Can Supplements Help me Against COVID-19?
We do not know everything about COVID-19 yet, one of the biggest and most important questions gravitate around immunity. However, in this little time of intense and coordinated research, many questions have been solved. Among what we know, there is broad information on how our immunologic system fights against it, and this knowledge is particularly useful when we have not been infected yet or at an early stage.
It is general knowledge that a strong immunologic system will help us prevent many illnesses and fight them more effectively in case we have already fallen sick. For COVID-19, this is not an exception, the immunology against COVID-19 remains the key factor to understand how to proceed in terms of treatment, research on this is still in place, but we can talk about what we know so far.
When we think about how to defeat COVID-19 “immunity” is the keyword that comes to mind, it refers to the ability of our antibodies to fight the virus and flush it out or our body or to gather up defensive cells and act as a shield, depending on their cellular function, but it is not that easy as this.
First, let us go over some basic concepts, the immune system essentially has three kinds of cells: 1. The neutrophils, which help kill bacteria and viruses by absorbing them and killing them with harmful chemicals 2. The lymphocytes; include B-cells, T-cells, and NK cells, this group is basically in charge of killing viruses and bacteria and they do so by attacking infected cells. 3. The macrophages which, in other words, clean up the mess.
Through this process, the immune system learns to how to counter a specific kind of threat through their memory cells, their ability to adapt and tackle a known threat whenever it appears is what we call immunity.
Inefficiency by our cells to act during the first phase of the process can put our body at risk and make it easier for the infection to spread in our body. This deficiency may occur due to a poor immune system in old age people, people with chronic diseases, or because of a big dose of the virus entering the body at an initial interaction.
According to this logic, it is safe to think boosting our immune systems by ingesting supplementary vitamins or ideally, through good daily nutrition could play an important role in protecting us from the virus and this is in fact, correct. Especially Vitamins C, D, and Zinc could be of great help to our immune system.
In the end, immunity depends on how efficient our cells are at learning to adapt and fight the virus, giving them a hand is surely a good way to decrease the chances of getting infected or being severely affected by the virus. However, be mindful of ingesting these supplements in moderation. We advise consulting your doctor, to make sure you are getting the recommended intake.
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