New research by experts from around the world shows that vitamin C can help defeat COVID-19

In 1970, twice Nobel prize winner Dr Linus Pauling cited that vitamin C could help fight against the common cold and flu. Vitamin C is a safe, inexpensive, and highly effective anti-viral nutrient when taken in appropriate doses and yet for years a war has raged between nutritionists and other CAM practitioners and mainstream Western medicine, with the latter suggesting that the reported benefits of vitamin C constitute ‘fake news.’ But new research, supported by experts from around the world, shows that vitamin C can help defeat COVID-19.

The full scientific review paper Vitamin C—An Adjunctive Therapy for Respiratory Infection, Sepsis and COVID-19, has just been published in the journal Nutrients. (Nutrients – ISSN 2072-6643; CODEN: NUTRHU – is a peer-reviewed open-access journal of human nutrition published monthly online by MDPI)

The following is an extract from the Abstract:

The evidence to date indicates that oral vitamin C (2–8 g/day) may reduce the incidence and duration of respiratory infections and intravenous vitamin C (6–24 g/day) has been shown to reduce mortality, intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stays, and time on mechanical ventilation for severe respiratory infections. Further trials are urgently warranted. Given the favourable safety profile and low cost of vitamin C, and the frequency of vitamin C deficiency in respiratory infections, it may be worthwhile testing patients’ vitamin C status and treating them accordingly with intravenous administration within ICUs and oral administration in hospitalised persons with COVID-19.

CLICK HERE for a pdf of the full scientific review paper.

The scientific paper’s lead author is Patrick Holford BSc, DipION, FBANT, NTCRP, is a pioneer in new approaches to health and nutrition. He is a leading spokesman on nutrition in the media, specialising in the field of mental health. He is the author of 37 books, translated into over 30 languages and selling millions of copies worldwide.

At the end of this article, we feature a full list of the authors of this research paper which includes specialists from across the globe.

Key findings from the study include:

• Vitamin C can save the lives of those badly infected with COVID-19 and make symptoms of milder infections less severe
• Many severely infected patients have such low vitamin C levels they are suffering from scurvy
• A controlled trial found high dose vitamin C more effective than a steroid
• The vitamin C level of patients in intensive care predicts their chances of survival
• Humans are one of the few animals that cannot make vitamin C.

Results from more than 100 studies, included a gold-standard RCT (Randomised Controlled Trial) which showed that Vitamin C could cut the death rate of patients in intensive care units by 68%. The patients got vitamin C or sterile water from a drip.

The research clearly shows that vitamin C can defeat COVID-19 with the emphasis of the paper on how patients diagnosed with COVID can be treated with high doses of vitamin C.

But vitamin C is an essential vitamin and the research also shows that daily supplementation is beneficial to protect against the virus. Nonetheless, it is important to take appropriate doses of vitamin C as with any supplement or, indeed, any food – including water! – an excess in the wrong circumstances may have unwanted side effects and/or be a waste of money.

So, before we look at this new research in greater detail, let’s start with a summary of appropriate dosages of vitamin C we can all take as a preventative measure that can defeat COVID-19.

• On a daily basis: Patrick Holford suggests 1g of vitamin C a day. (He takes 2g per day on an ongoing basis)
• At the first sign of any viral infections: Holford suggests 2 grams of vitamin C immediately, then 1 gram per hour until the symptoms have gone. This will keep drip-feeding enough vitamin C into your bloodstream to keep the level consistently high. Vitamin C is in and out of the body in four to six hours.

The above will reduce the likelihood of a viral infection and reduce the level of severity if you do catch a virus.

High doses of vitamin C have been proven to be non-toxic, but they do cause loose bowels, and bowel tolerance levels vary from individual to individual.

Dr Anitra Carr, who is Associate Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand and one of the authors of the report, points out that only animals that don’t make vitamin C – primates, guinea pigs and bats – are susceptible to COVID-19.

Here, she explains why high doses are needed when people are admitted to hospital with COVID-19, including intravenous vitamin C (IVC) in the most severe cases:

When you get a severe infection, your body uses up vitamin C at a much faster rate in order to support the immune system.

That’s because humans are one of the few animals that can’t make vitamin C, so we can’t increase supplies when needed.

