Which matters most, virus or host?

Holy cow, @Terry4! Did you see this? What the heck!?!?!? Is this true? Is it just because EVERYONE has diabetes?

Yes, worrying news for anyone with diabetes. It has been broken down further now and the figures are that significantly more type 1s are dying then type 2s. I read that it’s thought to be connected to the toll that type 1 has on a person’s organs over their lifetime.

This concerns me. @CharlotteEngland references a UK Guardian story that reports that T1D Covid-19 patients are more likely to die than those with T2D. This report did say that this study has not completed peer review yet and that review could bring up a clearer story.

These reports fall under the heading of things that we cannot control. It makes it even more important to make good choices about the things that we can control. We can control, to some extent, how much exposure we have to other people infected with this virus. Don’t get suckered into the “reopening” mania spreading across the globe. I refuse to volunteer myself to be sacrificed on the altar of economic needs.

We can control what we eat and the insulin we take. We can commit to exercising every day. Adding in a mindfulness routine also helps, whether that be meditating, breathing exercises, praying, singing or some creative expression.

I’ve seen humorous references made online about people gaining weight in these quarantine circumstances we find ourselves in. People are reverting to consuming comfort food that is not good for much beyond the short feel-good emotional effects. This might border on the humorous for gluco-normals but this is serious business for those of us who live with diabetes.

This is a serious threat to us. We can’t control what fate will exact but we still control a lot about our metabolism. I remain hopeful that keeping blood glucose closer to normal, daily exercise, and mindfulness routines give me the best chance at surviving if I get infected.

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I too am doing everything I can to try to stay healthy, so that if I somehow catch the virus I might live through it. After seeing the nurse yesterday, who lost so much weight during his long bout with the virus, I am worried about my weight. If I lost even 20 lbs there wouldn’t be much left of me.

My husband and I are going to continue to isolate ourselves until there is a proven vaccine which could take months to years to develop and distribute. We have seen our son twice from about 15 ft away, we do curbside pickup to get our groceries and prescriptions. We are fortunate to live in the country so we have a large yard with a dog and wild animals.

I am meditating again to try to cope with the mess America and the world are in.

I am amazed at how lightly some people are taking all of this and how some think it is a hoax. They must not be old and diabetic. They must not have already been fighting for most of their lives just to stay alive.

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I agree with you, Marilyn. Even if you gained 10 pounds, that would help with survival, if infected. I’ve never been faced with a need to gain weight. My reflexive choice would be more ice cream! Do you have any ideas how to do that?

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Put on 10 lbs, @Marilyn6. I agree.

We have reopened (to a small degree), but you can see the change. People are out and about. There’s gonna be a huge spike in 3 weeks. I don’t think this is a kind thing to do to our nurses.

I find that I am needing to start from scratch - calling my pals with chronic illness. I remind them that this re-opening is NOT meant for them. They cannot go to the gym. It is all very alarming again. I believe that we start loosing people from our patient community now. People are confused.

In 2 months we might be close to knowing when a vaccine comes. If you get covid tomorrow, you may still be sick then.

You all just stay where your at, despite the re-opening. Hold your positions. We will see this effect in 3 - 4 weeks. Then, we can re-evaluate.

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I heard one report of a nurse who jumped in to do an emergency procedure on a Covid-19 patient when her only protection was a thin surgical mask. There were no N95 masks available. She became infected and died. This breaks my heart.

We owe it to providers like this nurse to act responsibly and make good social choices. Even if some of our leaders are morally confused, we each can make a better choice, one that will survive well in the historical analysis in the years to come.

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I know you all are smart. I know that you are conscientious beyond belief. gives me hope, but boy am I worried about the others. We are all just crazy enough to survive. Time for some old school SEAL, lol. (He has lupus)

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I have purposely lost weight to try to reduce my 114 LDL. Believe me if I didn’t have heart stents I wouldn’t worry about this good number.

I can’t take medications to try to reduce my LDL. Statins have given me neuropathy and I extremely angry about it. 60 yrs without diabetic neuropathy and I get it from a statin. The over the counter meds that help many with diabetic neuropathy worsen prescription induced neuropathy. I have tried them, and the burning is worse and the neuropathy is spreading. It just feels like a slap in the face. For almost 20 yrs, my A1c numbers have been. 4:6 to 5.5 except for one 5.9. The 20 yrs before that I was under 7. This isn’t diabetic neuropathy.

I think I am more worried about my arteries at this point, but it is a choice and I might be making the wrong choice. I don’t know. Our beloved son is getting married in Oct 2021, and we sure hope that we can attend in person. No vaccine, no attendance for us. What a different world we are living in.

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Darn it. A catch-22. Its ok, your gonna stay a home and be safe.

I would bet my life we have something before Oct 2021. They are working like horses.

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I have remained quiet, for the most part, on your remarks about this in other threads. I don’t share the belief that LDL cholesterol matters in the large scheme of things. I am not a doctor, researcher or academic but I am wagering my life on this belief.

I think that the only metabolic measures that matter are a normal A1c, normal blood pressure, high HDL, low triglycerides, and a normal waist circumference.

I think large pharmaceutical concerns and a flawed physician standard of practice has led to this wholesale attempt to beat up a number. Only 1 in 8 people are seen as metabolically healthy in this country.

Perhaps now is the time to give up pursuing your attempt to suppress your LDL to a low number. I’m sorry if this may irritate you and that is not my intention. You are doing so many things well to enhance your health. Maybe this is just one metric that you should relax your vigilance.

