COVID-19: Vitamin D, Melatonin, meditation may be better than Remdesivir etc.

Implications for Systemic Approaches to COVID-19: Effect Sizes of Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, Melatonin, Vitamin D3, and Meditation

Journal of Inflammation Research 2021:14 https://doi.org/10.2147/JIR.S323356

Ryan D Castle©1 rcastle@wholehealth.org, Michelle A Williams2 William C Bushell3 J Adam Rindfleisch4 Christine Tara Peterson5 James Marzolf 6 Kimberly Brouwer7 Paul J Mills8

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Introduction: COVID-19 poses a chronic threat to inflammatory systems, reinforcing the need for efficient anti-inflammatory strategies. The purpose of this review and analysis was to determine the efficacy of various interventions upon the inflammatory markers most affected by COVID-19. The focus was on the markers associated with COVID-19, not the etiology of the virus itself.

Methods: Based on 27 reviewed papers, information was extracted on the effects of COVID-19 upon inflammatory markers, then the effects of standard treatments (Remdesivir, Tocilizumab) and adjunctive interventions (vitamin D3, melatonin, and meditation) were extracted for those markers. These data were used to approximate effect sizes for the disease or interventions via standardized mean differences (SMD).

Results: The data that were available indicated that adjunctive interventions affected 68.4% of the inflammatory markers impacted by COVID-19, while standard pharmaceutical medication affected 26.3% .

Discussion: Nonstandard adjunctive care appeared to have comparable or superior effects in comparison to Remdesivir and Tocilizumab on the inflammatory markers most impacted by COVID-19. Alongside standards of care, melatonin, vitamin D3, and meditation should be considered for treatment of SARS-COV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease .

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• The findings demonstrate that adjunct interventions not only affect a greater number of markers than Remdesivir or Tocilizumab, the effect sizes of adjunct treatments are often as large or larger. Melatonin, vitamin D3, and meditation affected 23 inflammatory markers while Remdesivir and Tocilizumab affected 5 .

• The cost-efficiency and lack of serious side effects or contraindications associated with reasonable applications of meditation, vitamin D3, and melatonin makes for a simple, affordable, and easy combination with most treatment plans. The increased scope of regulating systemic inflammation could result in significantly lower rates of cytokine storms, potentially saving many lives.

• Melatonin, vitamin D3, and meditation should be considered for treatment of COVID-19 alongside standards of care. Though the precise interactions between markers and disease outcomes are unclear, evidence suggests these interventions have significant, quantifiable effects on the inflammatory markers associated with COVID-19’s "dysregulation.