Combined Metabolic Activators accelerate recovery in mild-to-moderate COVID-19

 Ozlem Altay, Muhammad Arif, Xiangyu Li, Hong Yang, Mehtap Aydın, Gizem Alkurt, Woonghee Kim, Dogukan Akyol, Cheng Zhang, Gizem Dinler-Doganay, Hasan Turkez, Saeed Shoaie, Jens Nielsen, Jan Borén, Oktay Olmuscelik, Levent Doganay, Mathias Uhlén, Adil Mardinoglu

doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.02.20202614

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?]. It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

PDF: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.02.20202614v2.full.pdf

ABSTRACT

There is a need to treat COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory problems, resulting in decreased oxygen levels and thus leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic abnormalities. Here, we investigated if a high oral dose of a mixture of Combined Metabolic Activators (CMA) can restore metabolic function and thus aid the recovery of COVID-19 patients. We conducted a placebo-controlled, open-label phase 2 study and a double-blinded phase 3 clinical trials to investigate the time of symptom-free recovery on ambulatory patients using a mixture of CMA consisting of NAD+ and glutathione precursors. The results of both studies showed that the time to complete recovery was significantly shorter in the CMA group (6.6 vs 9.3 days) in phase 2 and (5.7 vs 9.2 days) in phase 3 trials. A comprehensive analysis of the blood metabolome and proteome showed that the plasma levels of proteins and metabolites associated with inflammation and antioxidant metabolism are significantly improved in patients treated with the metabolic activators as compared to placebo. The results show that treating patients infected with COVID-19 with a high dose of CMAs leads to a more rapid symptom-free recovery, suggesting a role for such a therapeutic regime in the treatment of infections leading to respiratory problems.

Competing Interest Statement

AM, JB and MU filed a patent application on the use of CMA on COVID-19 patients. The other authors declare no competing interests.

Clinical Trial

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04573153

Funding Statement

This work was supported by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The authors would like to thank ChromaDex (Irvine, CA, USA) for providing NR for this study.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.02.20202614v2