Impact of Zinc, Vitamins C and D on Disease Prognosis among Patients with COVID-19 in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study
Nadim Sharif, Rubayet Rayhan Opu, Afsana Khan, Khalid J Alzahrani, Hamsa Jameel Banjer, Fuad M Alzahrani, Nusaira Haque, Shahriar Khan, Saimum Tahreef Soumik, Ming Zhang, Hanwen Huang, Xiao Song, Anowar Khasru Parvez, Shuvra Kanti Dey
Nutrients, doi:10.3390/nu14235029
Vitamin C, (ascorbic acid), vitamin D (cholecalciferol) and zinc (zinc sulfate monohydrate) supplements are important in immunity against coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). However, a limited number of studies have been conducted on the association of vitamins and supplements with the reduced risks of COVID-19 infection. This study aims to evaluate the association of vitamins and supplements as treatment options to reduce the severity of COVID-19. Data were collected from 962 participants from 13 December 2020 to 4 February 2021. The presence of COVID-19 was confirmed by qRT-PCR. The Chi-square test and multivariate regression analyses were conducted. The ratio of uptake of vitamin C:vitamin D:zinc was 1:1:0.95. Uptake of vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc were significantly associated with the reduced risk of infection and severity of COVID-19 (OR: 0.006 (95% CI: 0.03-0.11) (p = 0.004)) and (OR: 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01-0.22) (p = 0.005)). The tendency of taking supplements was associated with the presence of infection of COVID-19 (p = 0.001), age (p = 0.02), sex (p = 0.05) and residence (p = 0.04). The duration of supplementation and medication was significantly associated with reduced hospitalization (p = 0.0001). Vitamins C, D and zinc were not significantly (p = 0.9) associated with a reduced risk of severity when taken through the diet. Hospitalization (p = 0.000001) and access to health facilities (p = 0.0097) were significantly associated with the survival period of the participants. Participants with better access to health facilities recovered early (OR: 6.21, 95% CI 1.56-24.7). This study will add knowledge in the field of treatment of COVID-19 by using vitamins and zinc supplements.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization, N.S. and S.K.D.; methodology, N.S. and M.Z.; software, N.S. and M.Z.; validation, N.S., M.Z and S.K.D.; formal analysis, N.S., R.R.O., A.K., H.J.B., F.M.A., N.H., S.K., S.T.S., M.Z., H.H., X.S. and A.K.P.; investigation, N.S.; resources, A.K.P. and S.K.D.; data curation, R.R.O., N.H., S.K. and S.T.S.; writing-original draft preparation, N.S.; writing-review and editing, N.S., A.K., K.J.A., H.J.B., F.M.A., M.Z. and H.H.; visualization, N.S. and S.K.D; supervision,
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