COVID-19 Supplement Update 3-21-2020

All right. So now I want to give an update on supplement recommendations. And first let me just start by saying that the coronavirus is a very dynamic and evolving situation and many experts had, in traditional medicine and in integrative and functional medicine, have changed their opinions on what things might be potentially helpful and what things might be potentially harmful. And we just don’t know. As I said in my original set of videos, we really don’t know. We’re all extrapolating data from other viruses and from the two coronavirus outbreaks of the past, and what the little data that we do have on this current coronavirus from places in Asia, especially China, of course. So let me start by saying that there are some, a little bit of differencing of opinions on what to do with basic things that we usually recommend for colds and flus, like vitamin D and vitamin A, for example.

There are some people that are in one camp basically saying do it because we’ve got really good data and other viruses on it. And then there’s another camp saying, well things like vitamin D and A may upregulate the ACE-2 receptor, which is part of how the virus gets in and gains access to you and you get significant lung symptoms and even respiratory failure. But what we really don’t know is if upregulation of those ACE-2 receptors is good or bad, there’s differences of opinion on that. So what I’m going to now say is if you’re currently taking vitamin D and vitamin A as part of your plan because your doctor has checked your levels and you know you’re deficient and you’re replacing a deficiency, it is still a good idea. What I will say is you might not take high doses of vitamin D and vitamin A if you want to play the middle ground and be really super safe.

And of course, you’re going to talk to your own provider about what you should do with your exact supplement regimen if you are on supplements. So there are some things that I’ve been able to find in the research on SARS-CoV-2 exactly. And one of the things I got really excited about, and I’m probably going to do a separate whole video on it, is curcumin and there are 2 studies that are out of Indonesia that are in pre-print. So just to be really clear, pre-print means that they have not been peer reviewed yet, means the study is done and written but it hasn’t been peer reviewed yet and officially published. There’s a lot of that data coming out rapidly because obviously everyone’s looking for something that can be potentially helpful. So there is some data that says that curcumin may block the docking of the virus to the ACE-2 receptor.

So I think that’s really great on top of the other bazillion ways that curcumin helps with the immune system and I am going to do a future video to get into the details on exactly what those mechanisms are. Another thing I found data on was zinc. I mentioned this previously. It appears that zinc decreases coronavirus replication. So in my book that cannot be bad, it’s likely very helpful and probably not harmful. And then the third thing that I found really good data on, again in pre-printed studies, so studies that had been released but not peer reviewed yet, were citrus bioflavonoids. And so the citrus flavonoids, there is one in particular, hesperitin, that was shown to really help block that ACE-2 receptor and the whole docking phenomenon as well. So where can you find citrus flavonoids? It’s really in the peels of lemons and oranges, particularly, are high in these.

So, and then there’s of course regular vitamin C or ascorbic acid. And as I’ve mentioned previously, there’s a current clinical trial going on with high dose IV vitamin C with SARS-CoV-2. The data has not been released yet. So we really don’t know. But to be honest, even vitamin C, there’s some practitioners are saying maybe it’s not a great idea to do super high dose, and others are saying, no, no, no, it’s really great. And vitamin C does have a fantastic track record with other viruses in helping to shorten duration of symptoms and even in prevention. But we don’t know the information on this exact virus, just to be really, really clear. So I want to just really impress upon you guys one more time that these are all educated guesses. That’s exactly what they are. So please do not think that taking any particular supplement regimen is going to prevent you from getting the coronavirus. All we can do is do things that are potentially helpful and not harmful.