Further support for using high doses comes from studies showing that most COVID-19 patients coming into ICUs already have very low vitamin C levels.

Co-author Professor Paul Marik, Chief of Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, adds:

In many patients, their levels of vitamin C are often undetectable. That’s what you see in patients with scurvy. This infection induces scurvy. We can predict how likely patients are to survive by their level of vitamin C

Marik explains that to stop scurvy you need high doses of vitamin C. It is also vital for damping down the dangerous inflammation that develops as COVID-19 progresses and can be fatal.

By combining vitamin C with steroids and anticoagulant drugs, Professor Marik and others have reduced the death rate of critically ill COVID-19 patients to less than 5%.

He says:

No-one is dying who doesn’t have both a pre-existing end-stage disease and is over 85 years old.

Most of us are aware that the COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan, China. And yet while the pandemic continues to rage in most of the rest of the world, China seems to have got the virus under control extremely quickly.

Could that have something to do with the 50 tons (50,000,000 grams) of vitamin C shipped into Wuhan on 2nd February and effectively wiping-out critical cases within a couple of months?

Every frontline worker was given vitamin C

Every patient was given 5 to 20 grams a day of vitamin C

Every ICU patient was given intravenous vitamin C

Isn’t it time the UK Government and its scientific advisors looked at this research properly, because if something as inexpensive and readily available as vitamin C can defeat COVID-19, aren’t they being negligent in not fast-tracking further research and making vitamin C available to patients as soon as possible, as well as encouraging the public to supplement?

Please support the Vitamin C for COVID campaign to ensure appropriate action is taken and support is provided by the government as soon as possible

When I interviewed Holford this morning, he stressed that it is not actually COVID that causes fatalities but, as the immune system overreacts, the resultant massive inflammation of the lungs which causes breathing difficulties known as ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.)

An abridged section from Chapter 9, Surviving Respiratory Distress of his recent book Flu Fighters: How To Win The Cold War And Boos Your Immunity, states:

In most cases fatality is due to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), which is apparently occurring at varying degrees in about four in ten patients suffering from COVID-19.

The primary cause of ARDS is the body’s immune system producing a cytokine storm where our immune system overreacts producing a massive state of inflammation. This inflammation in the lungs, causing difficulty breathing, is the basis of a diagnosis of pneumonia.

The important point is that it is not the virus that is killing people, it is this state of inflammation.

During ARDS there is extreme inflammation and swelling in the alveoli, the balloon-like air pockets in the lungs, haemolysis, which is the rupturing of red blood cells and blood vessels, and blood coagulation. You may have heard of haemoglobin (spelled hemoglobin in the US), which is the critical iron containing protein that carries oxygen in the blood, and gives blood its red colour. COVID-19 specifically attacks haemoglobin resulting in haemolysis. With haemolysis cell-free heme, unbound into this protein and no longer contained in the red blood cell, wreaks havoc triggering a cascade of highly damaging oxidative reactions.

Fortunately, we have a backup system, a protein called haptoglobulin, which binds to and hence mops up and disarms this dangerous cell-free heme, thus reducing inflammation and oxidation. However, it needs vitamin C to do this.

List of authors of the scientific research paper: Vitamin C—An Adjunctive Therapy for Respiratory Infection, Sepsis and COVID-19

Patrick Holford BSc, DipION, FBANT, NTCRP, founder of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition (ION)

Dr Anitra C Carr, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand

Thomas H Jovic, Reconstructive Surgery & Regenerative Medicine Research Group, Institute of Life Sciences, Swansea University Medical School and Welsh Centre for Burns & Plastic Surgery

Stephen R Ali, Reconstructive Surgery & Regenerative Medicine Research Group, Institute of Life Sciences, Swansea University Medical School and Welsh Centre for Burns & Plastic Surgery

Professor Iain S Whittaker, Reconstructive Surgery & Regenerative Medicine Research Group, Institute of Life Sciences, Swansea University Medical School and Welsh Centre for Burns & Plastic Surgery

Professor Paul Marik, Chief of Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School

Professor A David Smith. MA, DPhil, FMedSci. Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology, University of Oxford. Founding Director OPTIMA; Founding Director MRC Anatomical Neuropharmacology