The Omicron variant has caused a surge in Covid-19 cases in the past few months. If you have been unfortunately been infected and are looking for supplements to help you rebuild your immunity and recover faster, this article is for you.
In this article, we will first look at the impact (short term & long term) of the infection has on your body, and from there, we will analyze different supplements that might help reverse or minimize them.
Let’s get started.
COVID-19 Infection: What happens when you get infected
COVID-19 infection is fundamentally still a type of viral infection. Typically a viral infection happens when a virus invades our body and starts taking control of healthy cells. The virus then uses up the resources in our body to make copies of itself and continue to infect other healthy cells.
With COVID-19 infection, the coronavirus latches its spiky surface protein to receptors in the airway, specifically the ACE2 receptors. From the receptors, the virus then “forces” itself into healthy cells and start commanding these cells to replicate the virus itself. These duplicated viruses then go on and infect other cells.
Note: Our lower airways (i.e lungs) have more ACE2 receptors than other parts of our respiratory tract, therefore the highest amount of virus will be found in the lower airways.
Within 2 – 14 days, our very smart immune system will begin to detect these invaders and react by triggering immune responses. The immune cells start to attack the affected cells and in the process, cause inflammation of the lungs and respiratory tract. As a result, these symptoms will start showing:
- Cough
- Fever
- Shortness of breath
- Fatigue
- Chills or body aches
- sore throat
- Nasal congestion or runny nose
- loss of taste
- loss of smell
- Nausea or vomiting
- diarrhoea
Severe symptoms of COVID-19 infection
For most people (about 80%), the symptoms end with a cough and a fever. But for some, the infection gets more severe. About 5 to 8 days after symptoms begin, they have shortness of breath (known as dyspnea).
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) begins a few days later.
ARDS happens when the cells in the lungs (in particular the alveoli) become so inflamed that it’s hard for the infected person to even breathe normally. When your breathing system is weakened, it makes it hard for the various organs in your body to get enough oxygen. You start feeling dizzy and tired due to a lack of oxygen in your brain.
Your body reacts by pumping your heart faster and breathing faster.
Many people who get ARDS need help to breathe using a ventilator.
Summary:
Covid-19 infection happens when the virus enters the respiratory system and starts replicating rapidly inside. After a few days, our immune system detects the invaders and tries to eliminate them by causing inflammation and immune responses. These reactions are what cause us to feel sick.
In rare, severe cases, our lungs will become so inflamed that we can’t even breathe properly without the help of a respirator.
Long term impact of COVID infection
To date, we are still not entirely clear what the long-term impact of Covid infection is. Most people who are infected recover within a few weeks (typically <4 weeks).
But amongst these people who have fully recovered from the infection, many reported new or ongoing symptoms that can last weeks or months. These symptoms, known as the post-COVID syndrome, can happen to anyone who has had COVID-19, even if the illness was mild, or if they had no initial symptoms.
Reported Post-COVID symptoms are:
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
- Tiredness or fatigue
- Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental activities (also known as post-exertional malaise)
- Difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes referred to as “brain fog”)
- Cough
- Chest or stomach pain
- Headache
- Fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations)
- Joint or muscle pain
- Pins-and-needles feeling
- Diarrhea
- Sleep problems
- Fever
- Dizziness on standing (lightheadedness)
- Rash
- Mood changes
- Change in smell or taste
- Changes in menstrual period cycles
In severe cases, people who get post-covid syndromes (especially those who were severely ill with COVID-19) can even develop multiorgan effects or autoimmune conditions. Multiorgan effects can affect many, if not all, body systems, including heart, lung, kidney, skin, and brain functions. Autoimmune conditions happen when your immune system attacks healthy cells in your body by mistake, causing inflammation (swelling) or tissue damage in the affected parts of the body.
We are still unclear as to why some people get these post-covid symptoms while others don’t.
But what we have just learned, the symptoms of COVID infection are mainly caused by inflammation of the cells. And inflammation happens when our immune system “attacks” our cells, trying to eliminate the virus from the body.
With this information, we can carefully plan our supplement regimen to help us recover faster from COVID infection and to prevent Post-COVID syndromes. The key is to use immune-boosters (to recover faster) and anti-inflammatories (to prevent inflammation complications).
Disclaimer: No supplements are proven to help prevent or cure COVID infection. The supplements recommended are merely to help you recover better from COVID infection.
What supplements should you take after getting COVID infection?
The best supplements for recovery from COVID infection should have at least one of these properties:
Anti-inflammatory: Most of the Post-COVID symptoms are due to inflammation of the lung cells. Anti-inflammatories can help to reduce inflammation, so theoretically can help reduce post-COVID symptoms
Antioxidant: When our immune cells “attack” the infected cells, harmful free radicals are released as by-products. These free radicals can then affect our other healthy cells. Antioxidants can help stop these chain reactions by neutralizing the free radicals, This is why vitamin C (a potent antioxidant) is very commonly used for common cold & flu.
