality is long COVID is affecting a lot of people, uh, to a certain degree, and a lot of people it's affecting them severely. Now, according to the Mayo Clinic, the most common long COVID symptoms are.

If you have any one of these symptoms, it could be due to long COVID. According to Mayo Clinic, it's number one is fatigue. If you lack energy and you just don't feel like you have this sort of stamina, that, that's number one by far is fatigue. Next one is muscle pain. If you have muscle or sort of joint pain that's kind of still, still around.

Now listen, this muscle pain, it's not like you have one muscle that's sore or one joint that's sore. It's sort of Several areas of the body that kind of stayed sore. And by the way, it's not saying you have all of these symptoms, it's just one of or a few of these symptoms. So again, number 1, fatigue. Number 2, muscle pain. Number 3, digestive disorders.

Number 4, and this was really common in women, abnormal menstrual cycle. Next up, mental health issues such as depression, anxiety. Next, neurological issues such as a loss of taste and smell. Brain fog or lack of concentration, headaches, heart issues like palpitations. Next is blood clots. So those are the biggest symptoms according to the Mayo Clinic when it comes to long COVID symptoms.

And I've especially seen blood clotting. Now, people didn't necessarily go to the doctor because they had blood clots, but that is a main— you're gonna hear this again in just a second when I get into this. That's the one you wanna pay attention to. If your blood is sticky and clotting and not moving, That will cause almost all of these issues I just mentioned.

Blood clotting increases your likelihood of heart palpitations. It increases headaches because you're not getting blood flow to the brain. It causes fatigue. It can cause abnormal menstrual cycles. So all of the things that we've talked about here can be due to your blood getting too sticky and not moving through the body enough due to the virus.

Now, there was also a new study that looked at the DNA from 6,450 people who developed long COVID, and they found that those who had a certain DNA marker also tended to have a gene that could get turned on in association to lung cancer that was called the FOXP4 gene. And overall, basically, it was a— somebody has a lung deficiency. Okay, there's a deficiency in the lung.

And so, when we really saw this with COVID I think the biggest deficiencies are related to the blood. Secondarily, how that impacts or is in connection to the lung and the whole cardiovascular system. So now here's some new research, and then I'm going to get into in just a minute exactly what to take for supplements and foods when it comes to long COVID lifestyle.

It's been actually shown— I've got a great study on this. Um, new research hints at some underlying immune dysregulation in the lung itself, according to researchers suggesting an abnormal immune response to COVID might be causing long-term harm. So, so listen to that. The study said an abnormal immune response to COVID.

So if your immune system is overreactive, and this is really connected to something related to the spike proteins that occur when somebody gets COVID, and that sort of setting off— think about it like this, like it, like an autoimmune disease, okay?

If you— somebody with an autoimmune disease, they have— the body starts abnormally attacking itself and causes a cycle That continues to go on until really that immune dysregulation can be shut off, typically in the gut. Okay, you heal the gut, sometimes that immune disease then just— it just turns off. Well, the same thing happens here with long COVID.

There's an immune response that kind of gets put on repeat, keeps going and going and going until you find a way to shut it off. I'm going to go through the protocol to start to shut it off here in a minute. Now, I want to get into— we've covered the Western perspective, what's going on with immune dysfunction.

The Chinese medicine perspective, the Eastern perspective of COVID is this: the virus causes blood stagnation and clotting, which increases the risk of heart issues, fatigue, and neurological dysfunction. So again, the TCM, the Chinese medicine view, is that a virus— this virus then is affecting your blood cells, okay? It's affecting your blood, causing it to not move throughout your body as fast.

And so, you're not getting as much nutrients, you're not getting oxygen to various areas of your body, everything from your brain to your lungs to your extremities. And, that's really what's going on here. If somebody has long COVID, and what we found with COVID in general is it's causing blood stagnation and clotting. And so, it's not moving through your system.

And, of course, that's going to make you tired. Of course, it can cause brain fog, can also cause neurological issues. And so, here's the key. If you want to get to the root cause, if you want to know the truth, it's this. Yeah. If you want to improve long COVID, we've got to address the health of your blood.

