Commentary
Video
Gowri Reddy Rocco, MD, MS, discusses how low vitamin D3 levels, insulin resistance, and metabolic health are critical yet often overlooked factors in understanding and treating long COVID.
In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, Gowri Reddy Rocco, MD, MS, founder of Optimum Wellness & Longevity, discussed the often-overlooked root causes of long COVID, emphasizing the critical role of vitamin D3 levels, insulin resistance, and overall metabolic health. She highlighted that low vitamin D3 is a significant risk factor for poor immune response, particularly in children and adults, and noted that patients with high hemoglobin A1c levels, obesity, cardiac arterial disease, high blood pressure, and poor sleep are more susceptible to compromised immune function. Rocco stressed the importance of addressing these underlying factors to effectively combat long COVID.
Pharmacy Times: From your perspective, what are some of the most overlooked root causes of long COVID that should be addressed beyond pharmaceutical management?
1. Low vitamin D3 levels significantly impact immune system response.
2. Insulin resistance and metabolic health play a crucial role in COVID recovery.
3. Obesity, high blood pressure, and poor sleep are key underlying factors in long COVID susceptibility.
Gowri Reddy Rocco, MD, MS: Clinically speaking, I find that patients or people in general, children, and adults with low vitamin D3 are at big risk for a poor immune system and poor response to any virus or any kind of sickness, but especially with COVID. Low vitamin D levels make a big difference. And then I find that patients with insulin resistance or increased hemoglobin A1c levels also have a poor immune response to fighting COVID or any kind of infection for that matter. Obesity, having difficulty losing weight, and having high insulin levels; CAD, which means cardiac arterial disease; high blood pressure; poor sleep; and eating too much sugar. Sugar is devastating for the body's immune system and gut health.
Pharmacy Times: What should pharmacists understand about the gut-immune connection when counseling patients with persistent symptoms?
Gowri Reddy Rocco, MD, MS: Long haul COVID is when the virus is still embedded in our system, and it can recreate symptoms. The best way to eliminate it is not just to take vitamin C, vitamin D, exercise, and sleep, but you have to fix your gut health. The gut health is where we develop our immune system, and it's where we also have our neurological system based. If we don't fix the gut health, we don't recover fully from COVID. I write down that when you eat more healthy fats—which are phospholipids and omega-3s—and you eat less sugar, you repair the gut health. That's the best way to do it, by nutrition. Cutting out, especially simple carbohydrates, and eating more fatty foods, especially with protein. It helps patients recover and helps all of us recover quicker. See, the gut health lining is supposed to be a sealed lining. There should be no gap. When we have trauma, or we have autoimmune issues, or we have any kind of baseline trauma to the GI system, which could be a virus, if you don't repair the gut lining with good, healthy fats, like phospholipids, then you don't get the gut integrity back to fight for your immune system. When you have that leaky gut, and you have viruses and bacteria and immunoglobulins trying to fight, and you have leaky gut syndrome, that's where you develop autoimmune diseases from that, because your body starts fighting itself. If you could repair that by cutting out simple carbohydrates, cutting out sugars, especially processed sugars, and eating more healthy fats and higher protein intake, like eggs, steak, and chicken, all organic and grass-fed, and definitely adding vegetables. You want high vegetable intake, high protein intake, and, number 1, high fat intake, good fats, and low, simple carbohydrates.
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