An Exploratory Study of Selenium Status in Normal Subjects and COVID-19 Patients in South Indian population: Case for Adequate Selenium Status: Selenium Status in COVID-19 Patients

Majeed, Muhammed; Nagabhushanam, Kalyanam; Gowda, Sujay; Mundkur, Lakshmi

The pandemic of acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has affected millions of individuals, causing major health and economic disruption worldwide. Although the numbers of infections are declining in some parts of the World, new infections are steadily rising in India. Nutrition and immune status are two critical aspects of fighting the virus successfully. Recently, the selenium status was reported to positively correlate with the survival of COVID patients as compared with non-survivors. We analysed the blood serum levels in apparently healthy (N=30) individuals and those with confirmed COVID -19 infection(N=30) in the southern part of India. Patients showed a significantly lower selenium level of 69.2 ±8.7 ng/ml than controls 79.1 ± 10.9 ng/ml, the difference was statistically significant (P=0.0003). Interestingly the controls showed a borderline level of selenium, suggesting that the level of this micronutrient is not optimum in the population studied. The results of this exploratory study pave the way for further research in a larger population and suggest that selenium supplementation may be helpful to reduce the impact of the virus.