Can high doses of Vitamin C really help Coronavirus symptoms? This doctor says yes

So many of the world’s top scientists are working around the clock to find a treatment for Coronavirus, but now news of a very simple, everyday prescription being used as medicine is making people quite excited and anxious.

The New York Post reported that Dr. Andrew Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island in the Coronavirus epicenter in New York, said his coronavirus patients immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C when they come to him. The patients are given this injection of Vitamin C three or four times per day.

He is using this method after seeing positive results in Shanghai, China where coronavirus patients were also given Vitamin C.  “The patients who received Vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get Vitamin C,” he told The Post. “It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”

Or perhaps it is not an exotic drug that is being tested in a lab. Vitamin C is what we are told to always take when we are feeling slightly sick. Though we can get Vitamin C from food (orange juice, of course) the recommended daily intake for Vitamin C is 75 mg for women and 90 mg for men so many people turn to supplements. Weber observes Vitamin C levels in coronavirus patients plunging when they develop sepsis, an inflammatory response to infection. “It makes all the sense in the world to try and maintain this level of Vitamin C,” he said.

The antioxidant has numerous benefits including reducing chronic heart diseases, blood pressure levels, heart disease risk factors, blood uric acid levels, risk for gout, and prevent iron deficiencies. In other words, Vitamin C is the superhero of supplements. But can it fight Coronavirus and should people be taking it preventively?

“There is some reason to hypothesize that some vitamins and supplements could reduce the risk and severity of COVID-19 because of benefits seen for other viral or respiratory disease,” Dr. Walter Willett, a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, told USA TODAY.

There is a research study being conducted at Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan, China that is looking at the effects of Vitamin C on COVID-19 but the results will not be produced until September 30. It will be a triple-blind study that will use an estimated 140 participants.

However, it seems that most experts are skeptical on the Vitamin C treatment. “Although Vitamin C does have some small effect on the common cold, it’s unlikely that taking large amounts of Vitamin C supplements will cure a COVID-19 infection — or have a large effect at all,” wrote Peter McCaffery, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Aberdeen, wrote in The Conversation.

The total number of Covid-19 cases has surpassed 33,404 within the US.