Our first and most powerful strategy is to put our patients on an anti-inflammatory diet.[12][13] During the years of running our clinics, we have been testing patients—who come from all over the country and around the world— for food intolerances.[14][15][16] Removing these foods from their diet helps significantly in lowering inflammation.

Here are the food intolerances we see most often:

• Gluten: Gluten is by far the most inflammatory food we see in immune testing. 
• Dairy: Dairy comes up about as often as gluten as being inflammatory.
• Soy
• Rice
• Corn
• Aspartame (artificial sweetener used in most diet beverages)
• Pork (and beef to a lesser degree)
• Eggs

If you follow an anti-inflammatory diet for 30 days that eliminates these foods along with sugars and other sweeteners, includes ample amounts of vegetables,[17][18] and removes processed and fast foods, this will profoundly reduce your inflammation. Additionally, I have my patients remove all grains, all legumes, and all nightshade vegetables (peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and potatoes), and alcohol[19][20]. You can learn more by clicking on this link.

What can you eat? The foods you can eat on this diet include: 

• Poultry
• Fish
• Lamb
• Vegetables (that aren’t nightshades)
• Fruits: Keep fruit consumption to a minimum because it is high in sugar, and eat fruit with fiber, protein, or fat to slow down the absorption of sugar.
• Healthy fats like olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil

Sugars and sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, agave, coconut sugar, etc.) are not included on an anti-inflammatory diet. This is because they cause a spike in your blood sugar, which is followed by a surge of insulin. This process is very pro-inflammatory every time it happens.[21][22][23] To lower inflammation, you absolutely need to avoid all sweeteners, sweet fruits (opt for lower glycemic fruit like raspberries), excess fruit, fruit juices, and fruit smoothies. If you eat a little fruit, slow down the sugar shock to your system by eating some fiber, protein, or fat with it.

Also, since most people have some sort of blood sugar imbalance, and because this diet is pretty limited, we want you to eat every two to three hours to keep your blood sugar stable. This doesn’t mean a full meal every two to three hours—eat your three main meals and include snacks in between. Your meals will be primarily meat and vegetables, and you can snack on nuts, seeds, meats, vegetables, and healthy fats. If you go too long without eating and get too hungry, you may not only cause your blood sugar to crash, but your hunger will make it a lot harder to stick to the diet.

Eat plenty of healthy fats with your meals and snacks not only to stay satiated, but also because fat is critical to good brain health. Your brain is made up of primarily fat, so the fats we eat have a large influence on our brain health. 

Just one bite, or one small helping of something not allowed on the diet can undo all your good work.[24] Even just a crumb of gluten or dairy can trigger inflammation and make it harder for your system to calm down and find balance, so this is one diet where it’s important to be strict. Damaging inflammation can happen in as little as three minutes after eating something inflammatory and take three to six months to repair. 

The good news is you can eat as much food as you’d like to stay satisfied and keep your energy levels up. This is not a diet to calorie count or minimize portions – most people lose weight on this diet. (Of course, don’t gorge yourself and eat excessively either, that also causes insulin surges and inflammation.)

Most people with chronic inflammation also have intestinal permeability. We also call this leaky gut. Over time, inflammation degrades the lining of the small intestine to the point where undigested food particles, bacteria, and other pathogens can escape from the digestive tract into the sterile environment of the bloodstream. This puts the immune system on red alert and causes inflammation throughout the body. Old injuries flare up and hurt, and the way inflammation manifests depends on your genetics. It can manifest as joint pain, skin disorders, respiratory problems, gut problems, or brain-based and mood issues. The worst part is it makes your existing inflammation even worse in a vicious feedback loop.

If you have leaky gut, you also most likely have leaky brain, or a permeable blood-brain barrier. This means the thin lining of cells that cover and protect the brain develops gaps or holes that allow particles into the brain that aren’t meant to be there, such as immune antibodies, bacteria, yeast, chemicals, heavy metals, and other pathogens. This inflames the brain and causes it to degenerate more quickly. Symptoms of leaky brain include brain fog (especially if it comes on after you eat), as well as fatigue, memory loss, depression, and anxiety.

