Covid-19, Immunity and Fat Burning: What’s the Connection?

If you’re reading this article, you’ve got to be wondering:

What possible connection could there be between a “fat-burning metabolism” and COVID-19?

Fat-burning sounds great when you’re talking weight loss, but immunity?Really?

Well, let’s do a little thought exercise together.

What are the “underlying conditions” that spell disaster for people who test positive for COVID-19?

Don’t bother to look it up, I’ll save you the time:

Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, chronic kidney disease and liver (fatty liver) disease.

Now riddle me this: What do they all have in common?

Here’s the answer:Insulin resistance (1,2).

How do we treat insulin resistance? All together, class:with diet!

Yup, a simple, high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet isexactlyhow functional medicine practitioners from the Scripps Institute in San Diego to Duke University in Durham* treat insulin resistance when they see it, and they see itconstantly.

So let’s do some coronavirus math. Six of the main conditions that put you at risk for dying aresignificantly benefited by a high-fat low-carb diet.That’s in the published research (1,2,3,4,5,6).

Those conditions are madeworsewith a sugar-burning metabolism andbetterwith a fat-burning one.

And a low-carb high fat diet is theexactprescription for developing a fat-burning metabolism.

So just to be clear, the very same diet that helps you lose weight, reverse or stall the progression of diabetes, and lower your risk for heart disease is the very same diet that will help you survive a challenge like COVID-19, because it willreduce the likelihood of having the very underlying conditions that spell disaster if you get the virus(7,8).

How A Fat-Burning Metabolism Supports Your Immune System

A fat-burning metabolism supports immunity in at least two ways.

For one thing, a fat burning metabolism produces moreenergy(in the form of something calledAdenosine Triphosphate—ATP—which is the “currency” of energy in the cell and is needed for every action you take, consciously or unconsciously, from blinking your eyes to moonwalking to mounting an immune system defense.

For another, a sugar-burning metabolism creates far more toxic by-products, probably because sugar is itself such a toxic and inflammatory component of the diet.

Those metabolic by-products (likefree radicals) causeoxidative damage. We depend on our body’s store of antioxidants to put out the sugar-caused fires. Using the body’s antioxidants to clean up the damage of an unforced error like sugar consumption means you havelessantioxidants left to fight off viral invaders and clean-up their damage.

All of which is to say that there was never a better time to switch your dietary fuel to the high-octane kind: healthy fat. The same fat you’ve wrongly been told to stay away from for decades.

(To understand how the whole country got the fat and sugar thing wrong, stream the excellent documentaryFat Fictionon Amazon.)

Sugar In The Gas Tank?

You’d never put sugar in the gas tank of a jeep going out to fight for your freedom in a war. So don’t put it in your body’s gas tank when your immune system is going out to fight for your health and survival.

After all, your immune system exists—like the army—to be mobilized in case of emergency. Like the army, you want the immune system to fight its best fight. Neither army tanks nor human bodies run well on sugar.

Eat fat and you’ll build a metabolism that runs on it.

It’s a great way to get your immune system firing on all cylinders.

Not sure if you have a sugar-burning or a fat-burning metabolism? Take my free quizhereand find out.

Note: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher and editors of WholeFoods Magazine. Information in this article is intended for educational and scientific purposes only. It is not intended as medical or nutritional advice for the treatment or prevention of disease. For medical advice, consult a health care practitioner.

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