Can nutraceuticals assist treatment and improve covid-19 symptoms?

Alesci, Alessio; Aragona, Marialuisa; Cicero, Nicola; Lauriano, Eugenia Rita

Viral diseases have always played an important role in public and individual health. Since December 2019, the world is facing a pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus that results in a syndrome known as COVID-19. Several studies were conducted to implement antiviral drug therapy, until the arrival of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Numerous scientific investigations have considered some nutraceuticals as an additional treatment of COVID-19 patients to improve their clinical picture. In this review, we would like to emphasize the studies conducted to date about this issue and try to understand whether the use of nutraceuticals as a supplementary therapy to COVID-19 may be a valid and viable avenue. Based on the results obtained so far, quercetin, astaxanthin, luteolin, glycyrrhizin, lactoferrin, hesperidin and curcumin have shown encouraging data suggesting their use to prevent and counteract the symptoms of this pandemic infection.