Natural Supports for Coronavirus (COVID-19)

• Current State of COVID-19|
• Natural Coronavirus Prevention|
• Research|
• Dietary Supplements|
• Vitamin C|
• Juicing & Trace Minerals|
• EGCG|
• Quercetin|
• Vitamin D & Vitamin A|

Part II with Dr. Paul Anderson.

I recently spoke with Dr. Paul Anderson about natural therapies and dietary supplements for coronavirus infection prevention and coronavirus infection. Dr. Anderson has a background in pharmaceutical research, as well as being trained as a naturopathic doctor. Though there may not yet be a coronavirus vaccine or proven antiviral medications, we talked about what we can do in the meantime to support our health. Let’s discuss.

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Where We Are with COVID-19

I asked Dr. Anderson how people are looking at the coronavirus situation and how we might need to change our thinking. His key message: We just don’t have enough information yet to know definitively what’s right. He said, “I think the bottom line is, since we can’t control what’s going to happen in the next six months…what do we do for ourselves?…What can I do to make myself the least possible target for the virus.”

Natural Coronavirus Prevention

In the absence of hard data showing that dietary supplements work specifically for SARS-CoV-2 infection, one way to proceed is to consider how they affect the body and the immune system to evaluate their potential usefulness. I asked Dr. Anderson if he agreed. He said, “What I try to bring people back to is we should think first about the way that the virus gets into people and creates trouble—which is primarily through the respiratory system—[and ask] what’s it most like? It’s got some similarity to SARS, it’s got some similarity to the swine flu, or avian flu. So what’s the problem with those viruses that makes us so sick if we get it? And then which natural things have been looked at for those problems?”

For COVID-19, Dr. Anderson suggested trialing natural therapeutics—such as vitamins, minerals, and other natural supplements—that have been shown to be supportive in these ways as good preventative medicine:

• Immunomodulatory, to prevent the cytokine storm and promote healthy immune system function
• Antiviral
• Protect respiratory system receptors from invasion
• Controls co-morbidities, or things that make you sicker, like diabetes or heart disease

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Research on Coronavirus Prevention and Treatment

There is plenty of compelling research into treating viruses, especially respiratory illnesses, with vitamin C and glutathione. But when it comes to COVID-19, most of what we have to work with are case studies, mostly from China. Dr. Anderson said these are inferential data, but these are a place to start.

Here is a summary of some of the recent promising COVID-19 research and case studies:

• A Canadian study used intravenous vitamin C in the hospital with people with active COVID-19 infection.
• There are two similar registered clinical trials in China.
• There is data on prehospital use of vitamin C.
• In a Chinese clinical trial, 50 out of 360 COVID-positive patients in the hospital were given intravenous continuous drip low dose vitamin C. “In the initial group of 50, none of them died. They all got out of the hospital, and they spent less time in the hospital…”
• There are case reports of positive outcomes from people using glutathione orally and intravenously, and also by supplementing N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC). Intravenous glutathione is a good way to build it up, but oral might be preventive.
• The Shanghai Experts Panel, made up of more than 50 doctors from the hospitals who dealt with COVID-19 patients, wrote up their findings on what helped patients:
• Oral vitamin C to bowel tolerance.
• Traditional Chinese medicines.

Best Dietary Supplements for Coronavirus Prevention

Vitamin C

Dr. Anderson says the data is pretty convincing for vitamin C. He went on to say, “If you had to roll your dice on the best data, I’d say vitamin C is okay. It’s very reasonably studied and very inexpensive…”

Juicing & Trace Minerals

A patient recently told me that juicing a whole lemon could provide the daily RDA of vitamin C. I asked Dr. Anderson whether he thought juicing was a good way to get nutrition for coronavirus prevention. He said, “Juicing is one of the more high-yield ways to get micronutrients out of food…because it does a lot of the digestive part for you…But the other thing you get, depending on what you juice, is trace minerals.”

“Zinc has become really hot,…but really you need all the good trace minerals. Selenium becomes important in helping with glutathione…Zinc is super important, not just for an antiviral effect, but it helps glutathione and a bunch of other factors in your body. And then there’s…chromium, and other trace minerals as well. Juicing, especially when you get into more colorful things and vegetables, you’re more likely to get the trace minerals.”

EGCG

Dr. Anderson suggested, “In the prevention stage, you can get a fair amount [of EGCG] if you drink green tea.

But usually, a thousand milligrams or a little bit more divided through the day with the EGCG is a good dose.”

Quercetin

Dr. Anderson said, “Quercetin doesn’t absorb super well. If you have plain quercetin, usually 500 to 1,000 mg with each meal, three times a day.

Vitamin D & Vitamin A

Dr. Anderson said, “The other thing that we counsel a lot of patients on is that some of the fat soluble vitamins become very important in respiratory and viral infections.”

“The fat solubles that have the most independent research for viral things, and especially the lungs are vitamin A and vitamin D.”

“Vitamin A [is used by] the epithelial tissue. So people tend to think of their skin, but also think about the lining of your respiratory system, which is where the virus lands. One thing that has been researched is… the better your vitamin A status, the less viruses enter or can create these really imbalanced inflammatory [conditions].”