Posted on 10/31/2023 12:13:27 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Researchers have identified an amino acid that may play a key role in predicting poor clinical outcomes and the treatment of long COVID.
In research, the team says it has developed a predictive test to determine which patients with COVID-19 will go on to develop longer-term symptoms and proposes a clinical trial of an already-approved supplement as a potential treatment.
"This research helps us understand what's happening in the bodies of people with long COVID and could lead to better treatments," says Gavin Oudit.
The team followed 117 patients who were admitted to hospital with acute COVID-19, taking blood samples upon admission and at six months, and examining their clinical records for 18 months. Fifty-five of the patients went on to develop severe post-COVID condition, or long COVID.
Researchers analyzed the patients' blood for changes in proteins and metabolites, as well as signs of inflammation. They then reviewed results using machine learning and developed a predictive model composed of 20 molecules. They found their model predicted adverse clinical outcomes following discharge from acute infection with 83 percent accuracy.
The most striking difference the researchers found among patients was in their plasma levels of the amino acid taurine.
"Patients with lower levels of taurine had a lot more symptoms, more of them were hospitalized and there was an increased risk for mortality," says Oudit. "Patients that had high levels of taurine and maintained high levels of taurine in their blood had much fewer ongoing symptoms and did better."
Taurine is an amino acid found in meat and fish and also produced by the human liver. It helps regulate several physiological functions including the immune system.
Oudit is hopeful taurine will prove to have multisystem effects that would be of benefit to people experiencing a range of long COVID symptoms.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
A prior study I posted a while back showed taking 500 mg of taurine three times a day increased a key antioxidant, SOD, over 20%.
A vitamin? Not even horse paste? Oh, my!?
Red Bull cures CoVid?.........................
Interesting. Cats have to taurine in their diet. We add taurine to their food. Cats are notorious at dealing with corona viruses.
Vegans unhappy! No more Keto for you.
Also sn important ingredient in cat food, a detail that might come in handy next year as meat prices continue to climb.
A vegan diet would be Taurine deficient; a keto diet would be high in taurine, I believe.
nteresting, I’ll have to look that up.
I take 500/day and had a bad cold COVID, so who knows.
2g/day here.
Ants and adult flesh flies are high in taurine:
“With the exception of taurine concentration in soldier fly larvae, all insects exceeded both the National Research Council’s canine and feline minimal requirements (MR) for growth of all essential amino acids (EAA) and CP. Although some plants and marine algal species exceeded the canine and feline MR for growth for EAA and CP, only very low concentrations of taurine were found in plants. Taurine concentration in insects was variable but high, with the greatest concentration found in ants (6·42 mg/g DM) and adult flesh flies (3·33 mg/g DM).”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26101608/
Thanks,
BKMK
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