As I mentioned earlier, leaky gut and leaky brain can happen in as little as three minutes after eating something inflammatory and take three to six months to repair. This is why so many people live in a constant state of inflammation—their immune barriers never get a chance to heal. The lungs, sinuses, and urogenital tract are other immune barriers that can be affected by inflammation.

After you have been on the autoimmune diet for 30 days, you start reintroducing foods one at a time every three days and monitor reactions. If you followed the diet carefully, your immune system will now be healthier and more robust, which can cause strong reactions to foods you weren’t aware were inflammatory for you. Reactions vary depending on the person, but look for symptoms in your gut, brain, skin, joints, or respiratory tract.

If you react to one of the foods you ate, go back on the anti-inflammatory diet until your inflammation calms down and permanently remove that food from your diet. Then move on to reintroducing a different food, repeating the process. Do this until you move through the list of foods you eliminated to determine which ones you react to.

In addition to following the anti-inflammatory diet, certain supplements have been shown to be very effective in helping lower inflammation. These are the ones I use regularly in my practice:

Vitamin D

This one is foundational. Vitamin D increases immune cells called regulatory T-cells (T reg cells). As the name implies, T reg cells regulate whether you have a pro-inflammatory response or an anti-inflammatory response. When you support T reg cells with vitamin D they work to dampen inflammation. Vitamin D also supports the integrity of your immune barriers, such as the gut barrier, blood-brain barrier, and lung barrier so you’re better protected from inflammatory pathogens.

Therapeutic doses of vitamin D range from 10,000 to 20,000 IU a day, but make sure you and your doctor monitor your vitamin D levels regularly to make sure it doesn’t go too high. It’s rare to see levels go too high, but it’s best to stay aware of your vitamin D status.

Glutathione

This is probably the most powerful anti-inflammatory supplement out there. Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant and necessary to protect cells and prevent inflammation.[26][27] But most people’s glutathione levels have been depleted by poor diets, excess sugars, environmental toxins, and chronic health conditions. Aging also depletes glutathione. Glutathione is especially important when the brain is inflamed as the brain’s immune system does not have an “off switch” like the body’s, so you need to intervene to dampen neuroinflammation to protect the brain tissue.

Glutathione also supports liver detoxification, decreases levels of pro-inflammatory immune cells, and supports the integrity of the gut, brain, and lung barriers. The two glutathione products we get the best results with are Trizomal Glutathione from Apex Energetics and Tri-Fortify Orange by Researched Nutritionals. You can also undergo glutathione IV therapy. How much you need depends on the degree of your inflammation, but we have our patients take 5–10 ml three times a day of Trizomal Glutathione. 

Resveratrol

Taking therapeutic doses of resveratrol has been shown to significantly dampen inflammation, support healthy gut bacteria (the gut microbiome), and support the immune barriers. We find resveratrol has a profound impact on inflammation.[28]

You can use resveratrol capsules, but we like to use Resvero Active by Apex Energetics, which is a highly absorbable liposomal resveratrol and allows you to take therapeutic doses. How much resveratrol you take depends on how bad inflammation is, so take enough to feel an effect. We recommend 5–10 ml three times a day of Resvero Active. 

One of the consequences of increased inflammation and cytokine storms is the brain becomes inflamed. Brain inflammation impairs brain function and speeds up the degeneration of brain tissue. Common symptoms of brain inflammation include brain fog, fatigue, memory loss, poor cognition, depression, loss of motivation, anxiety, irritability, and other brain-based and mood symptoms. Diminished brain function also leads to diminished organ function.

The brain communicates with the gut and the other organs via a large nerve called the vagus nerve.[29][30]  However, in Covid-19 patients suffering from brain inflammation, we see poor communication between the brain and the gut, lungs, and heart and poorer function of those organs and systems as a result. Unfortunately, this triggers more inflammation in a vicious feedback loop. For instance, it can cause poor digestion, which in turn raises the risk of food intolerances and leaky gut. 

Fortunately, we can exercise the vagus nerve to improve the brain’s communication with the organs and also to improve overall brain health.

