Objective: We aimed to investigate the prognostic performances of oxidative stress (OS), inflammatory and cell activation biomarkers measured at admission in COVID-19 patients. Design: retrospective monocentric study. Setting: patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) admitted to the hospital. Patients: One hundred and sixty documented and unselected COVID-19-patients. Disease severity (from mild to critical) was scored according to NIH’s classification. Interventions: none. Measurements and main results: We measured OS biomarkers (thiol, advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP), ischemia-modified albumin (IMA)), inflammation biomarkers (interleukin-6 (IL-6), presepsin) and cellular activation biomarkers (calprotectin) in plasma at admission. Thiol concentrations decreased while IMA, IL-6, calprotectin and PSEP increased with disease severity in COVID-19 patients and were associated with increased O2 needs and ICU admission. The best area under the receiver-operating-characteristics curve (AUC) for the prediction of ICU admission was for thiol (AUC = 0.762). A thiol concentration <154 µmol/L was predictive for ICU admission (79.7% sensitivity, 64.6% specificity, 58.8% positive predictive value, 78.9% negative predictive value). In a stepwise logistic regression, we found that being overweight, having dyspnoea, and thiol and IL-6 plasmatic concentrations were independently associated with ICU admission. In contrast, calprotectin was the best biomarker to predict mortality (AUC = 0.792), with an optimal threshold at 24.1 mg/L (94.1% sensitivity, 64.9% specificity, 97.1% positive predictive value and 98.9% negative predictive value), and survival curves indicated that high IL-6 and calprotectin concentrations were associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality. Conclusions: Thiol measurement at admission is a promising tool to predict ICU admission in COVID-19-patients, whereas IL-6 and calprotectin measurements effectively predict mortality.
Obesity and its related metabolic disorders, as well as infectious diseases like covid-19, are important health risks nowadays. It was recently documented that long-term fasting improves metabolic health and enhanced the total antioxidant capacity. The present study investigated the influence of a 10-day fasting on markers of the redox status in 109 subjects. Reducing power, 2,2’-Azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt radical cation(ABTS) radical scavenging capacity, and hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity increased significantly, and indicated an increase of circulating antioxidant levels. No differences were detected in superoxide scavenging capacity, protein carbonyls, and superoxide dismutase when measured at baseline and after 10 days of fasting. These findings were concomitant to a decrease in blood glucose, insulin, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and triglycerides as well as an increase in total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ratio. In addition, the well-being index as well as the subjective energy levels increased, documenting a good tolerability. There was an interplay between redox and metabolic parameters since lipid peroxidation baseline levels (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances [TBARS]) affected the ability of long-term fasting to normalize lipid levels. A machine learning model showed that a combination of antioxidant parameters measured at baseline predicted the efficiency of the fasting regimen to decrease LDL levels. In conclusion, it was demonstrated that long-term fasting enhanced the endogenous production of antioxidant molecules, that act protectively against free radicals, and in parallel improved the metabolic health status. Our results suggest that the outcome of long-term fasting strategies could be depending on the baseline values of the antioxidative and metabolic status of subjects.
An association between imprinting syndromes and ART is now common knowledge. Imprinting problems are roughly linked to DNA methylation disorders, and clinical reports of ART-linked imprinting syndromes have implicated hypomethylation of the maternal alleles (1). Kattari et al. (2), examining DNA methylation in 700 genes, observed different levels of methylation between children conceived in vitro and in vivo. They also found that the differences observed in DNA methylation in the children conceived in vitro involved differences in gene expression for both imprinted and non-imprinted genes. This effect is observed even when maternal age is taken into account. We recently pointed out some aspects of in vitro and in vivo parameters that could be responsible for impairment of methylation processes in ART patients (3), in particular an increased concentration of homocysteine (Hcy) in the oocyte environment.Further to these observations, two articles recently presented at the International meeting for autism research in Philadelphia pointed out a correlation between Assisted Reproductive Technology and Autism. 111 women who had a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) took part in the Nurses' Health Study II, which revealed that about 4% of mothers who took fertility drugs had a child with an ASD, compared to about 2% who did not take fertility drugs. In a second study, an Israeli group also observed an increased frequency in babies with ASD after ART: 10.5% of 461 children diagnosed with a disorder on the autism spectrum were conceived using IVF, significantly higher than the 3.5% autism rate in the general Israeli population. Two major metabolic problems are commonly involved in Autism disorders: altered thiol metabolism and increased homocysteine levels, and oxidative stress including mitochondrial dysfunction (4-8) In many cases a correlation is found with alterations in the mothers of autistic children (9, 10).One mechanism that oxidative stress/thiol metabolism and methylation (imprinting) have in common is the recycling of homocysteine (see Fig. 1). Recycling of homocysteine is a Capsule Monitoring and early supplementation with parameters linked to homocysteine metabolism immediately before and during pregnancy, as well as during early infancy of the child, could limit the risks of developing autism spectrum and imprinting related disorders.
Oxidative stress is involved in chronic and acute pathologies: cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, neoplastic, inflammatory and infectious diseases. Clinical trials focused on prevention of cardiovascular and neoplastic diseases involving antioxidant supplementation have however provided predominantly negative obserations in large-scale studies. Screening of patient cohorts to assess baseline oxidative stress on the basis of a biomarker profile is decisive but lacking. For the first time, we evaluated the level of oxidative stress, testing more than 10 established biomarkers, in a comprehensive initial survey of 617 patients displaying chronic human pathologies. Multiple diseasespecific abnormalities were identified in plasma, whole blood and/or urine. This is the case for vitamins and oligo elements, vitamin C, vitamin E, β-carotene, selenium, zinc and copper; endogenous antioxidants such as reduced and oxidised glutathione, thiols, urate, and glutathione peroxidase activity, and a biomarker of oxidative DNA damage (8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine). The distinct biomarker profiles suggest the involvment of multiple forms of oxidative insults which are in some way partially specific to each pathological condition. This finding is in favor of the determination of an integrated score to combine contributions of distinct biomarkers, in order to screen patients presenting elevated levels of oxidative stress.
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