“Vitamin C is an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and immune-supportive properties. Its levels are decreased in patients with sepsis-related acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Moreover, a significant number of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease developed ARDS. Therefore, we hypothesized that ARDS coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients may present vitamin C deficiency.
Plasma vitamin C levels in a population of adult ICU patients COVID-19 who met ARDS criteria according to the Berlin definition were prospectively measured. The study was approved by the local Clinical Research Ethics Committee (PR (AG)270/2020)… Seventeen patients (94.4%) had undetectable vitamin C levels and 1 patient had low levels (2.4 mg/L).
To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the levels of vitamin C in patients with SARS-CoV-2-associated ARDS. Our study revealed that vitamin C levels are undetectable in more than 90% of the patients included…
Moreover, vitamin C may have implications for treatment of COVID-19-associated ARDS. Indeed, one preclinical study showed that vitamin C increased resistance to infection caused by coronavirus. Moreover, other clinical studies that included surgical patients and patients with pneumonia showed encouraging results in terms of decreased incidence and severity of lung injury and mortality.”