I don’t think it is worth listening to “a podcast host” on medicine in any circumstance, tbh.
Elaborating, I thought that wouldn’t even be controversial—“I heard it on a podcast” fairly universally precedes advice and ideas that range from questionable to outright false, and maybe out of a dew dozen pieces of scientific or medical knowledge I’ve received anecdotally from heardonapodcast none of them have checked out when I looked.
And that advice in particular really doesn’t mesh with any sort of biochemistry I know of—it’s the exact kind of folk medical advice that wouldn’t work.
That’s not a Cochrane review? It’s a review in a different journal. The author apparently wrote a paper criticizing a cochrane review on this topic, which was then withdrawn. That’s weird.
I’m not sold on the meta analysis tbh. Publication bias can happen, lots of things can happen, and it’s well within the realm of “aggregate 15 studies of 80 people each” that have not replicated in the past. Especially given the high doses of zinc.
Shouldn’t this be a rec for a N95 instead? Those will probably reduce respiratory viruses much more than 33%