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
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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