Intravenous vitamin C at high doses to prevent Coronavirus infection
The new Covid 19 that appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, has produced a flurry of research in many countries aimed at preventing and treating this viral infection prior to the advent of a vaccine.
From Integrative Medicine, our focus is on prevention, increasing immunity to avoid contagion.
There are multiple approaches to address it, but today I am going to focus on the role of High-dose intravenous Vitamin C, showing new research published in February 2020.
Although Covid 19 causes mild symptoms in 80% of those infected, the at-risk population: over 60 years of age or younger with previous pathologies, are at risk of developing pneumoniabecause of an excessive inflammatory response to the virus at the alveolar level, which can lead to acute respiratory failure. The excessive inflammatory response is caused by an increase in oxidative stress and the accumulation of free radicals that trigger a storm of inflammatory cytokines. This condition is called acute respiratory distress syndrome and is also associated as a complication of bacterial pneumonias or pneumonias secondary to seasonal influenza.
The high-dose intravenous vitamin C has been shown to be effective in treating acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Due to the urgency of the Covid 19 pandemic and the lack of a vaccine, several investigators have done studies in patients with pneumonia secondary to Covid 19.
In China they have started to use intravenous Vitamin C in some hospitals to treat pneumonia and prevent respiratory distress with good results, as there were earlier studies showing its effectiveness in other infectious causes of pneumonia.
But what is important for the prevention of coronavirus viral infection is the role of intravenous Vitamin C in boosting immunity and preventing contagion.
Studies have shown that high-dose intravenous vitamin C increases the number of leukocytes in the blood and improves the function of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell).
Published studies on prevention and treatment of Covid 19 with intravenous Vitamin C
- Andrew W. Saul. (2020). Vitamin c and its application to the treatment of nCoV coronavirus. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Feb 10, 2020
- Richard Z Cheng, MD, PhD; Hanping Shi, MD, PhD et al (2020). Early Large Dose Intravenous Vitamin C is the Treatment of Choice for 2019-nCov Pneumonia. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Feb 16, 2020.
- Erol, Adnan. (2020). High-dose intravenous vitamin C treatment for COVID-19. 10.31219/osf.io/p7ex8.
- Van Gorkom, Gwendolyn & Klein Wolterink et al (2018). Influence of Vitamin C on Lymphocytes: An Overview. Antioxidants. 7. 41. 10.3390/antiox7030041.
- Fowler, Alpha & Kim, Christin et al (2017). Intravenous vitamin C as adjunctive therapy for enterovirus/rhinovirus induced acute respiratory distress syndrome. World Journal of Critical Care Medicine. 6. 85. 10.5492/wjccm.v6.i1.85.
