British researchers tested how the intake of vitamin D, probiotics and vitamins affects the risk of corona - with the following results.
It has been proven that a vitamin D level that is too low can make you more susceptible to disease.
Doctors also often diagnose low vitamin D levels * in Covid 19 patients.
Researchers at King's College London investigated how taking vitamin D food supplements and other vitamin preparations affects the risk of Covid 19.
In fact, taking the dietary supplements had a slightly positive effect - but not equally for both sexes.
For some, a coronavirus infection manifests itself as a mild cold, for others severe symptoms develop and a hospital stay is necessary.
Fear of the latter causes many to resort to a wide variety of measures: mouth and nose protection, avoiding closed spaces and contact restrictions are the most effective methods of preventing the disease.
Some also use preventive vitamin preparations from the pharmacy, such as vitamin D capsules.
A research team from London has now analyzed whether these agents actually have an impact on the Covid 19 risk.
Professor Tim Spector, Head of the Genetic Epidemiology Department at King's College London, and his team evaluated the information from 1.4 million users of the “ZOE COVID Symptom Study App” for their publication.
Users from Great Britain, the USA and Sweden had provided information about whether and which food supplements they had taken during the early phase of the pandemic.
The researchers at King's College compared this information with the number of app users who tested positive for Corona (around 445,000) and also those users who reported Corona-specific symptoms (around 126,000 cases).
The evaluation showed:
Those women who had taken dietary supplements had a slightly lower risk of developing corona
.
Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids against corona: dietary supplements with a preventive effect?
"The reduction in risk was modest, ranging from up to nine percent for vitamin D, up to 14 percent for probiotics, up to 13 percent for multivitamins and up to twelve percent for omega-3s," said Tim Spector in a publication on the Pages of King's College London informed.
Multivitamin, vitamin D, probiotic and omega-3 food supplements would therefore have a small but statistically significant protective effect against Covid-19.
However, vitamin C, zinc or garlic supplements had no demonstrable effect on the corona risk.
The scientists were also able to determine that the protective effect of the dietary supplements could only be observed in women - not in men.
The researchers suspect that this difference could be due to differences in the immune systems of men and women.
But there is another possible explanation: women may have kept more detailed records of dietary supplements than men.
"Our research is an observational study and not a clinical study, so we cannot make any clear recommendations on the basis of the data available to us," says Dr.
Cristina Menni from the School of Life Course Sciences at King's College London presented the results of the study.
Tim Spector also warns: “Many people think that taking vitamins and other nutritional supplements can help maintain a healthy immune system.
But spending your money on dietary supplements hoping to prevent Covid-19 is largely unjustified
.
You are better off focusing on a healthy diet with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruits
: these should provide you with all of the nutrients you need for a healthy immune system ”.
(jg)
*
Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen-Digital editorial network
.
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