Dr Chris Smith shares worrying warning about new Covid stats

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Although coronavirus keeps mutating and some variants might be milder than others, it’s important to remember that the virus took more than six million lives worldwide. While some people are only faced with mild disease, others might be battling a severe illness or suffer from long-term consequences.

One day and two years later since the first national lockdown in the UK, scientists and researchers worldwide have been able to discover and identify effective treatments.

One of the biggest achievements of its kind was the fast roll-out of the Covid vaccine.

However, the scientific community keeps researching the virus and its new variants as they pop up.

Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center found that a chemical derived from a compound found in broccoli and other cruciferous plants could be used against Covid and even Omicron.

The plant-derived chemical in question is called sulforaphane.

Apart from being known for its anti-cancer effects, this phytochemical can also inhibit the replication SARS-CoV-2.

In case you’re not aware, SARS-CoV-2 describes the coronavirus that causes the Covid infection.

Furthermore, the study done on mice and lab-grown cells found that sulforaphane “could help prevent and treat illnesses caused by certain coronaviruses, including COVID-19”.

The natural precursor of the chemical is abundant in vegetables including:

• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Kale
• Brussels sprouts.

However, the research used purified, synthetic sulforaphane purchased from commercial chemical suppliers in their experiments.

Lori Jones-Brando, the senior author of the paper said: “I was screening multiple compounds for anti-coronavirus activity and decided to try sulforaphane since it has shown modest activity against other microbial agents that we study.” 

The researchers found that low micromolar concentrations of the chemical were able to reduce the replication of six strains of SARS-CoV-2 by 50 percent.

What’s more, their findings were also positive when it came to the Omicron variant.

The team found that using sulforaphane resulted in a “significant” decrease in both the viral load, or amount of virus:

• In the lungs (17 percent decrease)
• Upper respiratory tract (nine percent decrease)
• The amount of lung injury (29 percent decrease).

Plus, the chemical also saw a drop in inflammation in the lungs, while protecting the cells from a hyperactive immune response which seems to be one of the key factors that has caused many to die from coronavirus.

Although the results are “promising”, the researchers are urging people not to rush to buy sulforaphane supplements available online and in stores.

This is because human studies are necessary first.

Fortunately, the researchers are planning to conduct studies in humans to determine if the chemical can be effective in preventing or treating the infection.

“Sulforaphane could be a promising treatment that is less expensive, safe and readily available commercially,” Jones-Brando noted.

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