key: cord-0884126-p3rvlqxz
authors: Yan, Sirui; Zhang, Ying; Liu, Qiuyun
title: Why is COVID-19 virus so deadly for cancer patients?
date: 2020-06-09
journal: Eur J Cancer Prev
DOI: 10.1097/cej.0000000000000605
sha: 9e1f54308dc4f09bec028712818aefefa66e8c0c
doc_id: 884126
cord_uid: p3rvlqxz

nan

The COVID-19 virus kills mostly the elderly with cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes as well as individuals with cancer (Sidaway, 2020) . Notably, several proteins of this virus possess high valine plus glycine content (Wan et al., 2020) , which is also a feature of the causative factors of heart disease. Valine and glycine attract calcium via secondary chemical bonding with carbonyl oxygen (Wan et al., 2020) , giving rise to stressful calcium oxalate in susceptible individuals. Calcium oxalate crystals were visualized within 5 h after death in the thyroids in 85.2% of the disease sufferers aged 70 or older (Katoh et al., 1993) . Cancer cells generate excessive amount of oxalate to counteract mutagenic strong acids such as HCl (Castellaro et al., 2015; Wan et al., 2019) , and thus confer stress to normal cells. The lungs of the deceased patients are very sticky, which could be the cause of respiratory failure (Wan et al., 2020) . The viscosity could be caused by the extensive secondary chemical bonding between calcium and the carbonyl oxygen atoms of glycine and valine (Wan et al., 2020) . A starch/vitamin diet or fasting supplemented with boiled rice water for short period of time could reduce or halt the production of virions by limiting the intake of essential or all amino acids and decreasing the rate of viral protein synthesis (Wan et al., 2020) . RNA interference experiments can be conducted to lower generation of oxalate via energy metabolism prior to clinical trials.

Oxalate induces breast cancer

Nature and significance of calcium oxalate crystals in normal human thyroid gland. A clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study

COVID-19 and cancer: what we know so far

The pneumonia outbreak: high isoleucine and high valine plus glycine contents are features of the proteins of COVID-19 virus

Cellular states and secondary chemical bonding: a biochemical view of major human diseases

We thank Yan Shi for editing. 

There are no conflicts of interest.