January Musings, Basic Health

COVID and Basic Health
As our nation transitions through COVID we’ve learned several lessons. People of color are more vulnerable to this particular virus. A higher proportion of this fraction of our population dies when exposed. But think back on the original news blasts about COVID: The luxury cruise liner, the Diamond Princess, where essentially 700 out of 3,711 became infected, and fourteen died over the space of several weeks. None of us knows for sure whether we will survive and sustain through this virus, if and when we are exposed. But we have learned several critical lessons over the last ten months.

1. If you have a “significant” underlying health condition, you are particularly vulnerable. Significant health conditions include vascular disease, like diabetes, or heart conditions, or respiratory conditions. But not something as mundane as high blood pressure. That is not thought to be a “real” underlying health condition. When you track the incidence of diabetes among people of color, certain ratios jump out. Vascular disease is endemic in certain populations. Often a sign of a lack of basic health, it is both culturally and environmentally induced. Diet and health are culturally and environmentally conditioned.
2. If you are black or brown, you don’t want to catch COVID. Your diet, your lifestyle, your status relative to underlying health conditions, sets you up to be a victim of this coronavirus. Hopefully readers of this post are among the exceptions to the rule. Hopefully you’ve gone paleo, or gluten free, or ketogenic, with your diet. Hopefully you’ve succeeded in transitioning those around you, your loved ones, towards health by diet. I assure you, that if you’ve succeeded in this that you are the outstanding exception. But know that you are truly present as a major force within our culture’s “transition.” For now, many people of color will die, needlessly, as a result of cultural neglect.
3. Health by diet is the one variable that all of us can employ against COVID. Personal health is a weapon, a choice, and a tool. It preserves our individual ability to sustain, to live, and to impact those around us. It means you will be there to contribute to transition. It means you can still act, and vote, and demonstrate, and move towards the future we all see in our mind’s eye.
   

Read More