COVID-19

Vahid Reisi-Vanani et al. (2025) · The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale

This double-blind, randomized trial of 66 hospitalized COVID-19 pneumonia patients in Shahrekord, Iran, tested whether pomegranate tea added to standard hospital care improves recovery. Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is rich in plant polyphenols such as punicalagin and anthocyanins, compounds that antioxidant and antiviral lab studies suggest could dampen inflammation and block the virus's spike protein from binding to its human receptor, ACE2. Lab results do not always carry over to patients, so the researchers tested the idea in a placebo-controlled clinical trial. Patients aged 18 or older with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test, low blood oxygen (SpO2 of 93% or less) and pneumonia on imaging were randomly assigned, balanced by how much oxygen support they needed. Half received a freeze-dried pomegranate fruit extract syrup (110 mg per 10 cc), dissolved in warm water as a tea, four times a day; the rest received a matching coloured placebo syrup. Treatment continued through the hospital stay and after discharge until symptoms eased. The team tracked recovery, hospital days, deterioration, death, symptom severity on a four-point scale, blood tests and side effects. The results were flat. By day 14, 84.8% of the tea group and 83.3% of the placebo group had improved (p = 1.0, meaning no difference). Median time to improvement was 6 versus 5 days (p = 0.83), and hospital stay 6 versus 5 days (p = 0.87). Deterioration occurred in 18.2% versus 20.0% (p = 1.0). Death at 28 days was 18.2% versus 6.7%, a gap that was not statistically significant (p = 0.26) in groups this small. Cough, fever, fatigue, breathlessness and other symptom scores did not differ, and day-14 blood markers such as CRP, ferritin and ESR were similar between groups. Some serious events such as ARDS (15.2% versus 3.3%) and liver dysfunction (15.2% versus 6.7%) were numerically more common with pomegranate but not significantly different, and no allergic reactions were reported. The authors conclude that pomegranate tea did not help in COVID-19. The small trial had unevenly matched groups at baseline, including time since symptom onset, and used an extract that was not chemically standardized. They recommend standardized extracts and adaptive trial designs, noting that laboratory activity does not guarantee clinical benefit. Nearly all patients in both groups also received antivirals (93.9% and 93.3%), and only 63 completed follow-up, so larger trials would be needed to detect modest effects or rare harms.

Ubiratan Cardinalli Adler et al. (2022) · Journal of integrative medicine

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with 86 analyzed participants explored whether a homeopathic remedy could help people recover faster from mild COVID-19 while isolating at home in Brazil. Homeopathy is a medical system built on the "principle of similars" - the idea that a highly diluted substance capable of causing symptoms in a healthy person can treat similar symptoms in someone who is sick. The remedy tested, Natrum muriaticum (a homeopathic preparation of sodium chloride, common salt), was prepared using Samuel Hahnemann's fifty-millesimal (LM) method: repeated 1:50,000 dilutions with vigorous shaking (succussion) between steps, governing how homeopaths believe a remedy's potency rises as its material dose falls. Adults with a positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 and flu-like symptoms were randomly assigned to take drops of Natrum muriaticum LM2 or an identical-looking placebo every six hours (more often if symptoms were severe) during home isolation. Researchers tracked recovery by phone and WhatsApp, asking participants to rate 15 to 17 symptoms - including cough, fatigue, and loss of smell or taste - on a 0-to-3 severity scale, then combined these into a daily symptom score analyzed with Kaplan-Meier survival curves, the statistical method used to track time-to-event outcomes like recovery. The main result was a null one: time to full symptom recovery did not differ significantly between the homeopathy and placebo groups (P = 0.56 overall, P = 0.06 among the most symptomatic participants) - homeopathy showed a numerically shorter median recovery time (3 days versus 6 days) in the sicker subgroup, but the gap was not statistically reliable. A secondary analysis told a more encouraging, though still tentative, story: among participants who started with a high symptom burden, those taking homeopathy reached a 50% reduction in symptoms significantly faster than those on placebo (P = 0.04), improving roughly 0.9 days sooner over the first five days (P = 0.022) - though this edge disappeared by day 7 and day 10, suggesting it may reflect the natural course of a self-limiting illness rather than a true treatment effect. Hospitalization was numerically lower with homeopathy (2.4% versus 6.8%) but not statistically significant, and side effects were mild and similar between groups. For patients and clinicians, this trial does not provide evidence to recommend homeopathic Natrum muriaticum LM2 as a COVID-19 treatment - the confidence intervals around the promising secondary findings were too wide to draw firm conclusions, and the study fell short of its planned 90-participant sample after dropouts left 86. Baseline differences between groups, including more respiratory disease in the homeopathy arm, add further uncertainty. The authors frame this as a pioneering but inconclusive first step, calling for larger, more targeted trials - particularly in patients with more severe symptoms at enrollment - before homeopathy's role in COVID-19 care can be assessed.