Frontline Health
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Frontline Health
#112 - Quercetin: From Pandemic Buzzword to Everyday Essential
A single flavonoid changed how many of us think about everyday immunity—and it’s been hiding in plain sight in onions, apples, and tea. We unpack quercetin’s rise from pantry staple to evidence-backed helper, exploring how it works as a zinc ionophore, why it pairs so well with vitamin C and bromelain, and what the science actually shows about its impact on colds, flu, and overall resilience.
We dive into the broader benefits that make quercetin more than a one‑note supplement. From lowering systolic blood pressure and improving cholesterol ratios to calming mast cells and easing seasonal allergies, the research points to a compound that reduces inflammatory friction across systems. If you train hard or just want steadier energy, you’ll hear how quercetin supports VO2 max, curbs fatigue, and helps your recovery stack do more with less. We also highlight standout studies, including data on hospitalization risk during COVID and controlled trials on blood pressure and airway inflammation, to separate headline noise from practical takeaways.
You’ll get clear guidance on how to use it: food-first strategies to build a daily baseline, realistic reasons supplementation can bridge the gap to 500–1000 mg, and smart combos with vitamin C, zinc, vitamin D, copper, and bromelain for better absorption and balance. We flag important safety notes—especially if you take blood thinners—and offer a simple framework for fitting quercetin into a routine without adding a dozen bottles to your shelf. Walk away with a grounded, actionable understanding of quercetin’s role in immune health, cardiovascular support, allergy relief, and performance.
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Today on the Frontline Health Podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think if you can get it through your diet, that's the best way to do it. We know that if you're eating onions, apples, berries, leafy greens, you're going to be getting more quercetin into your diet. But I am a big proponent, especially during seasons of lots of uh flu, COVID, colds, all that type of stuff, of increasing the level that you take in each and every day. And there's really no way to do that just through your diet. So supplementing to get 500 to 1000 milligrams a day. And then we know that if you take that with bromelain or other things like vitamin C and zinc, so those are gonna help your immune health. But we know that it can cause an increased risk of thinning the blood even more, especially if you're on a blood thinner already. So it can increase that risk. So you have to be careful with it. But I am a big proponent of supplementing, especially when it comes to quercetin.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion Health. I'm Evan Patrick. As always, I'm joined by our founder and CEO, Troy Duell. Today we're doing another ingredient spotlight, and this one has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years, Quircetin. Troy, I feel like this ingredient was really everywhere during the pandemic or certainly gained to gained some uh some traction and attention. Before we get all into that, get into all of that. What exactly is quercetin?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, quercetin certainly got some notoriety during the pandemic, but what it's known as is called a flavonoid, uh, which is really just a fancy way of saying it's a plant compound that has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. And we know that it is a strong antibacterial and also antiviral components. Um, the name actually comes from the Latin word quercetum, um, interestingly enough, which means oak forest, because they found it um in the early 1800s in oak trees. And kind of the interesting thing behind it is how widespread it truly is in nature. So you find quercetin in apples, onions, berries, grapes, broccoli, citrus food, citrus fruits, and even tea and red wine. So, and of those, we know that onions are kind of the richest dietary source, but it's one of those things that I truly think that adage an apple a day keeps the doctor away. This is where it comes from, where its power comes from, is because it's filled with quercetin and helps us uh fight off any diseases and infections and keeps us healthy.
SPEAKER_01:You know, this is just a really amazing example. We'll talk about this about this maybe a little bit later in the podcast, but we talk about immunity a lot. Um, we know that's going to be one of the big benefits we discuss when it comes to quercetin. And these foods that we mentioned that have quercetin in them also have some other really important ingredients like vitamin C and vitamin D that help boost our immune system. So it's really cool how God has designed some of these foods in nature uh with these ingredients that work together to keep us healthy.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. It it is amazing that we can find everything we need through the food that we eat each and every day if we can get our hands on it and actually do that. But most of us are probably just not eating enough daily fruits and vegetables that we should. Um, and trying to get those therapeutic levels is a little bit more difficult, especially with some of the farming techniques that we have. So sometimes we may have to go and get supplements to help fill in that gap. And um, but still some powerful things if we can eat whole foods um from the standpoint of fruits and vegetables.
