A group of medical doctors, healthcare providers and scientists met today online to discuss the high dose intravenous vitamin C use in the treatment of moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 patients.
The key guest is Dr. Enqiang Mao, chief of emergency medicine department at Ruijing Hospital, a major hospital in Shanghai, affiliated with the Jiatong University College of Medicine. Dr. Mao is a member of the Senior Expert Team at the Shanghai Public Health Center, where all Covid-19 patients have been treated. Dr. Mao also co-authored the Shanghai Expert Panel Consensus for the Treatment of Covid-19 Infection, an official document endorsed by the Shanghai Medical Association and the Shanghai city government.
Dr. Mao has been using large doses of intravenous vitamin C to treat patients with acute pancreatitis, sepsis, surgical wound healing, and other medical conditions for over 10 years. This time around when Covid-19 broke out, he and other experts thought of vitamin C and recommended vitamin C for the treatment of moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 patients. The recommendation was accepted by the Shanghai Expert Team early on. All Covid-19 patients in the Shanghai area have been treated in Shanghai Public Health Center, there has been a total of 358 Covid-19 patients as of March 17th, 2020. Dr. Mao stated that his group treated ~50 cases of moderate to severe cases of Covid-19 infection with high dose intravenous vitamin C. The intravenous vitamin C dosing was around 10 grams – 20 grams a day for 7-10 days, with 10 grams for moderate cases and 20 grams for more severe cases by the pulmonary status (mostly the oxygenation index) and the coagulation status. All patients who received intravenous vitamin C improved and there was no mortality. Compared to the average of 30-day hospital stay for all Covid-19 patients, those patients who received high dose intravenous high dose vitamin C had a hospital stay that‘s about 3-5 days shorter than the overall patients. Dr. Mao discussed one severe case in particular who was deteriorating rapidly. He gave a bolus of 50 grams Vit C IV over a period of 4 hours. They watched the patient’s pulmonary (oxygenation index) status stabilizing and improving in real-time. There were no side effects reported to all the cases treated with high dose vitamin C. Among the experts who attended today‘s video conference were: Dr. Atsuo Yanagisawa, professor of medicine at the Kyorin University, Tokyo Japan and the president of the International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine; Dr. Jun Matsuyama of Japan; Dr. Michael J Gonzalez, professor at University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences, Dr. Jean Drisko, professor of medicine, and Dr. Qi Chen, professor of pharmacology, both at the Kansas University Medical School, Dr. Alpha “Berry” Fowler, professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr. Maurice Beer and Asa Kitfield, both from NutriDrip and the Integrative Medical NY, New York City; Dr. Hong Zhang of Beijing Alps Point Health Technologies, LLC; William T Penberthy, Ph.D. of Scribe LLC, Florida; Ilyes Baghli, MD, president of the Algerian Society of Nutrition and Orthomolecular Medicine (SANMO); Drs. Mignonne Mary and Charles Mary Jr, both of the Remedy Room, New Orleans; Dr. Selvy Rengasamy, president of SAHAMM, Malaysia. I, Richard Cheng, M.D., Ph.D. of Cheng Integrative Health Center of South Carolina, president of Cheng Health Consulting Services of Shanghai and Senior Adviser to ShenZhen Medical Association and ShenZhen BaoAn Central Hospital, initiated and coordinated this conference. Planned but unable to attend are Dr. Thomas Levy, board-certified cardiologist and world-renowned prolific author of Florida; Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-chief of Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Dr. Hyoongjoo Shin of Daegu Korea and Dr. Federica Spurio of Italy. Albeit a brief meeting of fewer than 45 minutes due to Dr. Mao‘s limited time availability, the audience thanked Dr. Mao for his time and sharing and wished to keep the communication channel open and also able to talk to other clinicians working at the front line against Covid-19. In a separate meeting, I had the honor to talk to Dr. Sheng Wang, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Critical Care Medicine of Shanghai 10th Hospital, Tongji University College of Medicine at Shanghai China, who also served at the Senior Clinical Expert Team of the Shanghai Covid-19 Control and Prevention Team. There are 3 lessons that we learned about this Covid-19 infection, Dr. Wang said: 1. Early and large dose IVC is quite helpful in helping Covid-19 patients. The data is still being finalized and the formal papers will gradually be published. 2. Covid-19 patients appear to have a high rate of hyper-coagulability. Among the severe cases, ~40% severe cases showed hyper-coagulability, whereas the number among the mild to moderate cases was 15-20%. Heparin was used among those with coagulation issues. 3. The third very important lesson learned is that the time to wear protective clothing for intubation and other emergency rescue measures. If we wait until a patient develops the full-blown signs for intubation, then get ready to intubate, we’ll lose the precious minutes. So the treatment team should lower the threshold of intubation, to allow proper time (~15 minutes or so) for the team to gear up. This critical 15-30 minutes could make a difference in the outcome. Also, both Drs. Mao and Wang confirmed that there are other medical teams in other parts of the country who were using high dose IVC treating Covid-19 patients. Disclaimer: If you suspect you are currently infected with COVID-19, please follow the guidelines here https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/. We currently screen all patients entering our clinic, and you must not have any signs or symptoms of infections to be seen at our facility. There are stage 2 clinical trials currently being conducted and in no way are we advocating Vitamin C infusions can cure COVID-19. However, there has been literature showing High Dose Vitamin C lessoning the severity and duration of both the common cold and influenza virus. As the article cited states, there has been no adverse side effects for those receiving the high dose vitamin C and there has been measurable improvement for patients moderately and severely affected by COVID-19. Boosting the immune system can play an important role in preventing viral infections and lessoning their impact. If you would like to schedule an immunity booster or are dealing with depression, anxiety, or post traumatic stress, please contact us.
