Most people have heard of Louis Pasteur, a famous French biologist and chemist who lived during the 19 th century and invented “pasteurization.” As a proponent of the “germ theory of disease” (the belief that disease is caused by germs), Pasteur is one of the fathers of modern medicine.  However there were equally well-known scientists in Pasteur’s day who didn’t agree with him. Germs, they argued, couldn’t gain a foothold in a truly healthy body.  Chief among these critics was physiologist Claude Bernard. Bernard held that our body’s “inner terrain” (or immune system) determines our health. He is unknown today because his ideas lost out to the germ theory. But Pasteur himself is reputed to have said on his deathbed, “Bernard was right. The microbe [germ] is nothing; the terrain is everything.”  So it’s dismaying that the advice given to the public regarding COVID-19 seems to be based on the theory that “the virus is everything; the terrain…

When Dr. John J. Cannell was a psychiatrist working at a state prison hospital, unlike fellow doctors he gave his patients nutritional supplements to help them achieve better mental health.  Among these supplements were relatively large doses of vitamin D.  When a virulent influenza epidemic hit the hospital, every ward fell prey to the disease … except his ward, which remained disease free! This was one of many experiences with vitamin D that motivated Dr. Cannell to found the Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit educational organization that promotes vitamin D research and publicizes the widespread vitamin D deficiencies in our world population that have been implicated in all kinds of disease, including arthritis, cancer, heart disease, depression, diabetes, inflammation, musculoskeletal disorders, neurological problems, women's health issues, and weak immunity.  One reason the Coronavirus is ripping through the world’s population so ferociously is that coll…

Although these stressful times can lead to sleepless nights, it’s important for all kinds of health reasons to make the effort to get enough good quality sleep.  But the most pertinent reason right now is that it helps prevent viral infections. But how much sleep do you need to avoid getting a cold or perhaps COVID-19? According to a 2015 study, the answer is more than 6 hours a night. While poor sleep and not getting enough sleep had been implicated before in increased susceptibility to infectious illness, prior studies relied on subjective measures—that is individuals’ own assessments of their experience.  This study was different in that it used an objective measure called wrist actigraphy to assess occurrences of the common cold after the researchers gave 164 healthy participants nasal drops containing the rhinovirus.  Like COVID-19, the common cold is a coronavirus that infects the respiratory system. The study’s conclusion? Less sleep increased ris…