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Garlic: healthy on its own, but won’t save you from Covid-19
Together with the coronavirus, not only panic spreads on the planet, but also a variety of tips on how to protect yourself from it. These tips are not always given by qualified specialists, and their benefits are often zero.
Below we list the various proposed methods and study with experts how effective they are.
1. Garlic
Many social media users recommend eating garlic to prevent infection. World Health Organization (WHO) approves garlic as a healthy food that has some antimicrobial properties, but there is no evidence that it protects against the new coronavirus.
Garlic in itself is not dangerous – as long as the people who use it for treatment follow the recommendations of doctors.
But if someone starts to prefer this or other “popular” methods of prevention to all others and neglect the advice of qualified specialists, it can be dangerous to health. Vegetables and fruits are good for health, but useless to prevent infection with this new virus.
Eating garlic in large quantities in itself can cause problems. The South China Morning Post, for example, reported a woman who went to the hospital with a sore throat after eating half a kilogram of garlic.
2. “Magic Supplements”
Popular YouTube blogger Jordan Suther claims that the “miracle mineral supplement” (MMS) rescues from coronavirus.
This supplement contains chlorine dioxide. Suther, like some other influencers, touted the “miracle cure” even before the outbreak of the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Back in January, he wrote on Twitter: “Chlorine dioxide (MMS) is an effective tool for killing cancer cells, but it will help to avoid coronavirus infection.”
Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already warned that the safety and effectiveness of chlorine dioxide has not been proven by studies and that its use can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration. Other countries have also joined the FDA.
3. Homemade hand gel
People around the world are buying up hand sanitizers. In many stores, the supply of disinfectant gel has run out these days, and instructions on how to make the gel yourself are gaining popularity on the Internet.
However, some of these homemade gels are not suitable for human skin. Conventional hand gels, which are now being sold in stores, usually contain not only alcohol (60-70%), but also emollients, which not everyone has on hand.
Sometimes in these recipes they suggest using alcoholic beverages, but even in the strongest of them, the alcohol content rarely exceeds 60%.
The correspondent of the BBC Russian Service for Science Nikolai Voronin recommends producing an antiseptic at home from alcohol with a strength of 60 ° or higher:
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4. Colloidal silver
Colloidal silver called for the use of one of the guests of the television show Jim Baker, an American television preacher, to protect against coronavirus. A liquid in which the smallest particles of silver are dissolved, in his opinion, kills some varieties of coronaviruses within 12 hours. True, he admitted that he has no information on Covid-19 yet.
The news that liquid silver can be effective in combating coronavirus has spread across social networks, especially in communities that are skeptical of traditional medicine.
Proponents of this tool believe that it can treat various diseases and act as an antiseptic, and also strengthens the immune system. However, US authorities warn that the beneficial properties of colloidal silver have not been proven. Moreover, its use can cause serious side effects, for example, impaired renal function, convulsions and argyria – an irreversible change in skin color.
Doctors say that, unlike iron and zinc, silver does not perform any functions in the human body.
Facebook now accompanies some posts about the benefits of colloidal silver with a disclaimer stating that they contain inaccurate information.
5. Drink water every 15 minutes
A post was posted on Facebook that quoted a certain “Japanese doctor” recommending drinking water every 15 minutes to wash the virus out of the mouth.
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Drinking plenty of water is good for many reasons, but coronavirus protection is not included.
Doctors are skeptical of this advice: the virus enters the body through the respiratory tract. But even if the virus gets into someone’s mouth, drinking water in this case will not help. Although generally drinking water is good.
6. Drink hot water, take hot baths and give up ice cream
The message attributed to Unicef was equally widely distributed – that hot water helps to avoid the coronavirus: you need to drink it as much as possible, and also to be in the sun more often, and then the coronavirus supposedly does not reach you. There are also tips for taking hot baths for the same purpose.
Charlotte Gornitska from Unicef says: “Recently false assumptions made allegedly on behalf of Unicef have spread on the Internet that ice cream and other cold foods should be discarded and that this measure will help prevent the spread of coronavirus. This, of course, is a complete lie. We know that the influenza virus does not survive outside the human body in the summer, but we do not know what effect the high temperature has on the new coronavirus.
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A hot bath does not protect against coronavirus, although it can remove unnecessary anxiety because of it
Heating your own body or sunbathing will not help save you from the coronavirus, says Sally Bloomfield, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. If the virus enters, only the body can cope with it.
In addition, increasing the temperature outside will not increase the temperature of the human body.
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