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Comment by podgaj | Hacker News Reader

I think it may matter more if you are zinc deficient when you are infected.

But Zinc does not need to be in the cell to help. It will also increase ACE2 activity, which is more important they are finding. When the ACE2 is destroyed, there is a build up of ANGII, which seems to be causing a majority of the issues. They are in a trial giving ACE2 directly to patients.

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I've looked at the findings from France (although I'm not a doctor, I can still look at the numbers and try to make sense of them). It does seem that people on ACE inhibitor blood pressure medication have worse outcomes than almost any other group. Which is relevant to me, since I've been taking lisinopril (an ACE inhibitor) for the past 5 years. The "official" medical recommendation is to continue taking it, but I'm pretty certain at this point that the official recommendations are more or less full of shit when it comes to C19. It's not their lungs that are on the line. If I get any symptoms, I'll stop taking it as a precaution, my blood pressure issues weren't that bad to begin with.

An ACE inhibitor means that you would have less ANGII which looks like it would be of benefit is what they are finding is true.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20056788v...

ACE inhibitors lower ACE, not ACE2. They actually increase ACE2.

Thanks for this comment, this stuff is super confusing. The effect must have been dominated by age distribution then. A lot of the older folks take ACE inhibitors, so it could be that they fared worse just because they're older.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.07.20056788v... seems to support your assertion.

I was under the impression that meat eaters generally aren't deficient in Zinc. What do you think ?

I know a tin of oysters has over 250mg of zinc so there is that.

But yes, more zinc in meat for sure, and phytic acid will play a role reducing absorption, but deficiency could depend on genetics a lot as well.

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