Much like a hundred years ago when Spanish Flu killed millions, questionable medicinal concoctions and folk remedies have surfaced across the world, claiming to boost the immune system.
Social media is super quick to spread nutritional advice, home remedies, and bizarre ideas. Some are straightforward like seeking out foods rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants, many pseudoscientists are peddling products like probiotics, cayenne pepper, and green tea as ways to protect us from the virus, which they cannot.

False Remedies

Basic lifestyle adjustments to suit the ongoing pandemic: Social distancing, covering your face with a mask, and staying at home at all times, will work.
The time-tested approaches to improving our well being, like getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, not taking stress and eating a balanced diet will also work.

The Stuff That Does Work

While over-the-counter medicines provide us with a so-called ‘relief’ by suppressing our fever, runny nose and other ‘symptoms’, these are in fact necessary for the body to get well. The symptoms we want to be stopped are not our enemy:
<ul>
<li>The mucus is helping flush out the pathogen.</li>
<li>The fever(heat) makes the body impalpable for it to survive and replicate.</li>
<li>The body pain is actually the inflammatory chemicals in your veins, guiding the immune cells like an air traffic controller. </li>
<li>The brain is provided with a signal to slow down and let the body recover.</li>
</ul>

The Symptomatic Treatment

Common knowledge tells us that Vitamin C boosts our system's ability to fight the common cold, but extensive studies debunked this as well. Vitamins aren’t really beneficial for our bodies unless we are deficient in them. Only Vitamin D is beneficial to be taken as a supplement form if we are not able to get it from the sun due to some reason.

Vitamin Supplements

Pills, superfoods, and other wellness habits do not boost our immunity as the 'symptoms' which we get when infected are in fact measures taken by our immune system to respond to the foreign pathogen.
Many allergies that people have are a misguided response from the immune system that treat harmless foreign bodies as harmful pathogens.

Immunity-Boosting Is A Myth

<ul>

<li>Antioxidant pills do kill bacteria and viruses but also damage healthy cells, leading to wearing out of the immune system and even cancer. No study so far has given compelling results in favor of antioxidants boosting the immune system or treating viral infections.</li>
<li>Stuff with live microorganisms like probiotics and kombucha is doing the rounds in the news with claims of curing the new virus, cancer, and AIDS. One study did show that probiotics reduce upper-respiratory-tract infections, but more evidence is needed.</li><li>Claims of masturbation improving our immunity or protecting us from the new virus are untrue. </li>
</ul>

Bizarre Claims

"Spanish Influenza - what it is and how it should be treated," read the reassuringly factual headline to an advert for Vick's VapoRub back in 1918. The text beneath included nuggets of wisdom such as "stay quiet" and "take a laxative". Oh, and to apply their ointment liberally, of course.

The Stuff That Does Work

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