Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital, Buddhist Tzu Chi Medical Foundation, New Taipei City 231, Taiwan.
Division of Pulmonary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei 11031, Taiwan.
Int J Med Sci. 2021 Jan 1;18(2):314-324. doi: 10.7150/ijms.51935. eCollection 2021.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the largest health crisis ever faced worldwide. It has resulted in great health and economic costs because no effective treatment is currently available. Since infected persons vary in presentation from healthy asymptomatic mild symptoms to those who need intensive care support and eventually succumb to the disease, this illness is considered to depend primarily on individual immunity. Demographic distribution and disease severity in several regions of the world vary; therefore, it is believed that natural inherent immunity provided through dietary sources and traditional medicines could play an important role in infection prevention and disease progression. People can boost their immunity to prevent them from infection after COVID-19 exposure and can reduce their inflammatory reactions to protect their organ deterioration in case suffering from the disease. Some drugs with in-situ immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory activity are also identified as adjunctive therapy in the COVID-19 era. This review discusses the importance of COVID-19 interactions with immune cells and inflammatory cells; and further emphasizes the possible pathways related with traditional herbs, medications and nutritional products. We believe that such pathophysiological pathway approach treatment is rational and important for future development of new therapeutic agents for prevention or cure of COVID-19 infection.
新型冠状病毒病 2019（COVID-19）大流行是全球面临的最大健康危机。由于目前尚无有效的治疗方法，因此造成了巨大的健康和经济成本。由于感染者的表现从健康无症状的轻度症状到需要重症监护支持的症状各不相同，最终死于该病，因此该病主要被认为取决于个体免疫力。世界上几个地区的人口分布和疾病严重程度不同；因此，人们认为通过饮食来源和传统药物提供的天然固有免疫力可能在感染预防和疾病进展中发挥重要作用。人们可以增强免疫力，以防止在接触 COVID-19 后感染，并减轻炎症反应，以保护器官免受疾病恶化的影响。一些具有原位免疫调节和抗炎活性的药物也被确定为 COVID-19 时代的辅助治疗药物。本综述讨论了 COVID-19 与免疫细胞和炎症细胞相互作用的重要性；并进一步强调了与传统草药，药物和营养产品相关的可能途径。我们相信，这种病理生理途径的治疗方法对于预防或治疗 COVID-19 感染的新型治疗药物的未来发展是合理且重要的。