Terry, I was wagering my life on information that I read in 2007. That is when Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes was published. I was quite impressed with this book. This was about the time I started Dr Bernstein’s low carb diet which I followed for 11 yrs. I ignored my climbing LDL numbers because by HDL was almost 100, my Triglycerides were around 30 and my A1c was 4.7. I was uncomfortable with my LDL number which was close to 200, but was very pleased with all my other readings.

I suddenly needed stents in 2010. I had never had any kind of heart problem before this. I had no serious diabetic complications in my 50 yrs of being a type 1. I had many early years of lousy control when urine testing, but had been quite well controlled for 30 yrs. My grandfather died of a heart attack in his mid 60’s and my father had a slight heart attack in his early 60’s. His arteries were examined when he was in his mid 80’s and they were clean. He died at 89 from a leaky heart valve which he had all of his life.

I believe and my doctors believe that the high LDL was one of the main reasons I needed stents.

I have read critical reviews of Good Calories Bad Calories which have made me question Taubes’s work. I also read a review which included complaints from some of the doctors he quoted. These doctors said that they were misquoted. I can’t find that article this morning, but did read it about a year or two ago.

I found an article this morning by Dr. Axel F. Sigurdsson, MD, PhD which I feel makes a lot of sense. I hope that you will read it.

I can’t find the article again. It was written in 2012, but I have found others written by this doctor. It looks like he now likes the low carb diet for losing weight, but doesn’t like it as a long term way of eating. He thinks that VLDL size is more important than LDL. The last time I had my VLDL size tested it was 50 which is high. So to get it down you are supposed to reduce triglycerides, exercise, and lose weight. Well my triglycerides are 49, I ride my exercise bike 7 to 10 miles a day and I weigh 102 and I am 5’1”. I give up.

It has been an interesting research day, but frustrating to know that I am doing everything I can do and will probably still die early from heart disease or a stroke.

I also really wish these doctors would all agree. I will keep researching.

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I have high LDL and low HDL. What can someone do about that? They gave me a cholesterol med. I need to look at that stuff now that I’m almost 40 and officially 20 lbs overweight.

I’m in my late 30s and my doctor has been recommending a cholesterol medication for years because I’ve had diabetes for so long and my cholesterol level was above the recommendation for people with diabetes. I wouldn’t take the medication for years and years, mostly because I was afraid of side effects from everything I read on forums. When I saw a cardiologist for unrelated issues, they recommended exactly the same medication and dose as my other doctor. So I decided I’d try it and I could always stop if there were side effects (which both doctors had also said when prescribing).

It lowered my cholesterol to well within the guidelines (with the smallest available dose) and I have no side effects whatsoever. I decided that, in the long run, if research is showing that lower cholesterol is beneficial decades down the road, I would rather take the medication and find that it wasn’t really necessary than not take it and wish that I had when it becomes too late.

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I respect the judgement you’ve made for your personal circumstance. I know you’ve made this conclusion based on a robust review of the medical literature. It’s unfortunate that the science is not more advanced at this time and that we need to draw conclusions now due to our age and medical realities. All any of us can do is what you’ve already done and then remain open to updates as we see fit. As always, I wish you the best.

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It is so hard to decide what to do. My husband, who follows my way of eating whether very low carb or plant based has had high LDL and low HDL. Changing to the plant based diet has helped his numbers, but he has taken a statin, with no problem that we are aware of, for years.

His doctor, who thought almost everyone should take a statin, has changed his mind after reading the latest literature which says that decades of taking statins extends life by 17 days. My husband has decided to stop taking statins. He is not a diabetic and I don’t know if this recent information would be true for people with diabetes.

I have never been able to take statins. My latest try has given me non diabetic neuropathy. I am not happy about it. I don’t know if a statin would have prevented getting stents or not.

I tried taking just a tiny amount of a statin and still had side effects.

I am taking a low dose statin. But, its the BP meds that do a number on me. Everybody I know complains about Lisinporil. I tried to get the endo not to put me on that, but he did. Now, I’m stuck with it until corona ends.

From the Sky News article that @mohe0001 linked, this would be the breakdown:
14% - chronic kidney disease
18% - dementia
15% COPD
26% diabetic
Two questions: are CKD and diabetes mutually exclusive?? The number one cause of CKD is diabetes, so I’m wondering if there are some diabetics in that CKD group. Two, what happened to the other 25 plus percent?
The Sky News article didn’t list other co-morbidities (that I could see) but the Guardian does: “One in ten (10%) suffered from ischaemic heart disease.”

That makes 83%. My curiosity is greedy, so I’d like to know where the other 17% is. By my guess, some odd percent of that are healthcare workers who got a particularly high viral load - or grocery store workers or other front liners. But that still leaves a fairly large chunk, maybe 10% or more to go.

We can all speculate I suppose. What I’m thinking is that most of the listed co-morbidities are some variation on vascular disease and we know that among other things, SARS CoV-2 goes after the endothelial lining of the vessels, or leaves it damaged after an attack and response. So I’m not that surprised about AD, which I tend to think is an energy issue mostly caused by vascular damage.

A friend asked me what I thought of Covid-19 way back in March and I said, well, since we don’t do public health all that well in this country, it would seem to come down to the health of Americans individually.

medcram and how A1c relates to outcomes of Covid 19 infection

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This may help with lowering LDL