Is There a Role for Environmental and Metabolic Factors Predisposing to Severe COVID-19?
Autor: | Günter Vollmer, Stefan R. Bornstein, Roman N. Rodionov, Richard Straube, Peter Krebs, Anne Maria Biener, Klaus-Martin Schulte, Dieter Schmidt, Ulrich Julius, Alexander Benjamin Bornstein, Henning Morawietz, Jun Wang, Karin Voit-Bak, Waldimir Balanzew |
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Přispěvatelé: | University of Zurich |
Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2020 |
Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Halogenation Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Endocrinology Diabetes and Metabolism Pneumonia Viral Clinical Biochemistry 10265 Clinic for Endocrinology and Diabetology Ethnic group 610 Medicine & health 030209 endocrinology & metabolism Environmental pollution Disease 030204 cardiovascular system & hematology Environment Biochemistry 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Endocrinology Water Supply Internal medicine Environmental health Pandemic medicine Humans Pandemics COVID Biochemistry medical business.industry Mortality rate Biochemistry (medical) COVID-19 General Medicine medicine.disease Metabolism Disease Susceptibility business Coronavirus Infections Environmental Pollution Pneumonia (non-human) |
Zdroj: | Hormone and Metabolic Research |
ISSN: | 1439-4286 0018-5043 |
DOI: | 10.1055/a-1182-2016 |
Popis: | The severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic affects people around the world. However, there have been striking differences in the number of infected individuals and deaths in different countries. Particularly, within Central Europe in countries that are similar in ethnicity, age, and medical standards and have performed similar steps of containment, such differences in mortality rates remain inexplicable. We suggest to consider and explore environmental factors to explain these intriguing variations. Countries like Northern Italy, France, Spain, and UK have suffered from 5 times more deaths from the corona virus infection than neighboring countries like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark related to the size of their respective populations. There is a striking correlation between the level of environmental pollutants including pesticides, dioxins, and air pollution such as NO2 known to affect immune function and healthy metabolism with the rate of mortality in COVID-19 pandemic in these European countries. There is also a correlation with the use of chlorination of drinking water in these regions. In addition to the improvement of environmental protective programs, there are possibilities to lower the blood levels of these pollutants by therapeutic apheresis. Furthermore, therapeutic apheresis might be an effective method to improve metabolic inflammation, altered vascular perfusion, and neurodegeneration observed as long-term complications of COVID-19 disease. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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