Sugar Puts You in Greater Danger from Covid-19

Note: I put my thoughts stimulated by our recent wake up call about racism into Sunday’s post: “Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity.”

Some of the other diseases that make Covid-19 especially dangerous can be at least partially cured in relatively short order by changes in diet. For example, Jason Fung, whom I talk about in “Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon,” regularly treats Type II diabetics with a carefully monitored regimen of fasting that in a substantial fraction of cases cures their Type II diabetes in short order. Short of that, cutting out sugar, potatoes rice and bread and regularly skipping breakfast can do a lot to help. For how to get there, see:

Like me, Nina Teicholz is a known enemy of sugar and easily-digested carbs. Let me quote a few passages from her May 30, 2020 Wall Street Journal article “A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll.” I have added bullets to separate different passages:

  • Americans with obesity, diabetes, heart disease and other diet-related diseases are about three times more likely to suffer worsened outcomes from Covid-19, including death. 

  • The good news is that changes in diet can start to reverse these conditions in a matter of weeks. In one controlled trial at the University of Indiana involving 262 adults with Type 2 diabetes, 56% were able to reverse their diagnosis by following a very low-carbohydrate diet, with support from a mobile app, in just 10 weeks. The results of this continuing study have been sustained for two years, with more than half the study population remaining free of a diabetes diagnosis.

  • A 2011 study in the journal Obesity on 300 clinic patients eating a very low-carbohydrate diet saw blood pressure quickly drop and remain low for years.

  • Yet the federal government’s dietary guidelines themselves stand in the way of making low-carb diets a viable option for the 60% of Americans with at least one chronic disease. That’s because the guidelines call for a diet high in grains, with more than 50% of calories coming from carbohydrates. The guidelines aren’t mere advice: They drive the National School Lunch Program, feeding programs for the elderly and the poor, and military food. Many patients learn about the guidelines from their doctors and dietitians.

Nina cites many more studies than this and give more of the story of why US dietary guidelines don’t yet officially recognize sugar for the slow poison that it is. (Saturated fat may be bad, but the evidence against sugar is a lot stronger than the evidence against saturated fat.)

The 2020-2025 dietary guidelines will be out soon. I hope they begin to recognize the scourge that sugar is. Sugar is one of the greatest allies Covid-19 has in killing us.

For annotated links to other posts on diet and health, see: