Are There Any Supplements That Help Prevent or Treat COVID-19?
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One of the first things I noticed amidst the COVID-10 outbreak was the amount of people and companies literally scamming people by promoting and selling unproven cures and supplements with claims of preventing or curing COVID-19. It’s a shame and makes me sick to think that people are taking advantage of others in a time where everyone should be coming together to tackle this virus.
Having said that, I’m personally a huge believer in natural/alternative medicines IF there’s research or evidence behind it.
I’m going to start off by stating this fact based on current evidence: “NO, there is no natural supplement that’s been proven to cure COVID-19.”
There is not much evidence because it’s such a new virus that research is still being done. Thankfully, scientists are taking this extremely seriously and more and more studies are beginning everyday to learn how we can combat COVID-19. Ultimately, a vaccine would be the best choice and there are many different kinds already being tested. Secondarily, treatments to “lessen the blow” or decrease severity of symptoms are also being researched.
HOWEVER, there are MANY natural supplements and essential oils that are anti-viral in nature. This doesn’t mean it’s a cure, but it means that it’s likely to attack the virus or slow it’s replication process meaning your immune system has a quicker job with less of the virus to take care of. This means it has potential to lessen the severity of the damage caused by the virus. This may be HUGE for people with weak immune systems who might die from complications via viral damage.
We’re going to take a look at 2 things in this article:
Anti-Viral Supplements
Immune Boosting Supplements
Anti-Viral Supplements/Compounds
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COVID-19 is an enveloped virus. Most viruses that affect humans are envelop viruses (from the flu to H1N1 to Herpes). There are TONS of research and evidence that some essential oils have profound effects as a natural virucide.
Some examples include:
Peppermint Oil
Oregano Oil
Tea Tree Oil
Star Anise Oil
Echinacea Oil
Garlic (specifically one if it’s compounds allicin)
And MANY MANY MORE.
Lots of research shows compounding effects as well. Although many essential oils have natural compounds in them that are anti-viral, some work better on certain viruses than others. Also, some work on different parts of the infection period vs others. One study showed that Star Anise Oil worked best as a “pre-infection treatment”, which has shown to slow or prevent infection, while others are more effective as a block in the viral replication process. This prevents the virus from replicating.
You must take these with a grain of salt because there is more evidence of in vitro vs in vivo studies but the overall use of essential oils CAN NOT be discounted and has proven anti-viral and anti-bacterial effects. This may be worth a shot if you are infected with COVID-19, just make sure you read the label on whichever supplement you get your hands on. Too much ingestion of essential oils can have negative effects on your body such as killing healthy gut bacteria.
Immune Boosting Supplements
Believe it or not, there ARE things you can do to boost your immune system. They’re actually so simple it seems ridiculous.
Higher Protein Intake
Your immune cells (T cells or killer cells) are made up of proteins. If you have a low or inadequate intake of protein guess what will happen? Less immune cells can be produced. Make sure you SUPPORT your immune system by giving it the amino acids that it needs to produce virus killing immune cells. This is crucial.
Most people eat an incredibly low amount of protein. Daily recommended protein intake is between 0.6-1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. So if you’re 150lbs you need between 90-150g a day. This number should be more on the higher side if you exercise often (need more protein to repair and build muscle) and if you’re sick (boost immune cell production).
Think you get enough already? Here’s a simple way to estimate how much protein you eat per day.
Put your hand out in front of you. Open it so you can see your palm, now picture a protein source (chicken breast, fish, steak, eggs, etc). Whatever protein source you can fit the size of your palm is roughly 20-30g of protein (obviously depends on how big your palm is but that’s a good estimate). So if you think you eat 3 big servings a day the size of your palm, you’re still ONLY AT 90 GRAMS. You likely need to eat more than that to support your immune system.
Don’t be afraid to eat more protein!
Vitamin C
Vitamin C has always been known in society as an immune booster. The science backs it up too! Interestingly enough, according to examine.com “Vitamin C can reduce the duration of cold symptoms if you’ve started taking it regularly before falling sick. This seems especially true for athletes and older people.”
This is interesting because professional athletes and older people tend to have weakened immune systems. Athletes have a vigorous in season schedule that involves extreme amounts of physical activity. It can become tough to eat an optimal diet and get enough sleep/recovery to keep immune systems high.
For elderly people, they tend to have weaker immune systems due to slower metabolic functions and decreased appetite leading to less protein, vitamins and minerals.
