The need to add a “polyamine-free” diet in the food registry of COVID-19 patients

ABSTRACT

Absrtact The search for effective strategies for symptomatic and pathogenetic therapy of the infectious process caused by SARS-CoV-2 is one of the urgent problems in modern medicine. The prepara-tion of vaccines in many countries based on the principle of active immunization (attenuated and/ or dead strains of SARS-CoV-2) is certainly a timely and demanded direction in modern virology and immunology, but the effectiveness of all vaccines must also be tested over time. So, with such an immunoprophylactic approach, it is necessary, in our opinion, to conduct a periodic assessment of the immune status, the state of at least the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, even during the period of clinical recovery and in a more distant period. Much less often, a quali-tatively different approach of the symptomatic therapy of COVID-19 is practiced, based on the principles of studying the metabolism of polyamines in an infected organism, since SARS-CoV-2 requires polyamines localized in target cells for its functional activity (adhesion on the surface of target cells, translation and replication of daughter viruses). Moreover, polyamines are involved in the nucleocapsid packaging of some coronaviruses pathogenic for humans. That is why, in our opinion, a new quite justified tactics of conducting pathogenetic therapy should be aimed at finding means that suppress the synthesis of de novo polyamines. Α-Difluoromethylornithine is recommended as such means. Apparently, in this publication, for the first time, we recommend the introduction of a “poly-amine-free” diet in the general registry of the dietary regimen of COVID-19 patients, with the inclusion in the food list with the lowest polyamine content and, at the same time, elimination of foods rich in polyamines from the diet.