The global pandemic of COVID-19 has taken a heavy toll on our society and its impact has not been equally distributed across the population. The most vulnerable to experience severe disease and death are those of advancing age and those with one of many diseases of the modern world driven by low-grade inflammation. These common disorders include obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver, cardiovascular and renal disease among others that are growing rapidly in modern life and already collectively account for nearly 60 percent of all deaths prior to COVID-19. Given that our immune health is directly tied to our behaviors and environmental exposures, advances in the understanding of how to modify our behaviors and exposures (what we eat, how we sleep and exercise and how we handle our stress) as well as understanding the impact of factors such as pollution and global warming may offer hope for greater population-based immune health to prepare us for future pandemics and offer greater resistance to chronic diseases.
