I hope you are doing well and staying healthy.

I have been following the COVID-19 saga since I came through China in early January, and slept at the airport with hundreds of people waiting overnight for a morning flight.

Upon arrival at home, my wife Maria and I both felt odd, with flu-like symptoms. We took our daily haritaki and increased vitamin C. The doctor gave us a clean bill of health.

When we read about the outbreak, we immediately started to follow the spread that led to the world pandemic, and bought 2 months of brown rice and olive oil in late January, when there was still lots of food on the shelves.

Some tips and insights:

• If you can get a mask, wear one. Masks worked in China, Hong Kong and South Korea, to reduce the spread. You can also use a scarf. All the data supports mask use.
• Stay inside as much as possible
• If you are older, ask for help with your needs from those around who are younger. Do not risk exposure!

Physical movement

• Increase exercise and movement to keep healthy

Diet and supplements:

• Vitamin D is shown to help
• Vitamin C in large amounts helps if you have symptoms
• Avoid foods that increase the risk of diabetes, or obesity, as both these conditions appear to amplify the effects of the virus

Haritaki and Covid 19

• Haritaki helps overall health and reduces bacteria in the intestinal tract. And there is no proven benefit nor research, that I am aware of, that shows it helps with Covid-19 specifically, apart from increasing overall immunity.

Neem and Turmeric

Both Neem and Turmeric have been shown to increase immunity to various bugs, so I take them both daily to combat infections. I highly recommend you take them both in addition to the daily Haritaki.

Haritaki is antimicrobial

Our body is actually a lovely habitat for a variety of microbes. Many of these microbes work with us to boost our immune system and even protect us from autoimmune diseases. They are so plentiful that researchers have described them this way:

“It’s sort of like how having a nice ground cover around your house can prevent weeds from taking over.”

However some microbes can be quite unhelpful and we have developed tools, including modern medicines, to deal with these. Medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they act primarily against. For example, antibiotics are used against bacteria, and antifungals are used against fungi.

Haritaki has been shown in research to be effective against the superbug staphylococcus, also known as MRSA or methicillin-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus.