New Delhi, Mar 10 (IANS): Turmeric or curcumin is being advocated by some medical experts for reducing lung inflammation in the backdrop of rising Covid-19 cases in India, which is especially known to attack the respiratory system.

Turmeric is being touted as the only way to keep inflammation in your body low so that you have a better chance of fighting the coronavirus infection.

In view of the current Covid-19 epidemic and the panic around it, medical experts have a few suggestions besides washing hands, not being in crowded spaces etc., on how to boost the immune system and possibly minimise the symptoms as there are no cures for the disease.

Vaccines are at least two years away and there are no drugs on the horizon except Actemra which is a biological drug that Roche had developed for arthritis.

Simple tricks to boost your immune system during coronavirus may help reduce the severity of the disease. One major thing that happens when you get infected is that one has a "cytokine storm" in the body.

Bad cytokines/hormones especially IL-6 and TNF-a levels rise which contribute to stress and organ failure during Covid-19 infection.

The pharmaceutical company Roche has dusted off an old drug, Actemra, which was developed for arthritis as it was shown to suppress IL-6. Tocilizumab (Actemra) is in a class of drugs called biologics.

Tocilizumab is a treatment for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), giant cell arthritis, and polyarticular and systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Even if this drug is approved for Covid-19, it will cost at least $25,000-30,000 per patient. Nature has effective molecules for lowering IL-6 naturally: Turmeric/curcumin, Resveratrol and Lutein.

Turmeric/curcumin is especially excellent in reducing lung inflammation. This is the only way to keep inflammation in the body low so that one has a better chance of fighting off this infection.