Vitamin C and D Supplements to Prevent the Risk of COVID-19

Abstract

Background: Virus is a tiny agent, around one-hundredth the size of a bacterium which can infect cells of plants and animals. Seven coronaviruses are known to infect humans, three of them are serious, namely, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome, China, 2002), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, Saudi Arabia, 2012), and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) (2019-2020).SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV belong to betacoronaviruses (betaCoVs). Objective: In this mini review, we want to consider the important vitamin D and C, especially plants containing these two vitamins in fight against COVID-19. Methods: The manuscript includes review articles, randomized control experiments, analytical studies and observations, which have been gathered from different sources such as Google Scholar, Scopus, Science Direct and PubMed. A review of the literature was carried out using the keywords such as vitamin D, vitamin C, COVID-19, influenza, Plant, and Coronaviruses. Results: Various sources of vitamin D for humans are food, dietary supplements and the skin by exposure to 7-dehydrocholesterol to ultraviolet light. There are some new findings on influence vitamin D in prevent and control of influenza and COVID-19. Vitamin D may play roles in preventing influenza and covid-19 by production of large quantities of IL-1 and IL-6, or modulating the production of the interleukins. Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency is a potential link between respiratory infection and immune evasion, and vitamin D is a pleiotropic factor known to modulate immune response against pathogen.