Exploitation of some natural products for prevention and/or nutritional treatment of SARS-CoV2 infection.

Rizzo, Annalisa; Sciorsci, Raffaele Luigi; Magrone, Thea; Jirillo, Emilio

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Dietary habits strongly influence our health status, mostly, in terms of maintenance of the inflammatory/anti-inflammatory homeostasis. High fat and high sugar diets account for the development of a low-grade inflammation which is the pathogenic common denominator of various chronic disease. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS)-CoV2 (COVID-19) infection affects all ages and especially frail elderly people and a nutri-tional intervention seems to be crucial in the course of this pandemic. The present review describes the properties of some vegetal products and their derivatives, such as Lupin sp., garlic, salvia and extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) that can be exploit-ed for their beneficial effects, as preventive and/or nutritional treatment of coronavirus disease SARS-CoV2. DISCUSSION Lupin, salvia, garlic and EVOO share overlapping properties, such as anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activities. Quite importantly, these products and their derivatives are able to recover the expression of angiotensin con-verting enzyme expression 2 on cell membrane, otherwise suppressed by COVID-19 binding and entry into cytoplasm. CONCLUSION Dietary administration of the above nutraceuticals or their extracts may play a preventive or nutritional role in the course of SARS-CoV2 infection, even including the effects of the lockdown and the condition of inflamm-ageing.