SPEAKER_01:So let's rewind to the moment most people started hearing, or at least some people started hearing about quercetin. During the pandemic, quercetin kind of became a buzzword. Why was that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do with some of the studies that had come out uh several years prior to the pandemic itself. And they found that quercetin itself had some strong antiviral properties, specifically when it's combined with vitamin C and with zinc. So what they found was with zinc, it kind of acted like a bus. So zinc would hop on board quercetin and it drives inside the cell, and it allowed zinc to go in and start to destroy some of the viral infections that were there. And quercetin also kind of came along and was kind of like uh Robin to Batman when it came to taking out viral infections within our body. So it was a huge, huge piece. And these studies, especially when we weren't sure how to treat, we weren't sure what to do, and doctors didn't know what to do. These studies became an opportunity for us to look back and find things that everybody could get their hand on and start using to really shorten the recovery time and also try to prevent from getting COVID, flu, colds, everything else that uh you may even think of, because um it seemed to do a really, really good job.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I remember even hearing it uh talked about, among other buzzwords during the pandemic, like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, these kind of alternative treatments that were being thrown out in the media, uh, but like a natural option that people were reaching for.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and a lot of that was because ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine worked as a zinc ionophore, which is the same thing that quercetin does. So ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, I talked about uh quercetin being the bus and zinc being the passenger on the bus to get inside the cells to help start defeating uh some of the viral infections or bacterial infections that you might have. Well, that's the same thing that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine do. So that's why it certainly put uh quercetin on the map because it was able to be just as effective as some of those things, but it was considered a supplement and something that we could all get our hands on. And I think people saw some great results when they started doing that.
SPEAKER_01:So, beyond COVID, what does the science say about quercetin's benefits?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, great question. So we know that it's got some strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects on the body. So it's gonna help our bodies just fight off that chronic inflammation that's going on and fight off any potential potential cancer-causing cells that are there, um, which is what the antioxidant uh power does. So we know that it's gonna help with our cardiovascular health. There was actually a study in 2019 that showed that quercetin supplementation helped lower blood pressure in people and that it also helped improve cholesterol ratios. So blood pressure, cholesterol, certainly a positive thing. And then prior to COVID, there were a lot of, I know, ENTs that used quercetin when it came to allergies and immune response, specifically helping to stabilize those mast cells, kind of reduce that histamine load that we're getting, and it helped act as a natural antihistamine of sorts. So it helped people fight off allergy symptoms that you would normally get during the spring. So the sneezing, itching, watery eyes, but it was a natural way to do it. And then the final would be exercise and recovery, because a lot of studies have shown that quercetin helped increase the endurance of a lot of athletes because it improved their uh max oxygen rate in their bodies and kind of reduced their fatigue overall.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a pretty broad range of benefits for one ingredient. And it seems like we're discovering more about quercetin all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I I think this is something that we'll see the more we dive into whole foods and whole fruits, but certainly specifically with quercetin, we know that it's a benefit for our metabolic health. It's a benefit for our blood sugar regulation, and they're looking into how it can benefit us even on our brain health and kind of avoiding Alzheimer's and uh dementia.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've talked about some of this or at least referenced some of this already, but could you share sort of a couple of standout studies or numbers people should know about uh the benefits of quercetin?