SARS-CoV-2 infection threatening intestinal health: A review of potential mechanisms and treatment strategies

Abstract

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought great problems to mankind, including economic recession and poor health. COVID-19 patients are frequently reported with gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in clinical diagnosis. Maintaining intestinal health is the key guarantee to maintain the normal function of multiple organs, otherwise it will be a disaster. Therefore, the purpose of this review was deeply understanded the potential mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection threatening intestinal health and put forward reasonable treatment strategies. Combined with the existing researches, we summarized the mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 infection threatening intestinal health, including intestinal microbiome disruption, intestinal barrier dysfunction, intestinal oxidative stress and intestinal cytokine storm. These adverse intestinal events may affect other organs through the circulatory system or aggravate the course of the disease. Typically, intestinal disadvantage may promote the progression of SARS-CoV-2 through the gut-lung axis and increase the disease degree of COVID-19 patients. In view of the lack of specific drugs to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication, the current review described new strategies of probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics and nutrients to combat SARS-CoV-2 infection and maintain intestinal health. To provide new insights for the prevention and treatment of gastrointestinal symptoms and pneumonia in patients with COVID-19.

Keywords:

• SARS-CoV-2 infection
• gastrointestinal symptoms
• intestinal health
• cytokine storm
• probiotics
• postbiotics

Authors’ contributions

Shanji Liu, Yu Zhao and Xiaoyan Feng were responsible for literature research conception and revising the manuscript. Shanji Liu completed the preliminary writing of the manuscript. Yu Zhao and Xiaoyan Feng assisted in the graphical figures’ perfection. Hengyi Xu provided critical revisions of the final manuscript. The final version of was approve manuscript d by all the authors.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This review was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82060606).