| الوصف: |
This review presents current published and publicly available evidence supporting the following hypothesis: COVID-19 severity can be reduced with the administration of zinc in an orally and gastrointestinal absorbable form. This supporting evidence (scientific premise) includes a variety of prior published work along with relevant data present in public scientific repositories that support the mechanistic idea that zinc concentrations in the oral mucosa, gastrointestinal tract, and possibly other parts of the human body can be elevated to the level that it has an inhibitory effect on the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase replication and transcription complex (RDRP-RTC) of SARS-CoV-2. There are several implications for this hypothesis. First, zinc represent a highly available nutrient that can be administered in the possibly therapeutic dosage range of 100 mg to 200 mg per day for short periods of time with no appreciable toxic effects. However, many zinc lozenges currently available on the market are not formulated to maximize oral absorption of zinc. But zinc can be quickly obtained, oral treatments produced, and then added to treatment protocols, even in developing nations. Second, oral zinc treatment may be synergistic with other drugs being actively studied and used in the treatment of COVID-19. Specifically, chloroquine is a known zinc ionophore and a possible mechanism of action for this drug and its similar derivatives is to increase zinc concentrations to a level that is inhibitory of SARS-CoV-2’s RDRP-RTC, particularly in the lung epithelium. Moreover, dietary zinc and zinc depleting drugs could be confounding factors in current chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine clinical studies that are currently underway. |