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there was uh actually one specifically with COVID done in Italy that showed quercetin reduced hospitalization by 68% when they added it to standard care. So that was a big moment within the COVID um epidemic that was going on, or pandemic that was going on, that allowed people to have a little bit of respite and something to give doctors and health practitioners to really give to their patients and start feeling like they were doing something. You know, blood pressure in particular, they looked at 580 people and they gave them 500 milligrams a day for eight weeks, which ended up lowering the systolic blood pressure significantly. So that's another one when you're talking about blood pressure. From the standpoint of allergies, there was a study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology that showed quercetin actually reduced airway inflammation in people with seasonal allergies. And then the final one is antioxidant power. There was a lab analysis that found uh quercetin had a capacity that was higher than vitamin C or vitamin E in uh its antioxidant powers.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's uh that's really impressive. Um, I think one thing that we we always like to address when we do these ingredient spotlights and we highlight uh another ingredient that's out there that has a wide range of benefits like quercetin. People don't want to take uh a hundred pills a day, right? They want to get the things that their body needs, uh, but they want to to limit kind of what they're what they're taking in their body. And they might be sitting here asking, you know, is quercetin something that I should be taking and add to my daily routine?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I think if you can get it through your diet, that's the best way to do it. We know that if you're eating onions, apples, berries, leafy greens, you're gonna be getting more quercetin into your diet. But um, I am a big proponent, especially during um seasons of uh lots of uh flu, COVID, colds, all that type of stuff, of increasing the level that you take in each and every day. And there's really no way to do that just through your diet. So supplementing to get 500 to 1000 milligrams a day. Um, and then we know that if you take that with bromelane or other things like vitamin C and zinc, um, so those are going to help your immune health. But we know that it can um cause an increased risk of thinning the blood even more, especially if you're on a blood thinner already. So it can increase that risk. So you have to be careful with it. But I am a big proponent of supplementing, especially when it comes to quercetin, because I think uh you have to eat the equivalent of 25 medium apples a day in order to get the amount of quercetin you're gonna want to have in your diet. And that that becomes somewhat prohibitive for most people.
SPEAKER_01:You aren't doing that, Troy? You aren't getting your 25 apples in a day?
SPEAKER_00:I was just shy of the 25 apples. Um, so yeah, just a little bit outside.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's key. Yeah, as you said, supplements are are are great tools for getting the uh the nutrients that we need in our bodies to kind of push us over the top. They're not shortcuts. We still got to eat those whole foods, but uh, but definitely great to add to our routines. And um, I think something that's that's really key, you know, during the COVID pandemic, uh, you came up with a product that included quercetin in it, um, in addition to some of these other things, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, uh, copper, and then and then the quercetin defender immunity boost, um, which we have seen a lot of people benefiting from, because it's one of those things where they can get all of those great ingredients in one product and just take two pills a day instead of you know walking away with five different bottles that they might have to take two capsules from, and and that two very quickly becomes 10. So um I think that's a great, great option for anybody out there who might be looking to add quercetin and some of these other immune-boosting ingredients to their routine.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And I think uh anything you can do to increase your immune health, especially during high season for cold, uh, COVID, or flu, uh, you're gonna be that much better off because we know that if you're getting quercetin, if you're getting those items in your body, quercetin, zinc, copper, um, vitamin C, and vitamin D, that it will lessen the chance of you potentially getting sick. And if you do get sick, it lessens the time that you are sick. So um certainly a good option is to start looking at that, eating right, exercising correctly, and um supplementing will help go a long ways. And quercetin is a is certainly a key to that.
SPEAKER_01:Troy, this has been a great conversation. I think people are going to walk away with a whole new respect uh for quercetin. You know, it's not just a pandemic buzzword, but it's a powerful, well-researched nutrient that can give us all kinds of benefits, um, even when we're not in the middle of a global pandemic. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Frontline Health Podcast by Centurion Health. Remember to share it with a friend if you found it to be useful. And as always, go out and take ownership of your health because you are your best health advocate. If you enjoyed what you heard today on the podcast, please consider leaving us a review. We would love to hear your feedback and connect with you further. You can also follow us on Instagram, X, TikTok, and YouTube. And for safe, effective, and affordable health and wellness products made in the USA, visit www.centurion.health. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.