Another tidbit I learned from examine.com is that there is currently a clinical trial of IV vitamin C for severe COVID-19-induced pneumonia underway. This might give merit to Vitamin C as a great treatment option that MIGHT SAVE LIVES.
In my opinion, if the hospitals become full and have trouble treating people with severe symptoms it’s worth a shot at trying every potentially effective treatment. Even if Vitamin C shows some benefit but “not statistical significant” in research, why wouldn’t you treat people with it anyway? I say EVERY LITTLE THING HELPS.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is huge for the immune system. Also, it’s something you get from natural sunlight however, in Toronto, we’re not getting much of that right now! Winter has just gone so we have been deprived of natural Vitamin D, and on top of that we’re encouraged to stay home so even if there was lots of sunlight we won’t likely get as much as we should!
This is where supplementing it can help. Vitamin D helps with enzymatic processes of the immune system. There’s also a correlation of low vitamin D levels and high rates of diseases from autoimmune to chronic bacterial and viral infections.
Long story short, get your vitamin D in! Do your research before you make a purchase because there is lots of controversy as to what type of vitamin D is best for immunity.
Zinc
“Zinc is known to be essential for all highly proliferating cells in the human body, especially the immune system.” (9)
Zinc is responsible for many recovery benefits. One interesting fact is that “Zinc lozenges, in high doses, seem to reduce the duration of common colds, though it's unclear if they reduce the risk of getting colds in the first place or the severity of symptoms. Their effects are largely limited to throat and nasal symptoms, and high doses tend to come with some mild but notable side-effects like nausea and metallic taste in the mouth”. Again, there is no research yet on zinc supplements for COVID-19 patients but it may help some of the cold symptoms.
There’s only one real issue with zinc supplementation. The issue is that zinc reaches it’s “upper tolerable limit” much quicker than other supplements. This means you shouldn’t supplement high doses for long periods of time. Zinc lozenges can cause nausea and metallic taste in mouth if taken for longer periods of time.
Exercise
The last thing to add is the balance of exercise. You want to exercise to maintain a healthy working metabolism and good cardio which can help make your breathing more efficient. That’s why despite our gym being closed, we offer online training, you need to stay fit! You also can’t let yourself go overboard or you may indeed suffer from the same lowered immunity that some athletes exhibit.
If you want to find out more, we wrote a blog specifically on Exercise and it’s effects on the immune system. Click here to learn more.
Support Your Immune System
It’s truly surprising that governments are putting so much effort into preventative measures like physical distancing and encouraging people without severe symptoms to stay home and self quarantine but absolutely ZERO effort in educating the public on boosting their immune system.
I believe that focusing on supporting your immune function can help prevent some cases from developing more severe symptoms that can lead to death.
Make every effort possible to support your immune system with some of the strategies I listed above.
References
Schnitzler, P., Schuhmacher, A., Astani, A., & Reichling, J. (2008). Melissa officinalis oil affects infectivity of enveloped herpesviruses. Phytomedicine, 15(9), 734-740.
Pilau, M. R., Alves, S. H., Weiblen, R., Arenhart, S., Cueto, A. P., & Lovato, L. T. (2011). Antiviral activity of the Lippia graveolens (Mexican oregano) essential oil and its main compound carvacrol against human and animal viruses. Brazilian Journal of Microbiology, 42(4), 1616-1624.
Astani, A., Reichling, J., & Schnitzler, P. (2011). Screening for antiviral activities of isolated compounds from essential oils. Evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine, 2011.
Astani, A., Reichling, J., & Schnitzler, P. (2010). Comparative study on the antiviral activity of selected monoterpenes derived from essential oils. Phytotherapy Research: An International Journal Devoted to Pharmacological and Toxicological Evaluation of Natural Product Derivatives, 24(5), 673-679.
Meneses, R., Ocazionez, R. E., Martínez, J. R., & Stashenko, E. E. (2009). Inhibitory effect of essential oils obtained from plants grown in Colombia on yellow fever virus replication in vitro. Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials, 8(1), 8.
https://examine.com/topics/coronavirus/
Bayan, L., Koulivand, P. H., & Gorji, A. (2014). Garlic: a review of potential therapeutic effects. Avicenna journal of phytomedicine, 4(1), 1.
Baeke, F., Takiishi, T., Korf, H., Gysemans, C., & Mathieu, C. (2010). Vitamin D: modulator of the immune system. Current opinion in pharmacology, 10(4), 482-496.
Ibs, K. H., & Rink, L. (2003). Zinc-altered immune function. The Journal of nutrition, 133(5), 1452S-1456S.