Dr. Ameer Hassan | Could N-Acetylglucosamine Be an Effective Treatment for COVID-19?

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Dr. Ameer Hassan | Could N-Acetylglucosamine Be an Effective Treatment for COVID-19?

Mar 20, 2024 | health and medicine

About this episode

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact patients worldwide, it remains crucial to explore innovative treatments that can further improve prognosis. While vaccines have been successful in providing protection for the majority of the population, recent waves of the virus have highlighted challenges such as decreased vaccine protection, leaving certain individuals vulnerable to severe illness and even death. The ongoing challenges of low vaccine uptake and public complacency emphasize the need for continued research into effective therapies for COVID-19.

While several therapies have been investigated for COVID-19, few have been approved for use. As such, there is a need to find new effective and safe treatments to improve COVID-19 prognoses. One option is N-acetylglucosamine, a naturally occurring molecule with anti-inflammatory properties that is already used to safely treat osteoarthritis. N-acetylglucosamine is an example of a nutraceutical, a naturally occurring substance derived from food that has therapeutic effects.

Previous research has reported that N-acetylglucosamine has anti-viral activity and can affect the immune function of cells that line the airways, all of which mean that it may have potential as an anti-COVID-19 treatment.

To find out whether N-acetylglucosamine could function as an effective COVID-19 treatment, Dr. Ameer Hassan of the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Texas conducted the first ever clinical study that involved treating COVID-19 patients with N-acetylglucosamine.

A total of 48 patients with COVID-19 participated in the study. They received 700 milligrams of N-acetylglucosamine twice daily, along with whatever other treatments their clinician had prescribed. This dose was chosen as it is very close to the daily dose prescribed for osteoarthritis patients. Previous research has investigated intravenous doses of up to 20,000 milligrams, showing that even very high doses are well tolerated by patients.

For their control group, Dr. Hasaan and his team also collected the details and treatment outcomes of a previous 100 COVID-19 patients who had been admitted to the Valley Baptist Medical Center. They compared these data with the outcomes of the N-acetylglucosamine treatment group. The control group had received the normal standard of care, and had not received N-acetylglucosamine.

The researchers discovered some striking differences between the control and treatment groups. The N-acetylglucosamine treatment group had a reduced length of hospital stay, along with a 50% reduction in ICU admissions. Mortality in the control group was more than double that of the treatment group.

These results suggest that N-acetylglucosamine has significant promise as a new COVID-19 treatment. The researchers hope to conduct a randomized controlled clinical trial in the future to investigate this further, ideally with a larger group of COVID-19 patients.

Original Article Reference

Summary of the paper: ‘An observational cohort study to assess N-acetylglucosamine for COVID-19 treatment in the inpatient setting’, in Annals of Medicine and Surgery, doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2021.102574