While the explosion of vaccines is well under way in some countries, many of us are still living amid the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic without protection, and we need all the help we can get.
In an interesting study by an international research team, there is now a small association with supplement use, indicating fewer COVID-19 infections in women who use certain types of vitamins. But do not rush to the pharmacy yet.
First, it is important to remember that the potential benefits of multivitamins are extremely limited. Doctors generally recommend that most people get enough micronutrients in their diet to stay healthy, and in the past, studies on the health benefits of vitamin supplements without a diagnosed deficiency have been a real mess.
Nevertheless, in the early days of the pandemic, vitamins were one of the many items that flew off the pharmacy shelves.
“The UK supplement market increased by 19.5 per cent in the period leading up to the national ‘closure’ in early March 2020, with a 110 per cent increase in vitamin C sales and a 93 per cent increase in the sales of multivitamin supplements, ‘the team wrote.
“Zinc supplement sales also increased by 415 percent over the 7-day period ending March 8, at the peak of COVID-19 in the US.”
Supplements can play a role in supporting our health. Zinc is one of the few micronutrients associated with shortening the course of colds; those on vegan diets are advised to take vitamin B12 to combat deficiencies. But it is difficult to ward off infections.
The researchers took data from an app launched by health science company Zoe in early 2020, called the ‘COVID-19 Symptom Study App’, in which participants asked a wide range of questions, including whether their vitamins such as probiotics, garlic, used fish oil. multivitamins, vitamin D, vitamin C or zinc. They also asked if they had been tested for SARS-CoV-2 and what the results were.
A total of 445,850 subscribers from the UK, US and Sweden answered the questionnaire before 31 July 2020, which gave the team enough information to analyze.
In the UK, where the vast majority of respondents were based, just under half took a supplement. About 6 percent of those who took supplements tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, while 6.6 percent of those who did not take supplements tested positive. That’s a difference of about 2,500 people.
In the UK group, users who regularly supplemented their diet with multivitamins had a lower risk of testing SARS-CoV-2 positively by 13 percent, with vitamin D having a lower risk of 9 percent, while probiotics had a lower “had a 14 percent risk and had a lower risk of 12 percent with omega-3 fatty acids,” the researchers wrote.
“There were no significant associations in those supplemented with zinc, vitamin C or garlic.”
Here are many reservations to take note of. First, it is an observational study based on self-reports, meaning that there is no causal evidence that vitamins resulted in fewer COVID-19 diagnoses.
The team has adjusted for age, gender, BMI and a number of other factors, and is trying to explain ‘healthy user bias’, which is the idea that those who take vitamins are likely to be healthier in other ways as well, which results.
Though it still was, the results were still there, but interestingly, if the team divided the results by genders, there was no difference between men and men, while the results were present in all ages and BMI groups.
The results were also slightly different between the US and Sweden and found that omega-3 supplements do not help Swedish women, and that probiotics and vitamin D appear to help American men.
“In the largest observational study on SARS-CoV-2 infection and the use of nutritional supplements to date on more than 400,000 app users from three different countries, we show a significant association between users of omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, multivitamins or vitamin D supplements and lower risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, ‘the team wrote.
“Women who buy vitamins may also be more health conscious than men, such as wearing more face masks and hand washing. In our data, we found that women tend to wear masks more than men.”
After all, the results show a very modest difference; The use of vitamins, for example, has only the absolute risk of getting COVID-19, reduced by less than 1 per cent among the participants in the British study.
But at population levels, even small percentage points can save lives, so it’s essential to find out if it’s really the vitamins that make a difference.
The researchers asked for a large clinical trial to test the potential effects in a more controlled environment. If you want to get another vaccine, masks, good hygiene and social removal probably keep you much safer than any vitamin can.
“This study was not primarily designed to answer questions about the role of nutritional supplements in COVID-19,” said Sumantra Ray, a Cambridge nutritionist who was not involved in the study.
“This is still an emerging area of research that warrants further careful study before firm conclusions can be drawn as to whether specific nutritional supplements can reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection.”
The research was published in BMJ Nutrition Prevention and Health.