A Spanish study conducted by a group of researchers at the Seville Biomedical Institute at the University of Seville revealed that “silent hypoxia” in cases of coronavirus infection could be caused by the virus penetrating the blood vessels themselves, according to what was published in the journal Function
The study showed that one of the pathophysiological characteristics of the Corona virus, which has puzzled the scientific and medical community, is what is known as “silent hypoxia” or “happy hypoxia”. Patients who suffer from this phenomenon, whose causes are still unknown, suffer from inflammation Severe pulmonary with marked decrease in arterial blood oxygen levels.
However, they do not report shortness of breath or increased respiratory rates, which are usually a characteristic symptom of people with hypoxemia due to pneumonia or some other cause.
Interpretation of oxygen deficiency in Corona patients–
Patients with “silent hypoxaemia” often experience a sudden imbalance that reaches a critical state that can be fatal. Individuals (healthy or sick) who suffer from hypoxemia feel shortness of breath and a high respiratory rate, which increases the The body’s absorption of oxygen.
This hypothesis, which attracted the scientific community’s attention for its novelty and potential therapeutic significance, comes from experiments that revealed the presence of an elevated enzyme ECA2 It is the protein that the Corona virus uses to infect human cells, in the carotid body in patients, as the coronavirus spreads in the blood.
And researchers suggest that infection of the human carotid body with the Coronavirus in the early stages of the disease could change its ability to detect oxygen levels in the blood, leading to an inability to “notice” low oxygen in the arteries.
According to the researchers, if this hypothesis, which is currently being tested in new experimental models, is confirmed, this justifies the use of steroids to the carotid body independent of the oxygen-sensing mechanism as respiratory stimuli in Corona patients.
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