New York hospitals are administering massive doses of intravenous vitamin C to patients with severe cases of COVID-19. This treatment is in addition to other medicines. It follows a promising report from Zhongnan Hospital in Wuhan, China (the origin point of the pandemic), where they trialed the strategy and helped the people recover. Hospitals in Shanghai, China, also experimented with the treatment, which went well.
So, Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Long Island Northwell Health facilities, decided to follow the regimen of the China trials. He immediately started administering the powerful antioxidant to his intensive-care patients with coronavirus.
Weber said:
“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C. It helps a tremendous amount, but it is not highlighted because it’s not a sexy drug.”
Weber noted that it “makes all the sense in the world” to try and maintain the patients’ level of vitamin C because when they suffer sepsis – an inflammatory response that occurs when their bodies overreact to the infection – the levels of Vitamin C drop dramatically.
The patients received 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C, which is sixteen times the National Institutes of Health’s recommended daily dietary allowance of vitamin C. The 1,500-milligram dose was administered three or four times per day.
The medicines patients took together with vitamin C included the antibiotic azithromycin, the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, and various blood thinners and biologics. The drug cocktail has recently been given federal permission for use, but it is only to be given to desperately ill patients.
President Donald Trump wrote in a tweet that the not-yet-proven combination therapy:
“Has a real chance to be one of the biggest game-changers in the history of medicine.”
Jason Molinet, a spokesman for Northwell – which operates 23 hospitals in New York – said Vitamin C had been a common addition to treatment. However, the medical protocols for it vary from patient to patient, “As the clinician decides,” he said. Also, of the roughly 700 coronavirus patients being treated across the hospital network, it’s unclear how many are getting the vitamin C treatment.
However, a randomized, triple-blind study is expected to occur between September 30th. It will involve around 140 participants, according to the information posted on the US National Library of Medicine’s website.
