While medical experts the world over scramble to develop an antidote to coronavirus, critically ill COVID-19 patients in New York are being administered massive doses of vitamin C.
Doctors across New York are giving intensive-care patients high dosages of vitamin C, based on experimental treatments given to people affected by the COVID-19 in Shanghai, China, according to a report.
A pulmonologist and critical-care specialist associated with New York’s largest healthcare provider Northwell Health, Dr Andrew Weber said that he has been giving critically ill patients 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C.
These patients are then given the doses of the powerful antioxidant three or four times a day, he added.
Each dose is more than 16 times the National Institute of Health’s daily recommended dietary allowance of vitamin C, which is mere 90 milligrams for adult men and 75 milligrams for adult women.
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“The patients who received vitamin C did significantly better than those who did not get vitamin C,” he said.
A spokesperson for Northwell that operates 23 hospitals said vitamin C was being “widely used” as a coronavirus treatment throughout the system, but noted that medication protocols varied from patient to patient.
“As the clinician decides,” spokesman Jason Molinet said.
About 700 patients are being treated for coronavirus across the hospital network, Molinet said, but it’s unclear how many are getting the vitamin C treatment.
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The vitamin C is administered in addition to such medicines as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, various biologics and blood thinners, Weber said.
He said vitamin C levels in coronavirus patients drop dramatically when they suffer sepsis, an inflammatory response that occurs when their bodies overreact to the infection.
“It makes all the sense in the world to try and maintain this level of vitamin C,” he said.
