1. Introduction
death, pneumonia, dyspnea, myalgia, fever, COVID-19 disease, fatigue, diarrhea, gastrointestinal symptoms, decreased gastrointestinal symptoms, infection, dry cough
COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS DISEASE 2019), VIRUS, PNEUMONIA, DISEASE, INFECTION, COMMON COLD, CORONAVIRUS, SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME, INFLUENZA
Background: COVID-19 disease is a serious global health problem. Few treatments have been shown to reduce mortality and accelerate time to recovery. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential effect of a food supplement (probiotics, prebiotics, vitamin D, zinc and selenium) in patients admitted with COVID-19. Methods: A prospective randomized non-blinded clinical trial was conducted in a sample of 162 hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19 recruited over eight months. All patients received standard treatment, but the intervention group (The years 2020 and 2021 will be remembered for the emergence of a new virus of the coronavirus family called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2, which causes an infection designated by the World Health Organization as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), has spread worldwide, reaching pandemic proportions. The pandemic situation has triggered an unprecedented global health and economic crisis [The symptoms caused by COVID-19 disease are nonspecific and may range from asymptomatic to severe pneumonia and death, the most frequent being fever, dry cough, dyspnea, myalgia, fatigue and diarrhea [Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been observed that a significant percentage of patients present digestive symptoms. These are often the first symptoms of the disease, appearing as early as two days prior to the onset of respiratory symptoms.Several studies describe the prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms. In Zhejiang, China, it was noted that of 651 patients with COVID-19, 11.4% had at least one gastrointestinal symptom, with diarrhea being the most frequent [In 2005, a randomized controlled clinical trial on the effect of probiotics on the common cold found that the use of probiotics decreased the duration of influenza by almost two days and reduced the severity of respiratory symptoms [In this study, we hypothesized that the administration of an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory food supplement could improve the response to disease measured as a shortened hospitalization stay and decreased gastrointestinal symptoms. For this purpose, we used Gasteel Plus