The Best Three Vitamins To Protect Against COVID-19

Nowadays, COVID-19 has become more and more aggressive, and we often see many patients with COVID-19 describing their painful experiences with the disease. In addition to the protection and avoidance of dense crowds, we can actually focus on developing our own immune systems. First of all, it is clear that vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin K are the three main vitamins that are very effective in the face of Neoplastic pneumonia.

The following gives you a detailed description of the specific role of these substances.

1. Vitamin C – help to immunize the COVID-19

Vitamin C, which is also known as ascorbic acid, is an essential nutrient for the human body. Vitamin C as a strong antioxidant will be involved in the body’s antioxidant mechanisms, immune regulation, and organ protection. For example, “Advances in the use of vitamin C in sepsis” mentions that vitamin C supplementation may be a good aid in the rescue of patients with viral infections, sepsis, and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

How exactly does vitamin C work in the body?

It is important to talk about the role it plays as a strong antioxidant. This antioxidant effect of vitamin C is mainly achieved by enhancing the ability of immune cells to scavenge foreign substances and reactive oxygen species.

Many people may be unfamiliar with the mention of reactive oxygen species, which are oxides produced during the expression of cellular genes. The right amount of reactive oxygen species activate protein expression and helps to promote the repair of gene disruptions, thus helping cells to survive. However, when this substance accumulates excessively, it can be counterproductive, forming complex compounds with proteins, which in turn can cause a series of chain reactions such as gene chain damage, mitochondrial rupture, etc., ultimately leading to apoptosis.

It is this oxygen that vitamin C resists. Vitamin C enhances the clearance of immune cells by improving their chemotactic and phagocytic abilities. In addition to this, vitamin C also promotes apoptosis of immune cells, thus avoiding inflammation caused by the excessive immune response.

Severe lung injury and septic shock caused by COVID-19 often result in tissue and cellular hypoxia. Not only does hypoxia directly cause cellular damage, but it can also cause or exacerbate inflammatory responses and oxidative stress, which is vitamin C’s specialty. Vitamin C directly scavenges reactive oxygen species and also enhances cellular antioxidant capacity by activating other antioxidants in the body, regulating the cellular stress response to hypoxia.

Vitamin C also has a direct protective effect on the lungs, as they are directly involved in the synthesis of cellular ligand proteins in the lungs, which tightly connect the alveoli and enhance the protective barrier function of the alveolar epithelium. This provides excellent protection against the onslaught of neo-coronavirus.

In theory, the effect of vitamin C against COVID-19 is indeed confirmed by many clinical data statistics. For example, a study of 21 patients with severe Neoplastic pneumonia in one country showed that the vast majority of patients had low serum vitamin C and vitamin D. It also indirectly proves that vitamin deficiency may cause Neoplastic pneumonia. It also indirectly proves that vitamin deficiency may add to the severity of neo-coronary instead.

The common vitamin C in our life mainly comes from various fresh vegetables and fruits, such as tomatoes, bitter melon, citrus, apples, grapes, kiwi, etc… So usually consume some fresh fruits and vegetables, as it is very beneficial to our immune system.

2. Vitamin D-Another major player in the fight against COVID-19

Next, let’s talk about vitamin D. In the journal Microcirculation, it was shown that vitamin D deficiency may have a strong correlation with the death rate of COVID-19. A team of researchers from Northwestern University presented the results of a statistical study of medical data from 10 countries in which vitamin D levels were generally lower in patients in countries with high rates of death from COVID-19, such as Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, compared to other countries less affected by the epidemic.

By analyzing publicly available patient data worldwide, the researchers found a strong correlation between vitamin D levels and cytokine storm, and also found a positive correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19, which simply means that within a certain range, the lower the body’s vitamin D levels, the higher the COVID-19 mortality rate.

Vitamin D is involved in gene expression in the cell nucleus and interacts with vitamin D receptors in the genome. Vitamin D and Cancer indicate that vitamin D affects the transcription of approximately 1,000 genes in the body, which contains a large number of immune cell genes. Therefore, the impact of vitamin D on the immune system is very significant.

