Iron's Potential Relation to COVID-19

Oxygen is arguably one of the most important molecules in the human body, it is necessary to sustain life and used to make the energy you use every day. Our bodies make use of iron to be able to transport oxygen throughout the entire body; however, if there is an excess of iron then a reaction with oxygen can occur, resulting in reactive oxygen species (ROS). These ROS’s can cause significant damage to many organs and result in death via ferroptosis, conversely, our bodies deal with these extra free floating oxygen molecules through Ferritin, an intracellular protein that can store iron and release it in controlled amounts when needed by hormones such as hepcidin. 

We can determine iron levels by measuring serum ferritin, for example in recent events, it was discovered that those who did not survive COVID-19 had almost twice the serum ferritin levels than those that did survive (Edeas, 2020). Ferritin and iron normally respond to inflammation such as from IL-6 or the cytokine storm in COVID-19, the response seen is typically an iron overload, which is suspected to be part of the pathogenesis of COVID-19. The immunogenic process of ferroptosis can further contribute to the inflammation problem but will also amplify cell death and create an accumulation of iron within the body (Habib, 2020). All this free iron can cause coagulopathy causing the blood to become more viscous, meaning more difficulty in oxygen transportation. In recent studies, it is hypothesized that Sars-Cov-2 may even attack hemoglobin by resembling hepcidin to release the iron molecule (Habib, 2020).

While there is no definitive evidence that iron is part of the COVID-19 pathogenesis, there is evidence that shows iron is at least a biomarker for disease severity and can be affected by other symptoms caused by COVID-19. Iron chelators, such as lactoferrin, have been seen to have some positive therapeutic value in treating the symptoms of those with COVID-19, presenting a potential route to stop this disease  

Check out our Ferritin catalogue here.

References and further reading:

1. Banchini, F., Cattaneo, G. M., & Capelli, P. (2021, March 8). Serum ferritin levels in inflammation: a retrospective comparative analysis between COVID-19 and emergency surgical non-COVID-19 patients. World Journal of Emergency Surgery. https://wjes.biomedcentral.com....
2. Edeas, M., Saleh, J., & Peyssonnaux, C. (2020, June 2). Iron: Innocent bystander or vicious culprit in COVID-19 pathogenesis? International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7264936/.
3. Gómez-Pastora, J., Weigand, M., Kim, J., Wu, X., Strayer, J., Palmer, A. F., Zborowski, M., Yazer, M., & Chalmers, J. J. (2020, June 21). Hyperferritinemia in critically ill COVID-19 patients - Is ferritin the product of inflammation or a pathogenic mediator? Clinica chimica acta; international journal of clinical chemistry. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...;
4. Habib, H. M., Ibrahim, S., Zaim, A., & Ibrahim, W. H. (2021, January 13). The role of iron in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and possible treatment with lactoferrin and other iron chelators. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/...;
5. Vargas-Vargas, M., & Cortés-Rojo, C. (2020). Ferritin levels and COVID-19. PAHO. https://www.paho.org/journal/e...;