These are the vagus nerve exercises I give my patients:

Gargle water as intensely as possible for three minutes, three times a day. Gargle to the point where you produce tears, or at least come close. The vagus originates in an area of the brain next to the area that produces tears, so if you can make yourself tear up then you know you’re doing a good job stimulating the vagus. It may take some time to work up to that. 

Stimulate the gag reflex 10 times, three times a day using a tongue blade that you can buy off Amazon. Again, you want to do it to the point that you make your eyes tear. 

Deep breathing exercises will help stimulate the vagus nerve as well as improve lung capacity and help oxygenate the body. Three times a day for five minutes at a time, breathe as deeply as you can through your nose and then exhale out your mouth. The goal is to minimize how many breaths you take per minute. Count your breaths and see if you can work towards cutting them in half. This builds lung capacity. I have people monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation while doing this exercise to ensure oxygen levels are actually going up. 

Cold showers don’t sound great but they are important to incorporate into your routine. You can start with a warm shower and end with a warm shower, but at some point, bring the water to 60 degrees or lower for 60 seconds. Turn it as cold as it will go in the summer, and a little less than that in the winter and fall. If you can do it in the morning, it’s even better as it will boost your cortisol awakening response. Supporting your cortisol awakening response within 15 minutes of waking up has been shown to profoundly influence overall metabolic function and health. You may feel panicky and hyper ventilate the first few times, but when you get used to it, do deep breathing exercises while you’re in the cold shower. Soon you will come to love how the cold showers make you feel.

These exercises will help not only the vagus nerve but also brain plasticity, or the brain’s ability to develop new neural pathways. We only have a certain amount of neurons in our life spans—they are not cells we regenerate. We also lose neurons as we age, and dead neurons can impede communication among the neurons that are still viable. Therefore, the best way to maintain brain function and health as we age is by building more communication between the neurons we have left. We do this by constantly learning new things and developing positive habits. 

However, for plasticity to work, you have to be consistent in performing these exercises and new habits for the new neuronal pathways to grow.

Our first and most powerful strategy is to put our patients on an anti-inflammatory diet.[12][13] During the years of running our clinics, we have been testing patients—who come from all over the country and around the world— for food intolerances.[14][15][16] Removing these foods from their diet helps significantly in lowering inflammation.

Here are the food intolerances we see most often:

• Gluten: Gluten is by far the most inflammatory food we see in immune testing. 
• Dairy: Dairy comes up about as often as gluten as being inflammatory.
• Soy
• Rice
• Corn
• Aspartame (artificial sweetener used in most diet beverages)
• Pork (and beef to a lesser degree)
• Eggs

If you follow an anti-inflammatory diet for 30 days that eliminates these foods along with sugars and other sweeteners, includes ample amounts of vegetables,[17][18] and removes processed and fast foods, this will profoundly reduce your inflammation. Additionally, I have my patients remove all grains, all legumes, and all nightshade vegetables (peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and potatoes), and alcohol[19][20]. You can learn more by clicking on this link.

What can you eat? The foods you can eat on this diet include: 

• Poultry
• Fish
• Lamb
• Vegetables (that aren’t nightshades)
• Fruits: Keep fruit consumption to a minimum because it is high in sugar, and eat fruit with fiber, protein, or fat to slow down the absorption of sugar.
• Healthy fats like olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil

Sugars and sweeteners (honey, maple syrup, agave, coconut sugar, etc.) are not included on an anti-inflammatory diet. This is because they cause a spike in your blood sugar, which is followed by a surge of insulin. This process is very pro-inflammatory every time it happens.[21][22][23] To lower inflammation, you absolutely need to avoid all sweeteners, sweet fruits (opt for lower glycemic fruit like raspberries), excess fruit, fruit juices, and fruit smoothies. If you eat a little fruit, slow down the sugar shock to your system by eating some fiber, protein, or fat with it.

