Coronavirus: Doctors calls for calm and warn anxiety and panic during COVID-19 pandemic is weakening immunity and making people sick

Doctors have urged Gold Coast residents to stay calm in the stressful circumstances.

GOLD COAST doctors have warned that anxiety and panic during the COVID-19 pandemic is weakening immunity and making people sick.

They have also urged residents, particularly the elderly, to boost their immunity to the virus with simple, inexpensive measures – and to avoid refined sugar and transfats.

Robina GP Paul Payton, who has also been trained in integrative medicine by doctors from the prestigious Walsh Research Institute in the UK, said anxiety and panic compromised the immune system.

“Anxiety during this pandemic is not helpful as it raises cortisol levels. Excess refined sugar and trans fats also weaken immunity,” he warned.

Surfers Paradise GP Meer Janjua also called for calm and said more than 2000 stressed patients had visited the My Doctors Clinic in Surfers Paradise since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Wuhan in December.

Robina GP Paul Payton has called for calm during the COVID-19 pandemic. Picture: Scott Fletcher

Dr Payton said Gold Coasters could use a holistic approach to protect themselves from COVID-19 – to complement strategies recommended by Australian health authorities and the World Health Organisation.

“Adequate sleep and good hydration is important and nutrients to help boost the immune system include large doses of vitamin C – adults can take 1000mg twice a day,” he said.

He also recommended zinc, echinacea, andrographis and probiotics such as Saccromyces Boulardi to improve immunity.

Dr Janjua said of the more than 2000 patients seen in the past three months, none that he knew of had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

But fear and anxiety caused by mass hysteria was making people more vulnerable to becoming sick.

“(Patients) have presented with fear in their faces, tremors in their bodies and an urgent need for answers,” he said.

“When we get stressed, we breathe shallow, not deeply.

“We release fright-flight neurochemicals, retain carbon dioxide, make free radicals, metabolise more glucose, create more lactic acid and become more inflammatory.

Dr Paul Payton says patients have been desperate for answers. Picture: Scott Fletcher

“This can lead to immuno-suppression that feeds the cycle of disease until we get ill.

“When people have fear in their minds, they don’t feel their bodies and are less able to control the physiological stress response leading to more fear and disease.”

Dr Janjua said simple measures to help protect immunity included breathing deeply, avoiding refined sugar, drinking plenty of water and eating plenty of fruit and vegetables.

“Avoid stimulants such as coffee, reduce alcohol intake, stop smoking and get quality sleep, lots of sunlight, get out into nature and frequently give yourself long breaks from technology,” he said.

Both doctors recommended Australian Government Department of Health guidelines of good hygiene, self-isolation and social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.