{"id":30160,"date":"2020-03-25T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=30160"},"modified":"2025-05-06T11:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T17:23:07","slug":"zinc-could-help-diminish-extent-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/zinc-could-help-diminish-extent-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus: To zinc or not to zinc?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Calling the specific virus that is causing COVID-19 \u201ccoronavirus\u201d is a bit like calling the Ford Explorer \u201cthe SUV.\u201d Both statements are true, but with both, one is part of the other. There are lots of different SUVs; there are lots of different coronaviruses.<\/p>\n

\"women
Zinc is something that will not hurt you, and there may be some benefit when it comes to COVID-19, like with other coronaviruses. Photo: Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many common colds are caused by coronaviruses. Various scientific studies (we\u2019ll get to those in a moment) have shown zinc lozenges to be effective in shortening the misery phase of common colds. So in the face of a coronavirus pandemic, here\u2019s a big question many are asking: can zinc shorten the duration of \u2013 or even diminish the symptom load and thereby lessen the impact \u2013 of COVID-19?<\/p>\n

The answer is we don\u2019t know yet. But to twist the analogy: if changing the oil helps a Jeep Grand Cherokee avoid the shop, it\u2019s a good bet that doing the same will benefit the Ford Explorer, too.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ian Tullberg<\/a> bears no responsibility for the above comparison. But as far as helping patients get over colds, \u201cthere\u2019s good evidence that oral zinc works well,\u201d the medical director of UCHealth Medical Group Urgent Care said.<\/p>\n

With respect to the specific coronavirus that is causing the pandemic now, \u201cthe problem is that this is still so early that we don\u2019t have the knowledge if it works or not,\u201d Tullberg said. \u201cHowever, zinc is something that will not hurt you, and there may be some benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who swear by zinc as a cold remedy know to take it when they first start to feel a scratchy throat. They try to hit it early \u2013 right when the cold\u2019s coming on. Research spanning decades has shown that using zinc lozenges through the course of the cold does make a difference.<\/p>\n

The data around Zinc and coronaviruses<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Four different coronaviruses cause perhaps as many as a quarter of all common colds.<\/p>\n

A study<\/a> published in 1996 shuffled 100 Cleveland Clinic employees who self-reported catching colds into two groups. Fifty took lozenges containing 13.3 milligrams of zinc gluconate \u2013 the dosage of today\u2019s Cold-Eeze and other over-the-counter lozenges \u2013 every two hours as long as they had cold symptoms. Fifty others took placebo lozenges. The study was double-blind, so neither patients nor researchers knew which patients had the placebo. The findings: the zinc group cleared symptoms more than three days earlier \u2013 4.4 days versus 7.6 days of the placebo group, and, until that point, suffered fewer days with cough, headache, hoarseness, nasal congestion, and sore throat (fever, muscle aches, scratchy throat and sneezing remained similar during the cold\u2019s duration). Zinc has side effects \u2013 \u201cbad-taste reactions\u201d (understandable) and, among 20 percent of those taking zinc, nausea.<\/p>\n

More recent zinc-common-cold studies have been mixed. A team led by Finnish researcher Harri Hemil\u00e4<\/a> reviewed three previous zinc trials and, in a report<\/a> published in 2016, found that those taking zinc shortened their colds by nearly three days. When the same group ran their own trial, though, they found no difference in cold symptoms or duration, according to a study<\/a> published in January 2020.<\/p>\n

A\u00a02010 study<\/a>\u00a0led by University of Leiden Medical researchers in the Netherlands sought to understand how zinc inhibited replication of a cousin of SARS-CoV-2: SARS-CoV, the original SARS of the 2003 outbreak. Click through for details, which get into the biochemical nitty-gritty, but the gist is that zinc throws a wrench in the virus\u2019s RNA-synthesis machine.<\/p>\n

Now, there are caveats with zinc. First, like everything else, there can be too much of a good thing \u2013 more than 150 milligrams a day for adult. That\u2019s about 11 lozenges; the recommended zinc-lozenge maximum for adults being six and just four for children ages 12-17 (research has shown younger children to not benefit<\/a> from taking zinc). Second, zinc nasal sprays shouldn\u2019t be used, Tullberg says. In 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned against such products because people who used them lost their sense of smell.<\/p>\n

What does that background say about the effectiveness of zinc and the SARS-CoV-2 now known as coronavirus? It is, at best, effectiveness by association. But an email that recently went viral as a blog post indicates that Tullberg is in good company with his openness to zinc lozenges as a way to at least try and mitigate COVID-19 flu symptoms.<\/p>\n

A virologist\u2019s take on Zinc and COVID-19<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The email was one that James A. Robb sent to friends and family. He is University of Colorado School of Medicine MD, a pathologist, and molecular virologist who, while at the University of California, San Diego in the 1970s, did pioneering work in understanding coronaviruses. He wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

For all updates and to read more articles about the new coronavirus, please visit uchealth.org\/covid19<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n

Stock up now with zinc lozenges. These lozenges have been proven to be effective in blocking coronavirus (and most other viruses) from multiplying in your throat and nasopharynx. Use as directed several times each day when you begin to feel ANY \u201ccold-like\u201d symptoms beginning. It is best to lie down and let the lozenge dissolve in the back of your throat and nasopharynx. Cold-Eeze lozenges is one brand available, but there are other brands available.<\/em><\/p>\n

Snopes.com, a website dedicated to debunking (or confirming) internet myths, investigated<\/a> after his words were twisted by others and reposted with exaggerated claims such as zinc being a \u201csilver bullet\u201d against coronavirus. In an email to Snopes, Robb confirmed that he\u2019d written the above and added, \u201cIn my experience as a virologist and pathologist, zinc will inhibit the replication of many viruses, including coronaviruses. I expect COVID-19 will be inhibited similarly, but I have no direct experimental support for this claim. I must add, however, that using zinc lozenges as directed by the manufacturer is no guarantee against being infected by the virus, even if it inhibits the viral replication in the nasopharynx.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, if coronavirus is like an SUV, zinc lozenges may well be something like an oil change, though we\u2019ll need many more miles to really know for sure.<\/p>\n

(This story has been updated to remove reference to a retracted<\/a> 2013 Cochrane Review article on zinc\u2019s effect on the common cold and add references to the 2016 and 2020 Finnish-led studies on zinc and the common cold.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Calling the specific virus that is causing COVID-19 \u201ccoronavirus\u201d is a bit like calling the Ford Explorer \u201cthe SUV.\u201d Both statements are true, but with both, one is part of the other. There are lots of different SUVs; there are lots of different coronaviruses. Many common colds are caused by coronaviruses. Various scientific studies (we\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":30165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4859,4860,392,257],"class_list":["post-30160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-infection-prevention","tag-virus-prevention"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nZinc could help diminish the extent of COVID-19 - UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zinc is no COVID-19 magic bullet, but it could help. 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He is author of \u201cA Beard Cut Short,\u201d a biography of a remarkable professor; \u201cThe Laser That\u2019s Changing the World,\u201d a history of lidar; and \u201cFrom Jars to the Stars,\u201d a history of Ball Aerospace.","url":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/author\/tneff\/"}]}},"coauthors":[{"id":23,"name":"Todd Neff","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/author\/tneff\/"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30160"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83077,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30160\/revisions\/83077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}