CLEVELAND — Dr. Grace McComsey is Vice President of Research and Associate Chief Science Officer at University Hospitals. She just finished a study on vitamin D and K2 that had some significant findings when it comes to protecting people who catch COVID-19.
"If you have low vitamin D or low vitamin K, you're more likely to end up in the intensive care unit or dead," she said.
The study showed each vitamin had independent benefits. But the trick is you need to have good levels before you get the virus.
We know vitamin D is critical for those of us in Northeast Ohio who get limited sunlight. But supplementing too much of a good thing is well, bad.
“Vitamin D, if you take a lot of it you can have kidney stones, you can have calcification in the vessels, however, if you take vitamin K2 with the D, what K2 does is take the calcium and puts it in the bones,” Dr. McComsey said.
Not all vitamin K2 is the same, you need to find the kind with MK7, which Dr. McComsey says is the purest form. She’s planning further studies on these vitamins to see if they have the potential to even prevent COVID, but for now she says it’s exciting that there’s something you can do pre-emptively to fight COVID.
She added that Zinc showed some benefits too, but warned about taking too much. She says no more than 25 mg. of Zinc a day and take the recommended doses for D and K2 as well.
As for vitamin C, she says it is not showing any benefit in the fight against the virus.
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