New Delhi: Vitamin C and zinc supplements do not help Covid-19 patients recover from their illness, a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open has found.
Zinc and Vitamin C are commonly available, over-the-counter supplements that patients across the world take for the treatment of viral illnesses.
Zinc is thought to aid the cells’ ability to fight off infection, and Vitamin C is an antioxidant that may play a role in immune response.
Sales of both Vitamin C and zinc supplements in India significantly shot up during the pandemic, since both are marketed as immunity boosters.
Limited evidence suggests that high doses of Vitamin C and zinc may reduce duration of common cold symptoms and decrease the severity of symptoms.
The study
Until now, the role of zinc and Vitamin C in decreasing symptoms and improving recovery in patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection was uncertain.
So, a team from Cleveland Clinic in the US sought to determine whether either reduces the severity or duration of symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 compared with usual care.
For the study conducted from April to October 2020, researchers assessed how 214 adults with confirmed Covid-19 infection responded to 10 days of zinc supplements, 10 days of vitamin C, both, or usual care.
There was no significant difference among the four groups in reduction of Covid symptoms.
Patients who received usual care without supplementation achieved a 50 per cent reduction in symptoms after about 6.7 days compared with 5.5 days for the Vitamin C group, 5.9 days for the zinc group, and 5.5 days for the group receiving both.
There was no reduction in hospitalisations or deaths among the groups.
‘Research now catching up’
“When we began this trial, there was no research to support supplemental therapy for the prevention or treatment of patients with Covid-19,” Milind Desai, director of clinical operations at Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute, said in a statement.
“As we watched the pandemic spread across the globe, infecting and killing millions, the medical community and consumers alike scrambled to try supplements that they believed could possibly prevent infection, or ease COVID-19 symptoms, but the research is just now catching up,” Desai said.
“We know that not all patients with Covid-19 require hospital admission, and compared to those being treated in a hospital setting, they are more likely to be seeking out supplements that could help them, so it was an important population to study,” said study co-author Suma Thomas, vice chair of strategic operations at the institute.
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Patients were not given high-dose vitamin C contrary to what indicated here… 8000mg of C is less then I take when I’m well. My wife was taking 20,00g an hour when she had covid and my daughter took 10,000 an hour. High dose vitamin C needs to be taken to bowel tolerance… there is over half a century of orthomolecular research on how to take vitamin C in high doses clearly they have avoided all the existing scientific information about the proper procedures for using vitamin C and simply gave a bunch of people a low-dose who are very very ill. And to make matters worse announcing the vitamin C is in effective in treating Covid – nothing could be further from the truth.
Ridiculous!! I personally know people who were helped recover by taking vitamin c. Im on 4 grams vitamin c daily and hung out closely with 5 confirmed covid cases and didn’t catch it, not to mention I was pregnant almost all 2020.
Such a lie. I can’t believe They are actually making a whole post about this when in fact my partner and I used zinc and vitamin D and it only gave me symptoms for three days and we was over Covid. This is America I guess.. You can literally feel yourseld starting to feeling better after taking the D3 and sing together.
I had the virus and before I ever had it, I took vit. C and Zinc. When I got the virus, I didn’t lose my smell or taste.