scholarly journals Diet Supplementation, Probiotics, and Nutraceuticals in SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Scoping Review

Nutrients ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Infusino ◽  
Massimiliano Marazzato ◽  
Massimo Mancone ◽  
Francesco Fedele ◽  
Claudio Maria Mastroianni ◽  
...  

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) global pandemic is a devastating event that is causing thousands of victims every day around the world. One of the main reasons of the great impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on society is its unexpected spread, which has not allowed an adequate preparation. The scientific community is fighting against time for the production of a vaccine, but it is difficult to place a safe and effective product on the market as fast as the virus is spreading. Similarly, for drugs that can directly interfere with viral pathways, their production times are long, despite the great efforts made. For these reasons, we analyzed the possible role of non-pharmacological substances such as supplements, probiotics, and nutraceuticals in reducing the risk of Sars-CoV-2 infection or mitigating the symptoms of COVID-19. These substances could have numerous advantages in the current circumstances, are generally easily available, and have negligible side effects if administered at the already used and tested dosages. Large scientific evidence supports the benefits that some bacterial and molecular products may exert on the immune response to respiratory viruses. These could also have a regulatory role in systemic inflammation or endothelial damage, which are two crucial aspects of COVID-19. However, there are no specific data available, and rigorous clinical trials should be conducted to confirm the putative benefits of diet supplementation, probiotics, and nutraceuticals in the current pandemic.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wladimir Gramacho ◽  
Mathieu Turgeon ◽  
John Kennedy ◽  
Max Stabile ◽  
Pedro Santos Mundim

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a vast research agenda focusing on how citizens acquire knowledge about the virus and the health expert guidelines to protect themselves and their close ones against it. While many countries and regions have been accounted for, there still remains a substantial gap with respect to public opinion about the virus in Latin America, most notably in Brazil, which currently has the second highest in number of fatalities in the world. In this article, we employ a national survey of Brazilians (n = 2,771) to measure and explain knowledge and misinformation about the coronavirus and its illness, COVID-19. Our focus concerns the role of political preferences in a context of high elite polarization with a sitting government that has systematically downplayed the risks associated with the coronavirus and its illness. Our findings are clear: political preferences play a substantial role in explaining differences in knowledge about the coronavirus and COVID-19, more than conventional determinants of learning like motivation, ability, and opportunities. Specifically, we find that supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro—an avid science and COVID-19 denier—know significantly less about the coronavirus and its illness and are more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory that claims that the coronavirus was purposefully created in a Chinese laboratory to promote China's economic power, when compared to Brazilians who are less supportive of him and his government. Our findings carry important implications for how Brazilians take informational cues from political elites in that—even in a major event like a global pandemic—supporters of the president are as likely as ever to “follow their leader” and deny expert-backed scientific evidence.


2021 ◽  

The COVID-19 pandemic forced physicians around the world to make tragic decisions: Whose life should be saved when it is apparent that available resources are insufficient to treat everyone? Under the heading of "triage" a broad societal debate ensued that also ignited the scientific community. This anthology unites voices from medicine, law, and philosophy for a conversation. It reveals controversies that are deeply rooted in ideas of law, morality, and the role of the individual in the state. Simultaneously, answers are being formulated to questions that have become sadly prominent in the COVID pandemic but could also valid beyond it.


2008 ◽  
Vol 07 (03) ◽  
pp. C06 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Morris ◽  
Susannah Sayler

In January 2006, my wife Susannah Sayler and I set out to photograph landscapes around the world that were being transformed by global warming. We called our work The Canary Project. From the beginning, as now, we had both activist aims and artistic ambitions. These two types of motivation overlap in places and in other places feel completely distinct. In general, we feel as though are carrying forward a torch that science cannot carry any further. Following are some thoughts on our role as activists and as artists and as collaborators with the scientific community.


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-61
Author(s):  
Meike Wagner

In 1854, the city of Munich had arranged for the “First General German Industrial Exhibition” to promote German industry to the world and invited a global audience to the event. At the same time, Franz Dingelstedt, director of the National Theater, organized a festival displaying the finest actors from Germany. Right after the opening of the festival, cholera started raging in the city and leaving 3,000 deaths in the final count. The author sketches out the role of the theatre in this crisis, when Dingelstedt was ordered by the king to keep the theatre open at any cost. This appears awkward, in regard to the current global pandemic crisis where theaters have been identified as risk zones for infection and consequently closed down. Why was the theatre at the time considered a safe and appropriate place even helping to counter the disease?


2020 ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Svetlana CEBOTARI ◽  
Victoria BEVZIUC

The activity of the World Health Organization is now becoming a topic in disputes between the big power centres – the USA and China. The role of the WHO is also becoming a research topic not only for researchers in medical sciences, but also for political specialists in international relations. With the COVID-19 crisis, the WHO is becoming a scene of the major challenges – the USA and China. This Article aims to highlight the USA and China relations with reference to the work of the WHO, including the effectiveness of the organization with a global pandemic such as that of the COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Milena Čavić ◽  
Jelena Grahovac ◽  
Radmila Zec ◽  
Miloš Stefanović ◽  
Elizabeta Aleksić

The SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, corona virus) pandemic has introduced a sudden and overwhelming change into our everyday lives, which had a significant impact on various vital aspects of our society. The first officially registered case of infection was reported on December 31st, 2019. in Wuhan, China. Since then, its worldwide spread has led to a global pandemic of the respiratory disease COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 19). Up to May 31st, 2021, there have been over 169 million officially reported cases of infection in the world, with over 3.5 million deaths. Since the first day of the pandemic, huge efforts have been employed by the health and scientific community to enable most efficient diagnostics, treatment and prevention by development of efficient vaccines. In Serbia, the first official SARS-CoV-2 case was registered on March 6th, 2020. Until May 31st, 2021, the total number of infected people was 712 472, total number of deaths 6 865 and the mortality rate 0.96%. The first antiSARS-CoV-2 vaccine was administered on December 24th, 2020, and by May 31st 2021 over 2 million people were successfully vaccinated in Serbia. If any positive effects of the pandemic can be highlighted, the health institutions of our country have prepared protocols and recommendations which can be modified according to specific needs in the case of future pandemics. Further dynamic of this pandemic will depend in great part on our responsibility for personal and collective health, as well as on global measures undertaken to reach a new eagerly awaited normality.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-66
Author(s):  
Heiner M. Fangerau

During the 1920s, the world-wide eugenics movement reached a peak level of popularity. Historians have stressed the key role of the textbook “Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene” in the popularisation of eugenic thinking in Germany. In this textbook the well known scientists Erwin Baur (1875-1933), Eugen Fischer (1874-1967) and Fritz Lenz (1887-1976) tried to combine genetics, anthropology and racial hygiene to form a “Magna Carta” of eugenics. This paper aims at quantitatively reconstructing the book’s development into a standard work. 325 contemporary reviews of the book were analysed. More than 80% of the reviewers evaluated the book positively recommending it to a variety of readers. Most of the reviewers were Medical Doctors concentrating on the eugenic aspects of the book. The reception study makes the reciprocity of eugenics as an accepted science and academics forming it into science prevalent. Explanations for the uniform reaction of the scientific community are discussed. *Key words*: reception study, interwar years, eugenics


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Asfa Widiyanto

Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has become global pandemic, which affects all countries in the world including Indonesia. The mitigation of covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia cannot neglect the role of religion, since religion constitutes the main identity of most people. Hence, religion becomes value reference and ‘system of knowing’, including in addressing the covid-19 pandemic. By employing comparative and content analysis, it is hoped that this paper will constitute a significant contribution in unravelling the complex role of religion in dealing with covid-19 pandemic, most particularly in the context of post-truth. There are three concerns of this paper. First, it examines the challenges of religious conservatism towards covid-19 mitigation among Indonesian Muslims, most particularly in the context of post-truth which in some ways intensifies the emergence of conservativism in the public space. Second, it explores the possibility of ‘new spirituality’ which is pertinent for the mitigation of Covid-19. Third, it explores the contribution of Indonesian Muslim knowledge culture to the fight against covid-19.


Medicina ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 919
Author(s):  
Mindaugas Juozapaitis ◽  
Linas Antoniukas

Every year, especially during the cold season, many people catch an acute respiratory disease, namely flu. It is easy to catch this disease; therefore, it spreads very rapidly and often becomes an epidemic or a global pandemic. Airway inflammation and other body ailments, which form in a very short period, torment the patient several weeks. After that, the symptoms of the disease usually disappear as quickly as they emerged. The great epidemics of flu have rather unique characteristics; therefore, it is possible to identify descriptions of such epidemics in historic sources. Already in the 4th century BC, Hippocrates himself wrote about one of them. It is known now that flu epidemics emerge rather frequently, but there are no regular intervals between those events. The epidemics can differ in their consequences, but usually they cause an increased mortality of elderly people. The great flu epidemics of the last century took millions of human lives. In 1918–19, during “The Spanish” pandemic of flu, there were around 40–50 millions of deaths all over the world; “Pandemic of Asia” in 1957 took up to one million lives, etc. Influenza virus can cause various disorders of the respiratory system: from mild inflammations of upper airways to acute pneumonia that finally results in the patient’s death. Scientist Richard E. Shope, who investigated swine flu in 1920, had a suspicion that the cause of this disease might be a virus. Already in 1933, scientists from the National Institute for Medical Research in London – Wilson Smith, Sir Christopher Andrewes, and Sir Patrick Laidlaw – for the first time isolated the virus, which caused human flu. Then scientific community started the exhaustive research of influenza virus, and the great interest in this virus and its unique features is still active even today.


Author(s):  
Nicolò Musso ◽  
Angelita Costantino ◽  
Sebastiano La Spina ◽  
Alessandra Finocchiaro ◽  
Francesca Andronico ◽  
...  

The pandemic respiratory disease COVID-19, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), emerged in Wuhan in December 2019 and then spread throughout the world; Italy was the most affected European country. Despite the close pet-human contact, little is known about the predisposition of pets to SARS-CoV-2. Among these, felines are the most susceptible. In this study, a domestic cat with clear symptoms of pneumonia, confirmed by Rx imaging, was found to be infected by SARS-CoV-2 using quantitative RT–qPCR from a nasal swab. This is the first Italian study reporting on the request of the scientific community to focus attention on the possible role of pets as a SARS-CoV-2 reservoir. An important question remains unanswered: did the cat die from SARS-CoV-2 infection?


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