Zinc supplement with patients with covid with low levels can be a strategy to reduce mortality and recovery time. This is the conclusion reached by doctors and researchers from the Hospital de Mar, the Hospital de Mar Institute for Medical Research and Pompeu Fabra University. The study has shown that SARS-CoV-2 infected patients with lower blood zinc levels suffer from a higher mortality and a longer recovery time. The work has analyzed the zinc levels of 249 patients aged 65 years on average treated between March 9 and April 1. According to the study, increase of one unit of zinc blood plasma is linked to a 7% reduction in the risk of dying.
One in four patients had low zinc levels and it was just the group with the most severe symptoms and the highest levels of inflammation. Additionally, 1 in 5 patients with low zinc levels died. His hospital stay was also, on average, tthree times longer than that of patients with higher zinc levels (25 days and eight, respectively).
5% mortality
Regarding mortality, zinc levels were significantly higher in patients who survived the infection: 62 microns per deciliter compared to 49 in those who died. In contrast, those who presented higher levels at the time of admission to the hospital suffered a mortality of 5%.
At the same time, UPF has studied the effect of zinc levels with the expansion capacity of the virus, by means of in vitro techniques. The results corroborate that the poor prognosis in patients with low concentrations of zinc is caused both by the effect that its deficiency causes on the immune imbalance as for the increase in viral load.
Block replication
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Specifically, they observed that low levels of zinc promote viral spread to infected cells. Therefore, the results indicate that it is necessary to look for an element that allows to enhance the activity of zinc within the cell to block the replication of the virus. This after studies have also concluded that chloroquine does not do this function, as had been speculated at the beginning of the pandemic. They ask to start clinical trials and supplementation with zinc
The lead author of the study and physician from the Hospital de Mar Infectious Diseases Service, Robert Güerri, explains that zinc is an essential element for the maintenance of a great variety of biological processes and the alteration of its levels causes an increase in susceptibility to infections and an increase in the inflammatory response. For this reason, it highlights that the levels of this element and its supplementation “can be useful tools to face the covid-19 crisis.” The study has been published in the journal ‘Nutrients’.
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