Decreased Serum Selenium Levels of COVID-19 Patients in Comparison with Healthy Individuals
Ommolbanin Younesian, Behnaz Khodabakhshi, Nafiseh Abdolahi, Alireza Norouzi, Nasser Behnampour, Sara Hosseinzadeh, Seyedeh Somayeh Hosseini Alarzi, Hamidreza Joshaghani
Biological Trace Element Research, doi:10.1007/s12011-021-02797-w
Background Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic and is the cause of increased mortality, especially among elderly patients and those who have severe complications, such as chronic pulmonary obstruction, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. Nutrition, especially micronutrients, plays an important role in reducing mortality and complications from COVID-19 because micronutrients strengthen our immune system and nutritional status is an important factor that affects the outcome of patients with COVID-19. Among micronutrients, selenium has an important effect on both intrinsic and acquired immunity. Host selenium deficiency affects the viral genome and increases the virulence of viruses. We have investigated the serum selenium levels in COVID-19 patients and healthy control individuals. Methods A total of 50 patients with COVID-19 infection were included in this study. During hospitalization, 13 patients died (non-survivor group) and 37 patients recovered (survivor group). We assessed the serum selenium levels in 50 COVID-19 patients and 50 healthy individuals by Agilent SpectrAA-240 Z atomic absorption spectrometer.
Results The serum selenium level was significantly lower in COVID-19 patients (77. 8 ± 13.9 μg/L) as compared to healthy control individuals (91.7 ± 16.7 μg/L), but there was no significant difference between the survivor and non-survivor groups. Also, there was no significant relationship between serum selenium levels and laboratory findings of COVID-19 patients. Conclusions These results suggest that decreased serum selenium levels may be a risk factor for the COVID-19 infection, but there was no significant relationship between selenium and severity and mortality of COVID-19 disease.
Author Contribution Ommolbanin Younesian wrote the paper. Behnaz Khodabakhshi contributed data or analysis tools. Nafiseh Abdolahi contributed data or analysis tools. Alireza Norouzi conceived and designed the analysis. Nasser Behnampour performed the analysis. Sara Hosseinzadeh collected the data. Seyedeh Somayeh Hosseini Alarzi collected the data. Hamidreza Joshaghani wrote the paper and conceived and designed the analysis.
Declarations Ethics Approval This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Golestan University of Medical Sciences with an ethics code (IR. GOUMS.REC.1399.297). All procedures performed were in agreement with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) and later amendments.
Consent to Participate Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Consent for Publication Not applicable.
Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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