How do you overcome fear?
Physicist Marie Curie said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”
COVID-19 has brought the whole world in limbo for over a year now. The pandemic has exposed the lives of millions of people across the globe — in a bad way. Today, many of us are in the most vulnerable and insecure state that we might have ever been in our entire lifetime.
But let’s not lose hope. My guest for today is Dr. Roger Sehuelt, and he’s here today to talk to us about how we can boost our immune system to fight COVID-19. Dr. Roger is a multidisciplinary medical doctor and expert certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. He’s also the co-founder of MedCram, a medical education company where his mission is to demystify medical concepts for people worldwide.
Our conversation was so enlightening that we had to break it up into two parts! In this first part, we discuss and dive deep into the science behind Vitamin D and how it can treat COVID-19 and other diseases. We’ll also explore the scientific and natural remedies for boosting your immune system and optimizing your health.
This is a timely conversation you wouldn’t want to miss. So make sure to stick around Part Two on Wednesday for Dr. Roger’s real and straightforward advice on health, fitness, and the truth about vaccines.
Who Is Dr. Roger Seheult?
Dr. Roger is a Southern California-based, quadruple board doctor, certified in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine, and sleep medicine through the American Board of Internal Medicine.
He currently works at Banning Speciality Care Center (Beaver Medical Group), located in Banning, California, and he’s an Associate Professor of Medicine at Loma Linda University.
In addition to his busy life as a physician and professor, Dr. Roger is also the co-founder of MedCram — a medical education company where his mission is to demystify medical concepts for people around the world. MedCram offers a dramatically more efficient, engaging, fun, and lasting way to learn and review medical topics.
In his pulmonary and critical care work, Dr. Roger takes care of patients in the hospital, many of whom suffer from COVID-19 As a clinician and physician, Dr. Roger is constantly educating himself on the nuances of the virus so that he can provide the best possible care for his patients.
Dr. Roger believes that the cure for COVID-19 lies in improving our immune system. And to improve our immune system, we should increase our Vitamin D intake and use other natural remedies. His work is changing how we have looked at our bodies’ way to fight diseases, and I’m so excited to share his wisdom with you all today so you can give yourself an advantage against the virus.
The Science Behind Vitamin D
Dr. Roger started our conversation by explaining how his interest in studying Vitamin D began. This was years ago before we even knew about COVID-19.
“I was a chemistry major. In college, I worked in an organic chemistry research lab to make Vitamin D products for the graduate students to do their research on. This was at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), and they were looking at Vitamin D and its ability to bind to its receptor and change the behavior of the cells.” – Dr. Roger Seheult
Together with other biochemists, Dr. Roger learned a lot of interesting facts about Vitamin D. He learned that it could change one’s behavior by enhancing the cells, making them healthier, more vital, and protected against diseases. However, it may also not be suitable in some instances. Dr. Roger further explained,
“Vitamin D is unique to any other vitamin. It works like testosterone, estrogen, cortisol, or aldosterone. These are steroid hormones that the body needs to live. It works by binding itself to its receptor and going into the nucleus of cells. It affects how that cell transcribes its DNA and how it makes proteins. … Because it affects how the cells make proteins, Vitamin D will either enhance or inhibit the transcription of proteins depending on your needs. Sometimes you don’t want to be transcribing proteins during a cytokine storm [an immune response which targets its own cells], particularly if you have COVID-19. So Vitamin D modulates its production to avoid attacking the cells and tissues leading to more deaths.” – Dr. Roger Seheult
Aside from modulating the production of these immune system proteins or cytokines, Dr. Roger also provided valuable information on the findings of studies relating Vitamin D to respiratory illnesses such as COVID 19. Here are some of these are below:
- #1: A landmark study published in the British Medical Journal looked at Vitamin D supplementation. The researchers found signs that Vitamin D supplementation regularly, either daily or weekly, decreased the incidence of acute chest infections.
- #2: In The Irish Longitudinal Study in Ageing (TILDA) conducted before COVID 19 shows that Vitamin D may help prevent respiratory ailments to those who have Vitamin D deficiency.
- #3: Observational studies in 2020 show that those with low Vitamin D would usually show up in the hospital with COVID-19. Older people and those who have darker skin also have worse COVID-19 symptoms. However, Dr. Roger noted that these observations are mere association and does not necessarily mean causation.
- #4: Randomized controlled trials such as the SHADE study done in India showed that mega doses of Vitamin D were given orally to patients coming into the hospital with COVID-19, and 60% of those patients cleared the virus in three weeks.
The combination of these observations and randomized trial studies was somewhat able to establish that Vitamin D indeed fights against the diseases and reduces symptoms! That’s great news for us! But how do we apply it?