Among them, “Advances in the mechanism of action of vitamin D against novel COVID-19” found that vitamin D can reduce the risk of viral infections including COVID-19 through three mechanisms: physical barrier, intrinsic cellular immunity, and cellular adaptive immunity.
The physical barrier, an immune mechanism, works mainly through a defensin produced by the involvement of vitamin D in gene expression. This defensin is highly resistant to viruses and maintains tight cellular junctions to reduce the risk of infection, acting as a “great wall” against infection. Vitamin D also produces the ligand proteins needed for cell adhesion connections, making this physical barrier even more impregnable.

In addition, vitamin D enhances the chemotactic and phagocytic capacity of macrophages themselves, which, in layman’s terms, arms the body’s protective “guards” and increases their ability to fight viruses.

In “Vitamin D and Infection Prevention”, it is mentioned that the synthesis of vitamin D is closely related to the normal function of the intrinsic immune cells. After a viral infection, the pathogen stimulates the body to produce proteins encoding the vitamin D receptor, which in turn promotes the differentiation of cells into macrophages through receptor binding, thereby enhancing the cellular innate immunity of the immune system.

When talking about the regulation of cellular adaptive immunity by vitamin D, we first need to understand the concept of cellular adaptive immunity.

In the early stages of our viral infection, the innate immune system usually fights the virus first and it is not until 7 to 10 days after infection that the adaptive immune system is awakened. Adaptive immunity relies on highly specialized T and B lymphocytes, which have the ability to specifically recognize foreign antigens.

Among them, B lymphocytes, after differentiation into plasma cells, can secrete antibodies needed to destroy pathogens, and T lymphocytes can activate macrophages and kill infected cells. In contrast, the immunomodulatory effect of vitamin D on T- and B-lymphocytes are achieved by direct action on cell proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis.

Vitamin D can inhibit the adaptive immune response by reducing the proliferation of T lymphocytes, thereby suppressing the inflammatory response of other immune cells. In B lymphocytes, vitamin D inhibits the proliferation and differentiation of plasma cells and thus inhibits immunoglobulin release, which in turn inhibits the function of B lymphocytes.

It is the ability of vitamin D to regulate both T and B lymphocytes that allows it to play a role in combating viral infections by enhancing the regulatory immune response.

It is also easy to get vitamin D in our daily life, as long as the fat content of sea fish, such as salmon, contains a lot of vitamin D. In addition, animal liver, egg yolk, and cream contain more vitamin D, and the amount of vitamin D contained in cod liver oil is the highest.

3. The unheard-of vitamin K can also fight COVID-19?

Having understood the role of vitamin C and vitamin D, two familiar families of vitamins, in the fight against COVID-19, let us now turn to vitamin K.

This family of vitamin K is not as well known as vitamin C and vitamin D. Many people are unaware of the existence of this nutrient, let alone what role it can play. In fact, they are also part of the immune-boosting and resistance to COVID-19.

A big reason why vitamin K can work actually comes from COVID-19 itself. COVID-19 may cause sclerosis of the elastic fibers in the lungs, or it may trigger blood clots. Vitamin K, on the other hand, can reduce the risk of COVID-19 because it regulates the formation of blood clots and the proteins that prevent lung disease.

In addition, vitamin K is also involved in mitochondrial redox reactions, a function similar to that of vitamin C. However, this regulatory process takes place mainly by influencing mitochondrial design transmission. Vitamin K blocks the transmission of signals in the mitochondria of abnormally infected cells, thus preventing the respiration of abnormal cells infected by the virus and causing their apoptosis.
The effect of vitamin K on COVID-19 is also supported by a large number of statistics, for example, Japanese scientists found that in some areas of Japan where people consume large amounts of natto, no one died from new coronavirus pneumonia. Natto is made from fermented soybeans, which are high in vitamin K.

A study was conducted at the University of Maastricht in Europe on the effects of vitamin K on the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. The results showed that high doses of vitamin K can activate proteins that protect the lungs, thus forming a rampart against COVID-19.

All findings confirm that although vitamin K is not widely known, it does play an excellent function in defending against COVID-19. Similar to vitamin C, this component of vitamin K is mainly from fresh fruits and vegetables, such as spinach and blueberries, so we should pay extra attention to the intake of fresh fruits and vegetables in our life.

COVID-19 has been raging for several years now, and now that the situation is more critical, we must first build a good immune “wall” for our bodies. Food that contains vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin K can help us to check and fill the gaps and strengthen the resistance of the immune system. Therefore, we should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and eat some chicken liver, goose liver, egg yolk, and other foods to take in these three vitamins, so as to strengthen the resistance to fight the new crow.