Vitamins and COVID-19

When I read articles about COVID-19 and “cures” and I am looking for honest reporting, I feel that I would have better odds in winning a million South African Rands playing at an Aussie online casino.

The other day, I read an article on a news website that was trying to convince people that taking vitamins will have zero impact on “helping” with COVID-19.  I felt as if I wanted to reach inside of my computer and strangle the person who wrote that article, because it was complete BS.

First of all, when in your life have you EVER heard of any doctor, nurse, CDC, NIH, etc. telling people that since having a well balanced diet and taking your vitamins will NOT 100% prevent you from catching a cold, virus, bacterial infection, whatever, that you should not worry about eating healthy diet and taking your vitamins.  But that is exactly what the article that I read was trying to tell people.

Why is eating a healthy diet good for you?

According to Scotland’s equivalent to the NIH, the NHS says that eating a healthy diet provides:

• energy you need to keep active during the day.
• nutrients you need for growth, repair, helping you stay strong and healthy and help prevent diet related illnesses.

Deficiencies in some key nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E, and zinc, iron, and selenium, can weaken parts of your immune system.

If deficiencies can weaken your immune system, what would happen if not only were we not deficient, but we gave our bodies a boost of these vitamins when we start to feel sick?  Let me think, hum, it would make our immune system stronger.

This is kindergarten education.  “You need a variety of healthy foods, so even though even apples are healthy, you cannot survive on a diet of only apples.”

Does taking vitamins prevent you from getting sick with a cold, virus, bacterial infection, flu or COVID-19?

Eating a healthy diet with a variety of vitamins and minerals has never, nor will it even, prevent you from getting sick.  That is not the point.  The point is to make your immune system stronger, so if (and when) you get sick, your body is in the best position possible to fight off the infection.

When “people” are screaming, “Don’t take your vitamins, because it is not going to prevent you from getting sick!”, when that has never been the purpose of a healthy diet and taking vitamin supplements, it has to make you wonder what they are hiding from the public.

Recent Study from US, UK, and Sweden, vitamins

I cannot find the exact title of this study, because the article I read did not include it.  But what I do know is that the results that were published were based on self-report symptoms by the patients, not even by doctors.

In other words, it was NOT an official double blind clinical trial involving vitamins and COVID-19.  On top of that, we do not even know if the people reporting the information were even telling the truth.

Bottom line.  Do not trust this “report”.

Clinical Trial NCT04491994 – Clearing the Fog: Is Hydroxychloroquine Effective in Reducing COVID-19 Progression (COVID-19)

Although this clinical trial was intended for testing hydroxychloroquine, both groups, the placebo group and the non-placebo group were given vitamins as the “standard treatment”

• Vitamin C (2g) — daily recommended dose 90 mg/day
• Vitamin D (alfacalcidiol 1µg) — daily recommended 15 mcg/day
• (600 IU, or international units)
• Zinc (50mg) — daily recommended 11 mg/day
• paracetamol (generic version of Tylenol)

The “test” group was also given the following:

• Tab HCQ (400mg BD on D0 followed by 200mg BD D1-D5)

Primary and secondary outcome being checked

1. Number of Participants With Progression [ Time Frame: 5 days ] (primary outcome)
2. Viral Clearance [ Time Frame: 14 days ] (secondary outcome)

The participants were of ages 18 to 80 years old.

Inclusion criteria

• Mild Corona virus disease (COVID-19)
• PCR confirmed infection
• Hospital admitted patients

Excluding criteria

• Moderate, severe and critical COVID-19
• Day 0 CRP greater than 6mg/dl, ALC < 1000 or evidence of infiltrates on X-ray chest
• Comorbidity with life expectancy less than 6 months
• Contraindications to HCQ therapy

So we are essentially talking about people who have shown signs of having COVID, but the virus has not progressed to become moderate, severe, or critical.  So since we are talking about preventing COVID-19 or early home treatment, the results from this clinical trial are important.

Summary of this clinical trial

There were 180 in the control group, and 360 in the intervention group.  But since both groups were given above listed vitamins and minerals, for this discussion, we are looking at the total of both groups, which is 540 people.

In this study, 34 were female and 506 were male.

In both the standard treatment group and the intervention group, 3.2% symptoms progressed.  But the most important figure is that with both groups, there was:

• zero mortality — nobody died.
• zero adverse events — nobody had long term problems, even after they recovered.
• zero non serious adverse events

So although this clinical trial proves that HCQ does nothing to help COVID-19 patients, it does show that vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc do help.  But in order to get this help, the levels of these vitamins that you need to take are higher than the daily recommended levels.

If a person’s goal is to NOT get the vaccine and to take vitamins if they feel sick and start to show symptoms similar to COVID-19, take vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc does help, but HCQ does not seem to do anything when taken in addition these vitamins.

Clinical Trial NCT04332991 –  Outcomes Related to COVID-19 Treated With Hydroxychloroquine Among In-patients With Symptomatic Disease (ORCHID)

In this clinical trial, neither the control group (placebo group) or the HCQ group were given vitamin D, vitamin C, and Zinc.

The result was that 29 people in the HCQ group died (12%) and 28 people in the placebo group died (11.9%).

Comparing clinical trial NCT04491994 to clinical trial NCT04332991

Although there has not been an official clinical trial for Vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc, by looking at clinical trial NCT04491994  to clinical trial NCT04332991  we see the following:

• In the clinical trial NCT04491994 every patient was given vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc and lived
• In the clinical trial  NCT04332991 when both groups were NOT given vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc 12% of the patients died in both groups.

So we now know that HCQ does nothing to help COVID-19 patients, but vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc does help COVID-19 patients.

Personally, due to the fact that we are talking about vitamins and minerals within levels that although higher than the recommended daily allowance, are not “crazy” — there is no benefit to doing a clinical trial on each specific vitamin separately.

• Everyone agrees that vitamin D helps COVID-19 patients
• Everyone agrees that vitamin C helps with boosting your immune system
• Everyone agrees that zinc helps fight viruses

Summary

Eat healthy.  Take your daily vitamins.  Go outside and get fresh air.  And if you are starting to feel sick, “overdose” on vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc.

And if you want to be extra careful, add on some old fashion grandma’s chicken soup for good measure — lots of liquids and lots of TLC (tender loving care) always helps when we are feeling yucky, no matter what virus we have.  Or even if you are just having a bad day.  😉