I have to start by saying that while there are those nutrients that shine when it comes to boosting our natural immunity, the most important factor of all is being well-nourished in the first place. 

Malnutrition in our modern day and in the Western world is much more common than we might think it is.  When a pathogenic invader such as a new virus appears on the scene, poor nutritional status becomes evident, and those at the bottom of the nutritional totem pole succumb much more easily.  

Consider our elderly population.  In a day of convenience foods, microwave cooking of pre-prepared, processed foods, and in many cases institutional living and care, I would venture to say that the majority of the elderly in this country are hanging onto their lives by a nutritional thread to begin with.    Most of them have two or more chronic degenerative diseases or conditions.  These are typically managed with medications, and it is not uncommon for seniors to be taking a long daily list of prescription drugs, sometimes up to 10 and beyond.  

When an elderly person is considered to need some help with nutrition, the standard recommendations are canned nutritional supplements such as Boost or Ensure. These are nothing but high calorie sources of junk, such as high fructose corn syrup, inflammatory vegetable oils, with some token synthetic vitamins thrown in to look good on the label.  

One of my long-time professional fantasies is being able to run an assisted living facility that barred all of those things and served good, old-fashioned, homemade food; no microwave, no aspartame, no Boost or Ensure, no soda, etc.   Fresh, locally grown foods.  Nutritional supplements of high quality and targeted purposes that nourish the aging body and brain, that increase mitochondrial energy and youthful vitality.  Staff would include functional medicine healthcare providers dedicated to healing from the foundation up rather than simply managing disease with polypharmacy.  

As it is now, our elderly are many times slowly killing themselves with the lifestyle choices they make and in other cases those that are imposed upon them; this can be through what the government offers in the way of food assistance for those who need it and through the Madison Avenue stocked hospital and nursing facility kitchens.   

So what happens to nutrient deficient people when a new infectious agent starts circulating?  What happens when the very nutrients that should be present within us are simply not there to begin with?  Naturally, those people will succumb much more easily.  Their health status is already at a point where they can be knocked over with a feather.  

The nutrients I discuss here for preventing, and yes, even treating Covid-19, are all nutrients or endogenous substances – such as glutathione and melatonin – that should be present in much greater levels in the average human body.  The elderly, again, are woefully depleted when it comes to these defenses.   This is because they naturally stop producing them as time goes on and because the lack the baseline nutrients that help them do that.   

Our modern healthcare and food industries have produced a sickly population here in the United States.  When confronted with a challenging health situation such as Covid-19, these special interests continue to perpetuate the same misdirected pathway of prevention and treatment.  These are hugely lucrative to their respective industries and is the reason they are the options of choice.   Just try to get a good nutritional supplement regimen approved for your senior family member in a nursing facility.  Good luck.  BUT.  Don’t refuse those yearly vaccinations; what?  two pneumonia, flu, shingles, etc., year after year after year.  We use vaccinations in an effort to prevent illnesses that our bodies – if well-nourished – would easily be able to fight off or handle on their own.  The vaccinations also interfere with normal immune system function and further weaken the individual’s natural defenses.  

Enter Covid-19 into this scene.  

The key nutrients that are preventive of infection and that cool off the storm when infection is present, are the very nutrients woefully deficient in the population I describe above.   While, generally speaking, the elderly have it the toughest here, a large percentage of our population of all ages do not have the nutritional stores and daily intake of nutrients for vibrant, resilient health.  

In the material that follows, please reference the sections below for additional information.   My recommended daily doses are fine for daily use and optimal for prevention of infection unless otherwise noted. 

VITAMIN D – Vitamin D is not a vitamin at all, really, but a hormone.  Vitamin D deficiency is a widespread problem across the globe.  There is a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and the susceptibility to and severity of Covid-19 infection.  Reasons for vitamin D deficiency are many.  Among them:

·      Lack of UVB sun exposure – sunscreens are a problem here, spending too little time outside, etc., but it isn’t just that.  

·      People with darker skin have a more difficult time producing Vitamin D. 

·      Low cholesterol – at the same time we’ve been warning people to slather on the sunscreen, we’ve also been warning them to get their cholesterol levels as low as they possibly can.  Cholesterol is the Lord and Giver of Life in the hormonal cascade.  For UVB rays to activate the production of Vitamin D when it hits your skin, it has to find the raw material of cholesterol in order to do it.  

·      Common genetic defects in the Vitamin D receptor (VDR) genes.  I often have genetic analysis of methylation factors done for my clients.  In the several hundred over the years, I don’t think I remember seeing one person who did not have one of their VDR receptor genes mutated to some extent.  

My recommended daily dose of Vitamin D3 (and be sure – unless you are on warfarin for blood-thinning – other blood thinners are fine) that it includes about 100 mcg of vitamin K2:  5,000-10,000 IU daily depending on the person and whether using for preventing infection or handling an infection already present. 

