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Support For Long COVID & Chronic Fatigue
Plus: the surprising health benefits of the humble cucumber
The 10almonds Team
July 05, 2023
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⏰ IN A RUSH?
Today’s 30-Second Summary
If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:
Cucumbers are often thought of as a sort of “non-food”, but in fact they have many health benefits, including:
reduced cancer risk
improved vision
immune boost
and more—see today’s video for details!
Getting COVID-19 can be very physically draining, so it’s no surprise that getting Long COVID can (and usually does) result in chronic fatigue.
Medically, there’s not a lot of help available yet
Doctors advise giving it time and hoping for the best, which is not very encouraging
Socially, social support goes a long way—getting family/friends to help with tasks, if possible
There are also grassroots help organizations that exist—see the bottom of today’s main feature for some of those
Omega-3 fatty acids have a lot of health benefits—including for the brain—but not all sources are created equal
Today's sponsor, NativePath, are offering a convenient, sustainable, and highly bioavailable form—far better than cod liver oil!
Read on to learn about these things and more…
👀 WATCH AND LEARN
What happens to your body when you eat a cucumber every day!
Cucumber menu:
🦠 MAIN FEATURE
Long COVID and Chronic Fatigue
Getting COVID-19 can be very physically draining, so it’s no surprise that getting Long COVID can (and usually does) result in chronic fatigue.
But, what does this mean and what can we do about it?
What makes Long COVID “long”
Long COVID is generally defined as COVID-19 whose symptoms last longer than 28 days, but in reality the symptoms not only tend to last for much longer than that, but also, they can be quite distinct.
Here’s a large (3,762 participants) study of Long COVID, which looked at 203 symptoms:
Three symptoms stood at out as most prevalent:
Chronic fatigue (CFS)
Cognitive dysfunction
Post-exertional malaise (PEM)
The latter means “the symptoms get worse following physical or mental exertion”.
CFS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, is also called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME).
What can be done about it?
The main “thing that people do about it” is to reduce their workload to what they can do, but this is not viable for everyone. Note that work doesn’t just mean “one’s profession”, but anything that requires physical or mental energy, including:
Childcare
Housework
Errand-running
Personal hygiene/maintenance
For many, this means having to get someone else to do the things—either with support of family and friends, or by hiring help. For many who don’t have those safety nets available, this means things simply not getting done.
That seems bleak; isn’t there anything more we can do?
Doctors’ recommendations are chiefly “wait it out and hope for the best”, which is not encouraging. Some people do recover from Long COVID; for others, it so far appears it might be lifelong. We just don’t know yet.
Doctors also recommend to journal, not for the usual mental health benefits, but because that is data collection. Patients who journal about their symptoms and then discuss those symptoms with their doctors, are contributing to the “big picture” of what Long COVID and its associated ME/CFS look like.
You may notice that that’s not so much saying what doctors can do for you, so much as what you can do for doctors (and in the big picture, eventually help them help people, which might include you).
So, is there any support for individuals with Long COVID ME/CFS?
Medically, no. Not that we could find.
However! Socially, there are grassroots support networks, that may be able to offer direct assistance, or at least point individuals to useful local resources.
Grassroots initiatives include Long COVID SOS and the Patient-Led Research Collaborative.
The patient-led organization Body Politic also used to have such a group, until it shut down due to lack of funding, but they do still have a good resource list:
Stay strong!
❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE
Convenient, sustainable, highly bioavailable omega-3s (and more)
We've mentioned their other products before, and with good reason. NativePath's mission is very much aligned with our own: they want to help people live their healthiest lives possible.
They also believe that eating, moving, and living in harmony with the natural state is key to achieving optimal wellness. That's why they keep their products as close to nature as possible, without unnecessary additives. So, what's in this one?
Krill oil: oil from krill, tiny creatures that are a potent (and sustainable!) source of omega-3 fatty acids, in a highly bioavailable form
Astaxanthin: one of the most powerful antioxidants found in nature (it's also a carotenoid, and that's what gives krill their color!)
Gelatin, glycerol, water: these make up the pea-sized softgel!
Bonus: because they break down in your intestines rather than your stomach, not only is there no fishy taste... but also no fishy aftertaste or burps (unlike many fish-oil supplements)!
Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free
🌎 AROUND THE WEB
What’s happening in the health world…
More states legalize sales of unpasteurized milk, despite public health warnings
Patients squeezed in fight over who gets to bill for pricey infusion drugs
Fit to beat diabetes: mendelian randomization study confirms the power of exercise
Study finds correlation between oral microbiome, alcohol metabolism, and hangover severity
More to come tomorrow!
📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW
The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study - by Dr. Howard Friedman & Dr. Leslie Martin
Most books on the topic of longevity focus on such things as diet and exercise, and indeed, those are of course important things. But what of psychological and sociological factors?
Dr. Friedman and Dr. Martin look at a landmark longitudinal study, following a large group of subjects from childhood into old age. Looking at many lifestyle factors and life events, they crunched the numbers to see what things really made the biggest impact on healthy longevity.
A strength of the book is that this study had a huge amount of data—a limitation of the book is that it often avoids giving that concrete data, preferring to say “many”, “a majority”, “a large minority”, “some”, and so forth.
However, the conclusions from the data seem clear, and include many observations such as:
conscientiousness is a characteristic that not only promotes healthy long life, but also can be acquired as time goes by (some “carefree” children became “conscientious” adults)
resilience is a characteristic that promotes healthy long life—but tends to only be “unlocked” by adversity
men tend to live longer if married—women, not so much
religion and spirituality are not big factors in healthy longevity—but social connections (that may or may not come with such) do make a big difference
Bottom line: if you’d like to know which of your decisions are affecting your healthy longevity (beyond the obvious diet, exercise, etc), this is a great book for collating that information and presenting, in essence, a guideline for a long healthy life.
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Wishing you healthy vitality today and every day,
The 10almonds Team