Some chemical pollutants in the blood increase the risk of developing COVID-19

have elevated levels of some chemicals in the bloodsuch as derivatives of the pesticide DDT, lead, thallium, ruthenium, tantalum, manganese and benzo(b)fluoranthene increase the risk of developing COVID-19.

This is confirmed by a study by the Medical Research Institute of the Hospital del Mar (IMIM), the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the University of Las Palmas and CIBER Epidemiology and Public Health (Ciberesp), Obesity and Nutrition (Ciberobn). ) and infectious diseases (Ciberinfec), all in Spain.

According to IMIM-Hospital del Mar researcher Mikel Porta, this is the world’s first prospective study on the effect of certain chemical pollutants on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and its results may partly explain the large differences in immune and clinical responses to infection.

Study published by the journal Environmental studiesreviewed pre-pandemic data on the levels of contaminants in the blood of healthy people and tried to answer the question of why, under virus-like exposure conditions, some people become infected and others do not, and why some develop the disease while others do not.

“The study found that some of these pollutants increase the risk of HIV infection and disease,” said Porta, one of the study’s lead authors.

Other studies have already determined that there are factors that contribute to these differences between people, such as diseases that a person has already suffered from (the more comorbidities, the greater the risk of contracting COVID-19), smoking, age, education level, density of people in the house or exposure to the virus on public transport or at work.

The researchers took frozen blood samples from 154 healthy people in the general population of Barcelona obtained in 2016 and linked the levels of contaminants in these people to SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and incidence. COVID-19 during 2020-2021 the same people.

So, they noticed that in cases with higher levels of certain pollutants in the blood, the risk of infection and development of the disease was higher, and they identified DDD and DDE, derivatives of the insecticide DDT, as substances responsible for the greatest risk, as well as lead, thallium , ruthenium, tantalum, also known as tantalum, benzo(b)fluoranthene and manganese.

contaminants

The risk of infection was higher the higher the blood levels of thallium, ruthenium, lead and gold, and lower the higher the concentrations of iron and selenium.

“A very important finding of the study is that it identifies mixtures of up to five substances from different chemical groups that increase the aforementioned risks,” added Gemma Moncunille, a researcher at ISGlobal, a center promoted by the La Caixa Foundation, and the study’s author.

The researchers consider these findings to be of “significant scientific and public significance”, offering the first prospective, population-based evidence of a possible association between human concentrations of certain pollutants and SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19.

The scientists recalled that these contaminants enter the human body in several ways, for example, through electronic devices and through their use in feed in intensive agriculture.

For this reason, the study suggests that “if the associations found are confirmed to be causal, policies are in place to control the associated risks.” (EFE)