The effect of circulating zinc, selenium, copper and vitamin K 1 on COVID-19 outcomes: a Mendelian randomization study

  1. Maria K. Sobczyk
  2. Tom R. Gaunt
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Abstract

Background

Previous results from observational, interventional studies and in vitro experiments suggest that certain micronutrients have anti-viral and immunomodulatory activities. In particular, it has been hypothesized that zinc, selenium, copper and vitamin K 1 have strong potential for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19.

Objectives

We aimed to test whether genetically predicted Zn, Se, Cu or vitamin K 1 levels have a causal effect on COVID-19 related outcomes: risk of infection, hospitalization and critical illness.

Methods

We employed two-sample Mendelian Randomization (MR) analysis. Our genetic variants derived from European-ancestry GWAS reflected circulating levels of Zn, Cu, Se in red blood cells as well as Se and vitamin K 1 in serum/plasma. For the COVID-19 outcome GWAS, we used infection, hospitalization or critical illness. Our inverse-variance weighted (IVW) MR analysis was complemented by sensitivity analyses: more liberal selection of variants at genome-wide subsignificant threshold, MR-Egger and weighted median/mode tests.

Results

Circulating micronutrient levels show limited evidence of association with COVID-19 infection with odds ratio [OR] ranging from 0.97 (95% CI: 0.87-1.08, p -value=0.55) for zinc to 1.07 (95% CI: 1.00-1.14, p -value=0.06) – ie. no beneficial effect for copper, per 1 SD increase in exposure. Similarly minimal evidence was obtained for the hospitalization and critical illness outcomes with OR from 0.98 (95% CI: 0.87-1.09, p -value=0.66) for vitamin K1 to 1.07 (95% CI: 0.88-1.29, p -value=0.49) for copper, and from 0.93 (95% CI: 0.72-1.19, p -value=0.55) for vitamin K 1 to 1.21 (95% CI: 0.79-1.86, p -value=0.39) for zinc, respectively.

Conclusions

This study does not provide evidence that supplementation with zinc, selenium, copper or vitamin K 1 can prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection, critical illness or hospitalization for COVID-19.

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