The role of vitamin C in pneumonia and COVID-19 infection in adults with European ancestry: a Mendelian randomisation study.
Eur J Clin Nutr
; 76(4): 588-591, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1379308
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
High dose vitamin C infusion has been proposed to treat critically ill patients, including patients with pneumonia and severe COVID-19. However, trials have shown mixed findings. Here we assessed the unconfounded associations of vitamin C with COVID-19 and pneumonia using the Mendelian randomisation approach.METHODS:
This is a separate-sample Mendelian randomisation study using publicly available data. We applied single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were associated with plasma vitamin C, in a recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) as genetic instruments to the GWAS of severe COVID-19, COVID-19 hospitalisation and any infection in the COVID-19 host genetics initiative and the GWAS of pneumonia in the UK Biobank, to assess whether people with genetically predicted higher levels of plasma vitamin C had lower risk of severe COVID-19 and pneumonia.RESULTS:
Genetically predicted circulating levels of vitamin C was not associated with susceptibility to severe COVID-19, COVID-19 hospitalisation, any COVID-19 infection nor pneumonia. Similar results were obtained when a weighted median and MR-Egger methods were used.CONCLUSIONS:
Mendelian randomisation analysis provided little evidence for an association of genetically predicted circulating levels of vitamin C with COVID-19 or pneumonia and thus our findings provided little support to the use of vitamin C in prevention and treatment in these patients, unless high dose vitamin C infusion has therapeutic effects via different biological pathways.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Genome-Wide Association Study
/
COVID-19
/
COVID-19 Drug Treatment
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adult
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Eur J Clin Nutr
Journal subject:
Nutritional Sciences
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41430-021-00993-4
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