Immune boosting: This is pretty self-explanatory. The stronger our immune system, the faster we can completely get rid of the virus.
Increase cell turnover: Whenever we are sick, many of our cells die. Supplements that can provide more resources for our body to quickly regenerate those dead cells will theoretically help us recover faster.
Antiviral: This is pretty self-explanatory as well. Supplements that have antiviral properties can help our immune system get rid of the virus quicker.
Improves lung function: Our lungs are the most damaged organ during a COVID infection so supplements that can help improve lung functions will help us recover faster.
Zinc
Effect: Immune boosting, increase cell turnover, antiviral anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant.
Evidence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Zinc is a very popular and proven supplement to help prevent the common cold and respiratory illnesses. Its role in helping COVID-19 infection, however, isn’t very clear (yet). Studies have found that zinc supplementation helped to reduce symptoms severity in COVID patients with underlying zinc deficiencies. (1)
But the effects of zinc supplementation in COVID patients without zinc deficiencies remain unclear.
The World Health Organization (WHO) assumes that at least one-third of the world population is affected by zinc deficiency
Some studies suggest that zinc can help prevent or minimizes the symptoms of COVID infection (i.e impaired smell and taste, fever, cough, sore throat, general weakness, pain as aching limbs, runny nose, and in some cases diarrhoea).
Studies have found that most of these symptoms can be explained by altered zinc homeostasis.(2). By improving zinc levels, we should be able to theoretically minimize the symptoms of COVID.
Zinc is also a proven antiviral and immune-boosting supplement. It helps by increasing the ciliary beat frequency (3) of the respiratory cell linings.
Note: Ciliary beat frequency is a term used to describe how quickly our bronchial cilia (Cell lining of our lungs) move. The faster they move, the faster our system can remove virus particles from the lungs.
Zinc also helps fight COVID infection by strengthening the tissue barriers. (4) The stronger the tissue barrier, the harder it is for the virus to invade our cells.
Studies have also confirmed the anti-inflammatory (5,6,7) and antioxidant properties (8,9) of zinc.
Our recommendation
In theory, Zinc seems like the perfect supplement for COVID infection but unfortunately, more studies are needed to prove this. At the time of writing, the NIH doesn’t recommend for or against the use of zinc for the treatment of COVID-19. If you are including zinc in your supplement stack, make sure you don’t take more than 11 mg daily for men and 8 mg for nonpregnant women.
Vitamine recommends adding Zinc to your supplement stack if you have recently got the infection/or are currently recovering from a COVID infection.
Vitamin C
Effect: Immune boosting, increase cell turnover, and antioxidant.
Evidence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Vitamin C is probably one of the most popular supplements, especially in recent years. Due to its many health benefits, Vitamin C was once thought to be an effective treatment for COVID prevention and treatment.
While there are some encouraging studies available to support its use in COVID infection (more on this below), the current guideline from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) states that:
There is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of vitamin C for the treatment of COVID-19 in non-critically ill patients.
Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that has several health benefits. It’s a very potent antioxidant, which we have learned earlier is good for protecting our healthy cells from harmful free radicals generated from COVID-19 infection.(10) The protective effect is even more prominent when Vitamin C is used together with other antioxidants. (11)
Vitamin C also helps to boost our immune system by encouraging the production of white blood cells (12,13). Vitamin C also helps strengthen cell barriers. The stronger the barriers, the harder it’s for the virus to invade our cells.
Our recommendation
Vitamine recommends adding Vitamin C to your supplement stack if you have recently got the infection/or are currently recovering from a COVID infection. Vitamin C is relatively safe and has many health benefits. It’s also relatively cheap and can be found easily from your local pharmacies. Just make sure that you don’t take more than 2 grams a day, and if it gives you gastric, don’t take it on an empty stomach.
Garlic
Effect: Immune-boosting, antiviral(?)
Evidence: ⭐⭐
Garlic has been used for centuries as both food and medicine. Studies have already found several health benefits associated with the consumption of garlic.
One of the main health benefits of garlic is its immune-boosting effect.
Studies have shown that garlic may reduce the risk of getting an infection, as well as the duration of infection. It may also reduce the severity of symptoms (14,15).
The immune-enhancing effect of garlic mainly comes from this compound called Allicin. Allicin is a sulfur-containing compound, and the sulfur component is what gives garlic its distinctive smell and taste.
Allicin is also responsible for garlic’s immune-boosting effect (15,16) by stimulating certain immune cells in the event of infection.
Garlic might also possess some antiviral effects (17). Some studies have already demonstrated that garlic can help block virus entry into the host cells, and also slow down the replication of viruses in the body.