VITAMIN C – Intravenous vitamin C has been used with good result for Covid-19 – see info about that by clicking on the link.  Vitamin C, while an immune system booster, is used for severe cases of Covid not for that mechanism but to shut off the cytokine storm through its antioxidant activity.  We are unable to do achieve this result taking vitamin C orally, and this is because it is very difficult for the body to take it up into the cells through via this route.   Liposomal forms are better, because being bound to a fat, the vitamin C has better bioavailability.  Use oral, liposomal vitamin C to help keep your immune system strong, and that will certainly help prevent illnesses of many kinds.  Thankfully, we can use glutathione and melatonin orally to achieve the antioxidant action we can’t using oral vitamin C.  More on that to come.  

My recommended daily dose of liposomal vitamin C daily – 1000 – 5000 IU.  

ZINC – Zinc is a trace mineral that is found to be extremely low in the elderly population.   Please click to see the zinc and Covid information.  

My recommended daily dose of zinc is approximately 25-50 mg daily (you can take more than 50 mg if fighting something for the short-term – a few days, but not on a regular basis)

SELENIUM – another trace mineral and also a very, very common nutrient deficiency and found to have direct correlation to Covid susceptibility (and many other problems of the immune system).  However, like the other nutrients in this list, immune system support is just one of many mechanisms by which it influences here.  

My recommended daily dose of selenium is 200 to 400 mcg, with no more than 400 mcg daily in supplement form and at least 200 mcg.

IODINE– Iodine is a nutrient that virtually everyone in the United States is deficient in and for reasons I won’t get into here.  Povidine iodine has been found to arrest the Covid-19 virus instantly and is used as nasal spray for that purpose and prevent transmission.   See the material in the link.  

My recommended dose for iodine for general health and immune system support – 12.5 – 50 mg Lugol’s solution (potassium iodide/iodine) daily. 

GLUTATHIONE – glutathione is a tripeptide made by all of our cells, but most of us do not make nearly enough for optimal health.  It has been called the “miracle molecule.”  See the paper in the link:  Endogenous glutathione deficiency the key factor in poor outcome of severe Covid infection and death.   Virtually every single person of advanced age will be low in glutathione.   It is key in the development of their degenerative disease conditions, be it cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases such as dementias, Parkinson’s, etc.  

As a practitioner, I’ve had very little call for working with Covid-19, but in both cases, a large dose of glutathione turned the corner.  Plain l-glutathione is not bioavailable.  Reduced glutathione only works it it is nebulized.  Fortunately, S-acetyl-l-glutathione in capsule form is better absorbed and much longer acting than glutathione given through IV infusion.  In a nutshell, it turns off the cytokine storm of SARS.  

My recommended daily dose for S-acetyl-glutathione for health and prevention of Covid is 100 mg/50 lb body weight.   If feeling symptoms associated with SARS (dry cough, fever) take a whopping dose at one time of about 1200 mg, then continue to use daily on normal regimen, more if you seem to need it according to your symptoms.  

(Here is a firsthand account of glutathione arresting advanced SARS from Covid-19. This happened over mother’s day weekend and was reported in the New York Post – nowhere else, of course.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/09/new-york-mom-with-coronavirus-saved-by-medical-student-son/)

MELATONIN – Melatonin is considered a hormone.   It is made in the pineal gland, deep in the brain.  Melatonin production also drops way off as people age, and this is because the pineal gland slowly becomes calcified.  Fortunately, we can take melatonin in supplement form.   You will see in the information through the link that melatonin is suggested as an adjuvant therapy for Covid-19.   It works very similarly to glutathione.  It is a master antioxidant and also shuts down the inflammatory cytokine storm that comes with severe cases of Covid-19.   I use pure melatonin powder with my clients, and for many very health reasons, at what would be considered super high doses by some.  

My recommended daily dose for melatonin is 60-180 mg nightly (for therapeutic effects against degenerative diseases of all kinds – cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, diabetes, etc.).  If experiencing SARS symptoms such as fever, dry cough, add a dose to the high dose of glutathione recommended above.   Symptoms should subside quickly.  

ADDITIONAL – 

·      B-complex in active forms (i.e., methyl-folate instead of folic acid)

·      Vitamins A & E – A from fish liver oil not beta carotene 10,000 IU and E in a form that includes mixed tocopherols 

·      Magnesium chloride 

·      Mitochondrial-boosting nutrients such as CoQ10, lipoic acid, etc.  

For most of my clients, the above regimen is pretty easy to do with the incorporation of a good multivitamin/mineral supplement which covers some of the bases nicely.  I also use a topical bio-energy disk programmed with the frequencies of virtually every mitochondrial-boosting nutrient known to man. 

General Nutritional Status and Viral Infections:   Interesting, if you take the time to read some of the science through the links below, you will note that in many cases the nutrients not only improve your body’s ability to handle the infection but also influence how the infectious agent itself is expressed within you, which is pretty remarkable.  This further demonstrates how cultivating the soil, if you will, the terrain of our bodies is the key to staying healthy no matter the threat.