Abstract
Humanity is battling a respiratory pandemic pneumonia named COVID-19 which has resulted in millions of hospitalizations and deaths. COVID-19 exacerbations occur in waves that continually challenge healthcare systems globally. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand all mechanisms by which COVID-19 results in health deterioration to facilitate the development of protective strategies. Oxidative stress (OxS) is a harmful condition caused by excess reactive-oxygen species (ROS) and is normally neutralized by antioxidants among which Glutathione (GSH) is the most abundant. GSH deficiency results in amplified OxS due to compromised antioxidant defenses. Because little is known about GSH or OxS in COVID-19 infection, we measured GSH, TBARS (a marker of OxS) and F2-isoprostane (marker of oxidant damage) concentrations in 60 adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Compared to uninfected controls, COVID-19 patients of all age groups had severe GSH deficiency, increased OxS and elevated oxidant damage which worsened with advancing age. These defects were also present in younger age groups, where they do not normally occur. Because GlyNAC (combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine) supplementation has been shown in clinical trials to rapidly improve GSH deficiency, OxS and oxidant damage, GlyNAC supplementation has implications for combating these defects in COVID-19 infected patients and warrants urgent investigation.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilSince 2019, the world has been in the grip of a pandemic caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which causes an inflammatory viral pneumonia called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1,2]
Middle-Aged adults who served as controls (MA, N = 8); (c) Older Adults (>60 year) in the COVID-19 group (OA-C, N = 18) and uninfected Older Adults as the control group (OA, N = 8)
(rGSH) in COVID-19 patients were 60% lower (Table 2). When these outcomes were analyzed in discrete age groups, compared to uninfected controls, COVID-19 patients had 60.2%, 74.7% and 48.3% lower RBC concentrations of reduced GSH in the young
Summary
Since 2019, the world has been in the grip of a pandemic caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which causes an inflammatory viral pneumonia called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1,2]. COVID-19 can develop fever and respiratory symptoms and are often admitted to the hospital due to progressive dyspnea and systemic complications necessitating support measures ranging from supplemental oxygen to the need for mechanical ventilation and intensive care [3,4]. The COVID-19 pandemic is associated with episodic global surges (‘waves’) associated with large numbers of patients seeking hospitalization which places huge strains on healthcare staff, overruns hospitals and severely challenges healthcare systems as was witnessed globally with the recent delta variant. The discovery and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines were expected to boost herd immunity to rein in the raging pandemic, but viral mutations, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine non-availability have led to iations.
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