Our recommendation
Vitamine doesn’t recommend adding Garlic to your supplement stack. We don’t think there is enough evidence to support its use for COVID-19 recovery.
Garlic is a good supplement for other reasons though. For example, if you have a heart condition or cholesterol/blood pressure problem, you might want to consider taking garlic.
Andrographis
Effect: Anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, immune booster, antioxidant
Evidence: ⭐⭐⭐
Compared to the other supplements listed in this post, Andrographis is probably one of the lesser-known herbs.
Andrographis is commonly used in traditional ayurvedic or Chinese medicine. It is also known as the “king of bitters”, Kalmegh in Ayurveda or chuan xin lian in Chinese. In recent years, Andrographis has suddenly become popular in the western countries.
Many have started to recognize its medicinal effects as an immune booster. In 2020, the Government of Thailand even approved a pilot study for the use of Andrographis to treat early symptoms of COVID-19 infection.
More about the study in Thailand
Phase one of the Thai research initiative on Andrographis started in late June 2020 at two hospitals.
There, 12 patients received either 60 mg or 100 mg capsules of the extract, three times per day if they were confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 and had mild to moderate symptoms for no more than 72 hours. Results showed that the lower dose showed benefits, especially for coughing. Within three days, cough volume and overall symptom severity decreased significantly. After five days, other symptoms improved, and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests were negative for the COVID-19 virus in two patients. After three weeks, real-time PCR tests were negative in all six subjects. Additional studies are needed to confirm the results.
Phase two began in September 2020 with 60 subjects who were given either Andrographis or placebo. The results of this phase are unclear still, but upon approval of the current pilot study, authorities claims that Andrographis can be used as a safe, effective, and less costly treatment alternative, and that it can reduce inflammation.
Andrographis is known for its anti-inflammatory (18) and antiviral properties (19,20).
Our recommendation
There are not a lot of studies on this plant/herb, but most available studies supported its use in upper respiratory tract infection. As such, we recommend to include Andrographis to your supplement stack.
Astragalus
Effect: Immune-boosting, anti-inflammatory, anti-viral
Evidence: ⭐
Astragalus, like Andrographis, is another not-so-popular supplement on this list.
However, it is actually used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.
Also known as “Huang Qi”, Astragalus is believed to prolong life and is used in combination with many other Chinese herbs for that purpose.
For this review though, we will examine its effectiveness as a supplement for COVID-19 recovery.
Astragalus is believed to help with our immune system by increasing your body’s production of white blood cells. (21). Increasing the number of white blood cells enhances our immune-fighting abilities, i.e more soldiers are available to go to war.
Astragalus also shows some antiviral properties when used on mice with infections. (22,23). There are also a few promising studies that indicate that astragalus may be effective in the treatment of viral hepatitis. (24,25)
Our recommendation:
Astragalus has demonstrated some promising antiviral and immune-boosting benefits. Unfortunately, there isn’t any study that suggests its antiviral effect is effective in helping with COVID-19 infection. As such, we do not recommend this supplement.
Echinacea
Effect: Antioxidant, Anti-inflammatory, immune booster, antiviral.
Evidence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Echinacea, also known as purple coneflower, is a supplement used for centuries in western countries as an immune booster and as a traditional remedy for common cold and flu.
Echinacea is very rich in natural antioxidants, which is the source of where many of its health benefits are derived from. Some of the antioxidants found in echinacea are flavonoids, cichoric acid, and rosmarinic acid. (26)
As we have discussed numerous times in this article, antioxidants are important to help protect your immune cells, as well as to protect your normal healthy cells from free radicals generated from the infection. Also, a secondary metabolite called alkamides is also found in Echinacea. Alkamides work well with antioxidants and help to enhance their health benefits in the body. (27)
Echinacea is also proven to help boost your immune system, especially against viral infections. (28,29) According to this study, Echinacea’s immune-boosting function comes from its ability to stimulate the T-cells (a type of immune cell in our bodies).
Echinacea also possesses anti-inflammatory properties, which are important to help us recover better from infections. (30,31).
Our recommendation
During our research, we found that echinacea was probably one of the most studied herbs in the world. We found a lot of studies that supported its use, especially for viral infections.
However, at the same time, we also found a lot of studies that concluded otherwise – claiming that echinacea had no clinical benefit at all.
We at Vitamine recommend the use of Echinacea in post-COVID recovery, but only as a secondary option (secondary to Zinc, Vitamin C and Andrographis).
N-Acetyl Cysteine
Effect: Antioxidant, increase cell turnover, improves lungs function
Evidence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) – this supplement is so popular currently. At one stage, it was out of stock all over Malaysia because so many people were stocking up on it.
