Common contributing factors to COVID-19 and inflammatory bowel disease, 2021, Kostoff et al

Highlights

• Validated fifty contributing factors (CFs) in common between COVID-19 and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

• Method allows identification of directly related CFs to COVID-19 from indirectly related CFs to COVID-19.

• Many more CFs common to COVID-19 and IBD are possible with present approach.

• Results provide the basis for unified theory of chronic-infectious diseases.

Abstract

The devastating complications of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) result from an individual’s dysfunctional immune response following the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Multiple toxic stressors and behaviors contribute to underlying immune system dysfunction. SARS-CoV-2 exploits the dysfunctional immune system to trigger a chain of events ultimately leading to COVID-19.

We have previously identified many contributing factors (CFs) (representing toxic exposure, lifestyle factors and psychosocial stressors) common to myriad chronic diseases. We hypothesized significant overlap between CFs associated with COVID-19 and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), because of the strong role immune dysfunction plays in each disease.

A streamlined dot-product approach was used to identify potential CFs to COVID-19 and IBD. Of the fifty CFs to COVID-19 that were validated for demonstration purposes, approximately half had direct impact on COVID-19 (the CF and COVID-19 were mentioned in the same record; i.e., CF---→COVID-19), and the other half had indirect impact. The nascent character of the COVID-19 core literature (∼ one year old) did not allow sufficient time for the direct impacts of many CFs on COVID-19 to be identified. Therefore, an immune system dysfunction (ID) literature directly related to the COVID-19 core literature was used to augment the COVID-19 core literature and provide the remaining CFs that impacted COVID-19 indirectly (i.e., CF---→immune system dysfunction---→COVID-19).

Approximately 13000 potential CFs for myriad diseases (obtained from government and university toxic substance lists) served as the starting point for the dot-product identification process. These phrases were intersected (dot-product) with phrases extracted from a PubMed-derived IBD core literature, a nascent COVID-19 core literature, and the COVID-19-related immune system dysfunction (ID) core literature to identify common ID/COVID-19 and IBD CFs. Approximately 3000 potential CFs common to both ID and IBD, almost 2300 potential CFs common to ID and COVID-19, and over 1900 potential CFs common to IBD and COVID-19 were identified. As proof of concept, we validated fifty of these ∼3000 overlapping ID/IBD candidate CFs with biologic plausibility. We further validated 24 of the fifty as common CFs in the IBD and nascent COVID-19 core literatures. This significant finding demonstrated that the CFs indirectly related to COVID-19 -- identified with use of the immune system dysfunction literature -- are strong candidates to emerge eventually as CFs directly related to COVID-19. As discussed in the main text, many more CFs common to all these core literatures could be identified and validated.

ID and IBD share many common risk/contributing factors, including behaviors and toxic exposures that impair immune function. A key component to immune system health is removal of those factors that contribute to immune system dysfunction in the first place. This requires a paradigm shift from traditional Western medicine, which often focuses on treatment, rather than prevention.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214750021001591

 

Ah, well, let's just eliminate exposure to all toxins and pathogens, then. Easy peasy. Someone really should have thought of that before today.

Sounds very nice in principle, but the idea that we can avoid all causes and triggers of disease is amazingly naïve. We can't even do that during a freaking pandemic for one virus where we know what to do and too many people refuse to do it anyway and it's a routine thing for physicians to simply deny the premise that during a pandemic with an airborne virus spreading wildly someone could have possibly been infected as if it's inconceivable without the virus actively springing into a song-and-dance on command affirming its presence.

Medicine seems to be constantly stuck resisting the idea that any plan will break down the second it meets real life. It just sticks to models, reality is too wild, too unpredictable, too many variables to fit in a model. And when models are everything...