COMMUNITY NEWS
Healthy Microbiome Builds Immune System (Which Fights Covid)
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By Jondi Gumz
study by the University of Massachusetts Medical School shows the gut microbiome accurately predicts which patients are at risk of becoming critically ill from the sometimes deadly Covid-19. Researchers proposed stool samples be used to identify which patients would likely need more interventions to survive, but Dr. Robynn Chutkan, a gastroenterologist and author of the “The Anti-Viral Gut Book,” coming in November, sees something more. While it’s impossible to alter your age and difficult to alter medical conditions, it is possible to change your microbiome by what you eat, and quickly — within 30 hours of food hitting the gut, she said, citing the study while talking with John Robbins on the Food Revolution Summit. The January 2021 preprint study of 63 hospitalized patients found an abundance of Entercooccus faecelis in the severely ill, and fewer in the moderately ill. Ana Maldonado-Contreras, on the research team, wrote, “As a Latina scientist investigating interactions between diet, microbiome and immunity, I must stress the importance of better policies to improve access to healthy foods, which lead to a healthier microbiome.” The highly contagious but less deadly BA.2 Omicron subvariant now dominates, a change from the initially deadly coronavirus. New signs of normal include the Felton Remembers parade and festival
returning and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk bringing back live music Thursdays on the Colonnade and Friday night movies. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates almost 60 percent of the populace — including 76% percent of children — have had Omicron or another coronavirus variant. Asked about the data, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the president, told PBS, “If you add up the people who’ve been infected, plus the people who’ve been vaccinated and hopefully boosted, you have a rather substantial proportion of the United States population that has some degree of immunity.” He said 66 percent of the U.S. populace is vaccinated. Asked if the end of the 2-year-old pandemic is near, Fauci called the question unanswerable. He said, “We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase. Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now.” “COVID Update” page 8
www.tpgonlinedaily.com Scotts Valley Times / May 2022 / 7