NAC is a supplement form of cysteine. Cysteine is an important amino acid found in most high-protein foods. The most important health function of cysteine is to help manufacture the most powerful antioxidant in our body – glutathione.
It is found that people with COVID infection have increased levels of free radicals in the body AND often have glutathione depletion (32). A lot of COVID and post-COVID symptoms are thought to be caused by these free radicals generated during the infection.
To bring back up the glutathione levels, scientists have proposed the use of NAC supplementation. Many studies found that by supplementing the patients with NAC, they were able to significantly improve the clinical outcome (reduced hospitalization, reduced ICU admission, improved O2 saturation, reduced length of stay in hospital.) (33,34,35,36)
NAC also helps to improve lung function by acting as an effective expectorant. Phlegm is a by-product created due to inflammation of the lung tissues and can block the airways making us hard to breathe. NAC helps by reducing inflammation and thereby reducing phlegm production. NAC is proven to be very effective in the management of other respiratory conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Syndrome, bronchitis and Pneumonia (37,38,39, 40)
Our recommendation
The evidence is overwhelmingly positive in the case of N-acetyl Cysteine. Almost all the studies we reviewed suggested the use of NAC so we at Vitamine can safely conclude that NAC is highly recommended for post-COVID recovery. If you are taking this supplement, make sure you take it with Vitamin C – they work together really well!
Selenium
Effect: Antioxidant, anti-viral, immune-boosting
Evidence: ⭐⭐
Selenium is a mineral important for many health functions, such as thyroid hormone metabolism, DNA synthesis, reproduction, and immune function. It has recently gained a lot in popularity as a supplement to help with COVID recovery.
It was discovered that people with selenium deficiency are more likely to experience more severe COVID symptoms .(41,42) As a result, experts are now looking into selenium supplementation in COVID-19 patients as a treatment option.
Selenium is a very potent antioxidant (43). The antioxidant effect of selenium is even more prominent when it’s used together with other antioxidants such as vitamin C and N-acetyl Cysteine. Selenium is also proven to play an important role in immune health. (44). A study published in 2015 showed that people with Selenium deficiency reacted poorly to influenza infection (flu).(45)
Our recommendation
Selenium is promising as a supplement for COVID-19 recovery. Many studies have already shown that there is an association between low selenium levels and worse COVID infection outcomes. There are also official studies that are being conducted to examine the effectiveness of selenium supplementation in COVID-19 infection. (46).
Having said that, it’s unclear whether selenium supplementation will help at all with people who are not deficient in selenium. Selenium is a trace mineral – we only need a tiny amount of it to survive, and it’s very rare to get selenium deficiency.
We, therefore, think that selenium is a good to have supplement but not our must-have supplement. It will work synergistically to enhance the effect of Vitamin C and N-Acetylcysteine but on its own, it’s not clear if it will help.
Elderberry
Effect: immune-booster, antiviral, antioxidant
Evidence: ⭐
Elderberry is a family of flowering shrub species native to North America and Europe. Also known as elder, these plants produce bunches of tiny berries that are dark in color — usually purple, blue, or black.
Elderberry has long been used in traditional medicine to treat ailments. But recently, it has seen a surge in popularity as a supplement that can help with COVID infection, some even claim that it is the “cure” to COVID and other viral infections.
Elderberry is thought to have antiviral properties. When used against the flu viruses, Influenza A and influenza B, Elderberry was able to slow down and even inhibit the replication of the viruses. (47). Another study however, found that there were no significant antiviral effect (48).
Elderberry, like other berries, also contains a large amount of antioxidants, which as we learnt in this article, is a desirable quality of a good COVID supplement.
Our recommendation
Many studies we found were conducted to examine the effect of elderberry against the flu viruses and not COVID viruses. The results were conflicting, many showed no significant improvement after taking elderberry supplements.
As such, we would not recommend taking elderberry for COVID recovery. Also. elderberry is definitely not recommended for people with diabetes and people who are pregnant.
Bottom Line
COVID-19 infection is a type of viral infection. Like how we fight off other viral infections, the strength of our immune system is the key.
All the supplements reviewed in this article have in some degree the ability to help lighten the burden of our immune system. Some supplements such as Zinc, Vitamin C, N-Acetylcysteine are more proven than others.
Here’s a summary of our recommendations:
Strongly recommended
Zinc
Vitamin C
N-Acetylcysteine (NAC)
Recommended
Andrographis
Optional
Echinacea
Selenium
Not recommended
Garlic
Astragalus
Elderberry
Again, remember that there isn’t a medication/supplement that can help prevent or treat COVID-19 infection (yet!).
We reviewed hundreds of scientific studies to find the best supplements for post-COVID recovery, and we put together a combo pack that has all these supplements. If you have recently been infected by COVID-19 and are looking for supplements to help you recover better, here’s the link to our combo pack.