We've got to help eliminate viruses in the blood, and we've got to help do things to get your blood moving, help it clot properly, and really nourish your blood. That's it. So, if you want to fix that, that should be the biggest focus.

TCM practitioners have found that COVID virus causes, again, this blood stagnation and clotting, which affects, again, mostly The heart, but— or the blood and the heart and the cardiovascular system. What was the other symptom that people had after COVID? Myocarditis, inflammation of the heart.

We're seeing a lot of these young athletes with fatigue and brain fogging, dizziness, and all these things. Why? Well, blood clotting, right? All of that then affecting the heart and the cardiovascular system. So, that's what we're seeing here. All of this makes sense. If we just think about it logically from that Eastern perspective.

Now, I want to jump back to that Western study, and here's what they found. Most symptoms were related to the cardiorespiratory system. There was lung-related— that's why there was a lot of associated fatigue. Also, the feelings of well-being— people just didn't feel well. That was also 42%. The next would be loss of senses. That could be the sense of taste and the sense of smell.

Also, fewer patients had things like headaches, brain fog, ear, nose, and throat issues, and gastrointestinal, those digestive issues. But again, really that fatigue and issues related to well-being, those were the biggest symptoms people had. Here are the other things that was found in another study. They found weakness was really common. 38% Had sort of fatigue in general.

They just didn't feel as strong as they were after COVID. Again, bad taste in the mouth, shortness of breath, and loss of sense of smell. But the biggest one was weakness, just feeling like I don't have that energy and vibrancy I had before COVID that's the biggest symptom that you have long COVID still.

Now, here's another great study that found a nutritional deficiency associated with long COVID. It says, patients with long COVID had lower average vitamin D levels than patients without long COVID, and vitamin D levels were significantly lower in patients that were experiencing some of those bigger symptoms like headaches and brain fog.

So if somebody has long COVID, one of the first things they should do is get their vitamin D levels tested because vitamin D levels that are sub-30 are going to be an issue. Now, I really believe optimal levels are going to be at least 50 or higher. Ideal, I believe, is probably closer to that 60 to 80+ level.

But again, below 30, that is a major, major vitamin D deficiency, and you want to be taking at least 5,000 to 10,000— I use daily— of vitamin D3. There was another study that that looked at therapies or supplements that were the most beneficial for long COVID. And, they found in this study that the supplements that were taken together were bromelain, which is an enzyme.

It's a proteolytic enzyme found in the core of a pineapple, which helps with helping break down proteins, spike protein, helping break down and regulate that spike protein in the body. So, bromelain was in there. St. John's wort helped mood. Boswellia, that's part of the frankincense plant or resin that helps reduce inflammation in the blood.

Quercetin, which reduces histamine reactions in the blood and respiratory system. Zinc, which is responsible for immune system regulation. And vitamin D, also responsible for immune regulation. So, these were some of the top supplements that were recommended in one study and that were shown to be beneficial. I also want to touch on another clinical study here.

It says the clinical study results indicated there were statistically significant improvements in the overall symptoms after 2 and 4 weeks of treatment using these herbs and vitamins.

One study found that middle-aged patients in the hospital with COVID-19 were less likely to need oxygen therapy, intensive care support, or both when they receive daily supplements of magnesium plus vitamin D and vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 is important because that really helped with— if somebody is having a loss of their sense of taste and smell, vitamin B12 is very important.

It also helps in with energy levels, so that's good as well. Now, what I want to do now is go into, based on the studies I've read, multiple studies, most I've covered here, a few I didn't get into yet, but this is my long— this is the Dr. Axe Long COVID Protocol. Okay? First is vitamin D, taking 5,000, but really ideally 10,000 IUs daily. That's 5,000 IUs twice daily of vitamin D3.

Next is zinc, 30 milligrams, 2 times daily. Next is number 3, taking a liver supplement or an organ blend supplement. Okay? This is going to have B vitamins, it's going to have iron. These are critical for building and strengthening the blood. Or, if you don't want to take a liver supplement, taking a methylated vitamin B supplement, a supplement with methylated B vitamins.

But I really like that liver, doing once to twice a day of those 6 capsules or tablets of a liver or an organ supplement. Number 4 would be proteolytic enzymes that have bromelain and nattokinase or taking a supplement that has quercetin and bromelain. So, a supplement that has quercetin and bromelain in it. Number 5 would be turmeric.

Turmeric reduces inflammation, nourishes the blood, 3,000 milligrams a day. And then, another one would be NAD+. NAD+ helps with cellular health, helps with immune regulation. That's another one I like. And then, a few others I want to mention, beetroot juice. Beetroot juice is very nourishing to the blood.

So, whether you just want to get beets in your diet as a food or take that as a supplement in a smoothie, that's great. And then last, for women specifically, dong quai. Okay, dong quai.

If you're having menstrual issues, hormonal issues, blood issues, anything as a woman, and you may think you're having some long COVID symptoms, energy issues, dong quai is something you should definitely consider taking along with a blood-building supplement. But again, long COVID protocol, vitamin D, zinc, a liver supplement or something to help build the blood.

Enzyme supplement with bromelain and quercetin, turmeric, NAD+, and beetroot juice are the top supplements as part of my long COVID protocol. In addition, diet-wise, you want to consume a lot of foods that nourish your blood. Basically, here should be your diet: meat, especially getting a lot of red meat and wild fish. So, get omega-3s.

Those help thin the blood and help reduce inflammation in the body. And red meat has iron and B vitamins that will nourish your body. So, red meat and wild-caught fatty fish, those 2 things as much as you can in your meals. Chicken's fine, eggs are okay too, but really focus on those 2 forms of protein and collagen because that's going to be really important for reducing inflammation as well.

So, collagen or bone broth as sort of another source of protein. So, that's number 1 category. Number 2, lots of vegetables. Can be steamed, A little bit of raw, do them in soups. So, that's the second category. And that really should be the basis of your diet: meat and vegetables, meat and vegetables, meat and vegetables, followed by berries. Okay?

Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, goji berries. Getting berries in the diet is also going to help nourish your body. And then, getting a little bit of healthy fat in the diet. I would recommend specifically olives or extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil specifically. So, olives and coconut. Are going to be the 2 most beneficial.

They're best for the liver, which also supports your blood. So really, coconut oil, olive oil should be the focus there. And then, you want to spend some time outside. I also really like doing a combination of contrast therapy where you're doing cold plunge and infrared sauna, red light therapy.

That infrared can also be really good for your blood rejuvenating your body, getting some time outside, just going on walks. If you're tired and you don't feel like you can exercise as much as you should, Spending time outside, just going on walks, ideally before or after meals, is a really, really great time to go.

And I think if you can do all of those things— and listen, and this isn't that complicated— take a few of the supplements I mentioned, try and have the diet of mostly meat, vegetables, berries, and a little bit of healthy fat there. That's it. And then get outside and walk. Okay, if you can do those things, I think you're going to see really, really good results.

And by the way, if you know somebody who needs to hear this, because As the study shows, there are tens of millions of just Americans alone who still have long COVID symptoms. And, if you know anybody who needs to know the exact protocol, maybe if they come up with it again or come down with even the new strains again, this protocol should still be greatly beneficial for those people.

And, if there's something you found to also be greatly beneficial or you've had any experience, with long COVID? Hey, let me know in the comment section of this video. And hey, if you're not subscribed to the video, please subscribe. You know, if you're not subscribed, you won't see a lot of the videos I put out.

And I've got some really amazing interviews, some really great in-depth talks on how to grow personally and grow your health coming up here as part of the show. And by the way, thanks for everybody who's on mission with me teaching the world about the importance of food as medicine and mindset medicine and being all we can be. And so anytime you share this video, know I'm so grateful. Thank you.

For your shares, your comments, and for subscribing. And also, I want to let you know, if you liked this video, click here to watch my video on the 7 health habits to live decades longer. I think you'll love it. Thanks for watching.