Also, since most people have some sort of blood sugar imbalance, and because this diet is pretty limited, we want you to eat every two to three hours to keep your blood sugar stable. This doesn’t mean a full meal every two to three hours—eat your three main meals and include snacks in between. Your meals will be primarily meat and vegetables, and you can snack on nuts, seeds, meats, vegetables, and healthy fats. If you go too long without eating and get too hungry, you may not only cause your blood sugar to crash, but your hunger will make it a lot harder to stick to the diet.

Eat plenty of healthy fats with your meals and snacks not only to stay satiated, but also because fat is critical to good brain health. Your brain is made up of primarily fat, so the fats we eat have a large influence on our brain health. 

Just one bite, or one small helping of something not allowed on the diet can undo all your good work.[24] Even just a crumb of gluten or dairy can trigger inflammation and make it harder for your system to calm down and find balance, so this is one diet where it’s important to be strict. Damaging inflammation can happen in as little as three minutes after eating something inflammatory and take three to six months to repair. 

The good news is you can eat as much food as you’d like to stay satisfied and keep your energy levels up. This is not a diet to calorie count or minimize portions – most people lose weight on this diet. (Of course, don’t gorge yourself and eat excessively either, that also causes insulin surges and inflammation.)

Most people with chronic inflammation also have intestinal permeability. We also call this leaky gut. Over time, inflammation degrades the lining of the small intestine to the point where undigested food particles, bacteria, and other pathogens can escape from the digestive tract into the sterile environment of the bloodstream. This puts the immune system on red alert and causes inflammation throughout the body. Old injuries flare up and hurt, and the way inflammation manifests depends on your genetics. It can manifest as joint pain, skin disorders, respiratory problems, gut problems, or brain-based and mood issues. The worst part is it makes your existing inflammation even worse in a vicious feedback loop.

If you have leaky gut, you also most likely have leaky brain, or a permeable blood-brain barrier. This means the thin lining of cells that cover and protect the brain develops gaps or holes that allow particles into the brain that aren’t meant to be there, such as immune antibodies, bacteria, yeast, chemicals, heavy metals, and other pathogens. This inflames the brain and causes it to degenerate more quickly. Symptoms of leaky brain include brain fog (especially if it comes on after you eat), as well as fatigue, memory loss, depression, and anxiety.

As I mentioned earlier, leaky gut and leaky brain can happen in as little as three minutes after eating something inflammatory and take three to six months to repair. This is why so many people live in a constant state of inflammation—their immune barriers never get a chance to heal. The lungs, sinuses, and urogenital tract are other immune barriers that can be affected by inflammation.

After you have been on the autoimmune diet for 30 days, you start reintroducing foods one at a time every three days and monitor reactions. If you followed the diet carefully, your immune system will now be healthier and more robust, which can cause strong reactions to foods you weren’t aware were inflammatory for you. Reactions vary depending on the person, but look for symptoms in your gut, brain, skin, joints, or respiratory tract.

If you react to one of the foods you ate, go back on the anti-inflammatory diet until your inflammation calms down and permanently remove that food from your diet. Then move on to reintroducing a different food, repeating the process. Do this until you move through the list of foods you eliminated to determine which ones you react to.

In addition to following the anti-inflammatory diet, certain supplements have been shown to be very effective in helping lower inflammation. These are the ones I use regularly in my practice:

Vitamin D

This one is foundational. Vitamin D increases immune cells called regulatory T-cells (T reg cells). As the name implies, T reg cells regulate whether you have a pro-inflammatory response or an anti-inflammatory response. When you support T reg cells with vitamin D they work to dampen inflammation. Vitamin D also supports the integrity of your immune barriers, such as the gut barrier, blood-brain barrier, and lung barrier so you’re better protected from inflammatory pathogens.

Therapeutic doses of vitamin D range from 10,000 to 20,000 IU a day, but make sure you and your doctor monitor your vitamin D levels regularly to make sure it doesn’t go too high. It’s rare to see levels go too high, but it’s best to stay aware of your vitamin D status.

Glutathione

This is probably the most powerful anti-inflammatory supplement out there. Glutathione is the body’s master antioxidant and necessary to protect cells and prevent inflammation.[26][27] But most people’s glutathione levels have been depleted by poor diets, excess sugars, environmental toxins, and chronic health conditions. Aging also depletes glutathione. Glutathione is especially important when the brain is inflamed as the brain’s immune system does not have an “off switch” like the body’s, so you need to intervene to dampen neuroinflammation to protect the brain tissue.

Glutathione also supports liver detoxification, decreases levels of pro-inflammatory immune cells, and supports the integrity of the gut, brain, and lung barriers. The two glutathione products we get the best results with are Trizomal Glutathione from Apex Energetics and Tri-Fortify Orange by Researched Nutritionals. You can also undergo glutathione IV therapy. How much you need depends on the degree of your inflammation, but we have our patients take 5–10 ml three times a day of Trizomal Glutathione. 

Resveratrol

Taking therapeutic doses of resveratrol has been shown to significantly dampen inflammation, support healthy gut bacteria (the gut microbiome), and support the immune barriers. We find resveratrol has a profound impact on inflammation.[28]

You can use resveratrol capsules, but we like to use Resvero Active by Apex Energetics, which is a highly absorbable liposomal resveratrol and allows you to take therapeutic doses. How much resveratrol you take depends on how bad inflammation is, so take enough to feel an effect. We recommend 5–10 ml three times a day of Resvero Active. 

One of the consequences of increased inflammation and cytokine storms is the brain becomes inflamed. Brain inflammation impairs brain function and speeds up the degeneration of brain tissue. Common symptoms of brain inflammation include brain fog, fatigue, memory loss, poor cognition, depression, loss of motivation, anxiety, irritability, and other brain-based and mood symptoms. Diminished brain function also leads to diminished organ function.

The brain communicates with the gut and the other organs via a large nerve called the vagus nerve.[29][30]  However, in Covid-19 patients suffering from brain inflammation, we see poor communication between the brain and the gut, lungs, and heart and poorer function of those organs and systems as a result. Unfortunately, this triggers more inflammation in a vicious feedback loop. For instance, it can cause poor digestion, which in turn raises the risk of food intolerances and leaky gut. 

Fortunately, we can exercise the vagus nerve to improve the brain’s communication with the organs and also to improve overall brain health.

These are the vagus nerve exercises I give my patients:

Gargle water as intensely as possible for three minutes, three times a day. Gargle to the point where you produce tears, or at least come close. The vagus originates in an area of the brain next to the area that produces tears, so if you can make yourself tear up then you know you’re doing a good job stimulating the vagus. It may take some time to work up to that. 

Stimulate the gag reflex 10 times, three times a day using a tongue blade that you can buy off Amazon. Again, you want to do it to the point that you make your eyes tear. 

Deep breathing exercises will help stimulate the vagus nerve as well as improve lung capacity and help oxygenate the body. Three times a day for five minutes at a time, breathe as deeply as you can through your nose and then exhale out your mouth. The goal is to minimize how many breaths you take per minute. Count your breaths and see if you can work towards cutting them in half. This builds lung capacity. I have people monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation while doing this exercise to ensure oxygen levels are actually going up. 

Cold showers don’t sound great but they are important to incorporate into your routine. You can start with a warm shower and end with a warm shower, but at some point, bring the water to 60 degrees or lower for 60 seconds. Turn it as cold as it will go in the summer, and a little less than that in the winter and fall. If you can do it in the morning, it’s even better as it will boost your cortisol awakening response. Supporting your cortisol awakening response within 15 minutes of waking up has been shown to profoundly influence overall metabolic function and health. You may feel panicky and hyper ventilate the first few times, but when you get used to it, do deep breathing exercises while you’re in the cold shower. Soon you will come to love how the cold showers make you feel.

These exercises will help not only the vagus nerve but also brain plasticity, or the brain’s ability to develop new neural pathways. We only have a certain amount of neurons in our life spans—they are not cells we regenerate. We also lose neurons as we age, and dead neurons can impede communication among the neurons that are still viable. Therefore, the best way to maintain brain function and health as we age is by building more communication between the neurons we have left. We do this by constantly learning new things and developing positive habits. 

However, for plasticity to work, you have to be consistent in performing these exercises and new habits for the new neuronal pathways to grow.