Aside from the bit where I am a neurotic, the main reason that I am so obsessed about nutrition / diet (and exercise), is because I have thirty-five years of experience showing me the direct relationship between what I eat and my health. This started with a Naturopath ‘curing’ my severe eczema when I was about thirteen, after a succession of medical doctors prescribed stronger and stronger steroids over a great many months, for an outcome of precisely fuck all. I am now convinced the eczema came as a result of me turning vegetarian, but I don’t have my medical records to be able to say for sure. Although the eczema cleared up in two weeks after starting the naturopathic exclusion diet, I was on it for 1.5 years. Once excluded foods were reintroduced, I discovered that cow dairy triggered the eczema and so I have avoided it ever since. Aside
I’ve had asthma since I was a kid. I don’t know if I was born with it or if it developed after a serious case of pneumonia that saw me hospitalised when I was around 8 or 9, and which left me with scarred lungs and a pathetic peak flow score. Unfortunately, since the NHS has lost all my medical records, I cannot ever know for sure when the asthma first started (as in, was it caused by the pneumonia or did it predate it?), but I know I have had it most of my life. By about my early twenties, although I retained a pathetic peak flow score, I had mainly grown out of the asthma except for when I was ill. Then it kicked in with a vengeance and it seemed like every respiratory bug (aside from covid) went straight for my lungs as a weak point. I have had
I recently watched this fascinating lecture on the relationship between Vitamin D deficiency and severe Covid-19 and thought it well worth sharing. I am a very strong proponent for supplementing your diet with Vitamin D and have been doing so since 2010. In the UK, the guidance is that you should do so between late autumn to early spring if you are white, and all year round if you are black or Asian (i.e. have melanated skin). I currently supplement during the winter with 3 x 1000iu D3 tablets a day, spread over three meals, although when I lived in Scotland, I actually took 6 x 1000iu tablets a day. I have tried various different brands and definitely notice a difference between the cheapo brands and the better ones, and now use Solgar. I say notice a difference because the reason I started taking Vitamin D was to help with