Fig. 3
From: Functional food: complementary to fight against COVID-19
Proposed mechanisms of COVID-19 treatment by functional foods. Functional foods can alleviate COVID-19 symptoms through their immunomodulatory and antiviral properties. Preventing cytokine storms, elevating numbers of immune cells (T cells & NK cells), reducing ACE2 receptor expression, and inhibiting viral replication through inhibition of viral proteins and enzymes are some of the ways through which functional foods can help improve COVID-19 progression