COVID-19 and Support Products: The Effects of Nutritional Immunity

Abstract

There is an ongoing interaction between nutrition, immune system, and infectious diseases. Inadequate and unbalanced nutrition may reduce the defense efficiency of the immune system and increase the risk of contracting infectious diseases and the severity of disease symptoms. COVID-19 (coronavirus disease-2019) outbreak, which emerged in December 2019 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in a short time, has become the most important public health problem worldwide in the last few years. COVID-19 is asymptomatic or causes with mild symptoms in most people, however, it progresses to severe illness accompanied by serious symptoms in some people, and it is known that this difference is mainly related to the effective immune responses of individuals. There is currently any easily accessible antiviral drug with proven therapeutic efficacy for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 disease. Therefore, there has been an increasing effort to explore immune-supportive additional therapeutic options to strengthen the immune system and reduce disease-related complaints. The innate immune response, which is responsible for preventing transmission and invasion in the early stages of viral infections, is the first line of defense to eliminate the virus, and it is critical in the effective and balanced activation of the adaptive immune response. Therefore, the use of antimicrobial and antioxidant minerals, vitamins, medicinal plants, and probiotics that will strengthen the immune response is one of the accessible, easily applicable, and effective preventive measures. In this review, the effectiveness of therapeutic and supportive nutritional supplements against COVID-19 disease, which has become a major problem worldwide, has been discussed.