“Preventive healthcare products address­ing concerns like immunity are trending higher than symptomatic products; Mattern declares. “In this context, products with vita­mins C and D come to mind and benefit from decades of research and hundreds, if not thousands, of scientific publications backing their associated health claims.”

Maheshvari agrees. “Vitamin C has been scientifically proven as vital for immuni­ty.” he notes. “Strong published research also suggests that vitamin E is pivotal as an antioxidant in the immune response. It would appear from later research, too, that vitamin D and K levels are also important factors in how some respond to COVID, and how severely.”

Jia Zhang Lee, executive director, Davos Life Science (Singapore), notes that his com­pany has seen a steady increase in demand for vitamin E tocotrienols in particular. “Re­search studies have shown that tocotrienols have positive health benefits in the manage­ment of hypertension, heart disease, and di­abetes,” Lee notes. “These chronic conditions predispose individuals to the more severe form of COVID-19, and therefore there’s been growing interest in tocotrienol supplementa­tion to help promote the prevention of these chronic diseases.”

But plenty of botanicals, antioxidants, probiotics, and other more “exotic” nutrition­al ingredients have immune associations, too, so why have humble vitamins gotten so much glow?

For one, those “exotic” upstarts, Mattern argues, are “less understood by the wider population.”

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