COVID -19 and Wellness

The British medical journal The Lancet recently published an article entitled: COVID-19: Do Wellness and a Healthy Lifestyle Matter?

The article cites several studies that show a strong correlation between healthy lifestyle habits and a decreased vulnerability to COVID-19 morbidity and mortality.

One study of over 50,000 patients indicated that people who exercise regularly are HALF as likely to become hospitalized and HALF as likely to die from COVID as those who don’t.  Other healthy lifestyle factors such as diet and weight control also have shown to be protective specifically against COVID.

Yet where has been the discussion of these powerfully protective, no cost, easily accessible and risk-free measures in our public health discussion?  Why have our health departments not been urging us to get in shape, lose some weight, and cut down on the sweets? 

We are being let down by a system that relies too heavily on drugs and treatments rather than preventive and proactive measures.  The best they can offer in that regard are vaccines, but as we’ve seen, as amazing as vaccines are, they have a limited capacity as a long term solution: viruses mutate, and if all we’re relying on is vaccines, then that means more and more and more shots and no endgame.

It’s been pointed out that we don’t have a health care system in our country, but a disease-care system.  Western medicine has only three real tools to address health: drugs, radiation and surgery.  These can be helpful if one is in an urgent medical crisis, but there is quite a bit more to health than medical crises, and there are heavy prices to pay for these treatments, both financially and physically: all three tools are both expensive and harmful.  Furthermore, a health care system based on medicine engenders a powerful myopia in which the actual indicators for health- diet, exercise, mental attitude, social belonging, etc.- are so ignored that you can literally find an article in a medical journal that is seriously asking the question: “Do Wellness and a Healthy Lifestyle Matter?”

Building a health care system and establishing departments of health around a strictly medical model consistently lets the public down by failing to focus on proactive and preventive wellness models that are evidence-based, typically free or low cost, and low to zero risk.  Cynics will argue that the problem with those models is that they integrate poorly into a for-profit system: who’s going to make money off of people taking more walks and eating less sugar?  Our system profits very specifically from the exact opposite.

That’s why, as a citizen, it is up to you to find the information that is out there and use it.  I’m not talking about roaming paranoid conspiracy theory web sites and shooting up with horse tranquilizers.  And we’re not describing a conspiracy: we’re pointing out the weaknesses of a system that in some ways is a very valuable and efficacious part of our public health.  But finding that information may not be easy.  The studies I cite at the beginning of this article were buried at the end of a long list of articles in a British medical journal.  I had to hunt for it.  I’m doing my part by putting it out there.  Help me out by spreading the word.  But first, let’s go for a hike.