This is the boring take, but it’s worth noting that conditional on this spreading widely, perhaps the most important things to do are mitigating health impacts on you, not preventing transmission. And that means staying healthy in general, perhaps especially regarding cardiovascular health—a good investment regardless of the disease, but worth re-highlighting.
I’m not a doctor, but I do work in public health. Based on my understanding of the issues involved, if you want to take actions now to minimize severity later if infected, my recommendations are:
Exercise (which will help with cardiovascular health)
Lose excess weight (which can exacerbate breathing issues)
Get enough sleep (which assists your immune system generally)
Eat healthy (again, general immune system benefits)
And for preventing transmission, I know it seems obvious, but you need to actually wash your hands. Also, it seems weird, by studies indicate that brushing teeth seems to help reduce infection rates.
And covering your mouth with a breathing mask may be helpful, as long as you’re not, say, touching food with your hands that haven’t been washed recently and then eating. Also, even if there is no Coronavirus, in general, wash your hands before eating. Very few people are good about doing this, but it will help.
Avoid being sick with two things at once or being sick with something else immediately before.
When it comes to supplements the evidence and effect sizes are not that strong. Referencing examine.com and what I generally remember, I roughly think that the best immune system strengthening supplements would be zinc and echinacea with maybe mild effects from other things like vitamin C, vitamin D, and whey protein. There may be a couple additional herbs that could do something but it’s unclear they are safe to take for a long duration. What you’d aim for is decreasing the severity of viral pnemonia induced by something like influenza.
It’s possible that some existing antivirals will be helpful but currently this is unknown.
Re exercise: I worry that putting myself in a catabolic state (by exercising particularly hard) I temporarily increase my risk. Also by being at the gym around sweaty strangers. Is this worry justified?
I don’t think so to any significant extent in most circumstances. And any tiny spike counterbalanced by general benefits pointed to by David. My understanding (former competitive runner) is that extended periods of heavily overdoing it with exercise (overtraining) can lead to an inhibited immune system among other symptoms, but this is rare with people generally keeping fit (other than e.g. someone jumping into marathon/triathlon training without building up). Other things to avoid/be mindful of are the usual (hanging around in damp clothes in the cold, hygiene in group sporting/exercise contexts etc).
I feel much more worried about being in a crowded gym than about immune effects of exercise. People are really bad at (a) cleaning gym equipment and (b) washing their hands.
To be clear, I’d guess this is less bad than many other social situation (bars, public transport, restaurants) as well as carrying a much clearer health upside. But perhaps there is an argument for switching to more solitary forms of exercise in outbreak situations?
And obviously you should not go to the gym if you yourself are sick (people apparently do this)!
This is the boring take, but it’s worth noting that conditional on this spreading widely, perhaps the most important things to do are mitigating health impacts on you, not preventing transmission. And that means staying healthy in general, perhaps especially regarding cardiovascular health—a good investment regardless of the disease, but worth re-highlighting.
I’m not a doctor, but I do work in public health. Based on my understanding of the issues involved, if you want to take actions now to minimize severity later if infected, my recommendations are:
Exercise (which will help with cardiovascular health)
Lose excess weight (which can exacerbate breathing issues)
Get enough sleep (which assists your immune system generally)
Eat healthy (again, general immune system benefits)
And for preventing transmission, I know it seems obvious, but you need to actually wash your hands. Also, it seems weird, by studies indicate that brushing teeth seems to help reduce infection rates.
And covering your mouth with a breathing mask may be helpful, as long as you’re not, say, touching food with your hands that haven’t been washed recently and then eating. Also, even if there is no Coronavirus, in general, wash your hands before eating. Very few people are good about doing this, but it will help.
Nice list!
Adding to it a little:
Avoid being sick with two things at once or being sick with something else immediately before.
When it comes to supplements the evidence and effect sizes are not that strong. Referencing examine.com and what I generally remember, I roughly think that the best immune system strengthening supplements would be zinc and echinacea with maybe mild effects from other things like vitamin C, vitamin D, and whey protein. There may be a couple additional herbs that could do something but it’s unclear they are safe to take for a long duration. What you’d aim for is decreasing the severity of viral pnemonia induced by something like influenza.
It’s possible that some existing antivirals will be helpful but currently this is unknown.
Re exercise: I worry that putting myself in a catabolic state (by exercising particularly hard) I temporarily increase my risk. Also by being at the gym around sweaty strangers. Is this worry justified?
I don’t think so to any significant extent in most circumstances. And any tiny spike counterbalanced by general benefits pointed to by David. My understanding (former competitive runner) is that extended periods of heavily overdoing it with exercise (overtraining) can lead to an inhibited immune system among other symptoms, but this is rare with people generally keeping fit (other than e.g. someone jumping into marathon/triathlon training without building up). Other things to avoid/be mindful of are the usual (hanging around in damp clothes in the cold, hygiene in group sporting/exercise contexts etc).
I feel much more worried about being in a crowded gym than about immune effects of exercise. People are really bad at (a) cleaning gym equipment and (b) washing their hands.
To be clear, I’d guess this is less bad than many other social situation (bars, public transport, restaurants) as well as carrying a much clearer health upside. But perhaps there is an argument for switching to more solitary forms of exercise in outbreak situations?
And obviously you should not go to the gym if you yourself are sick (people apparently do this)!