Iron isn’t just important for us – viruses need it too.
Katherine Wander, associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, examines how this plays a role in COVID infections.
Kathy Wander is a biological anthropologist in Binghamton University’s department of Anthropology. She received her BA from the Ohio State University and her MPH and PhD from the University of Washington. Her work focuses on the nexus of immunity, infection, and nutritional stress.
Exploring How Iron Plays a Key Role In COVID Infection
If you’ve ever been anemic or iron-deficient, your doctor may have told you to eat more iron-rich foods or even suggested an iron supplement.
Iron is a key component of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen to our tissues. It is also part of how mitochondria, the “powerhouses” of our cells, capture energy from our food. This is critical to all of our cells, including our immune cells.
The catch is that viruses and bacteria also need iron, and they get it from their hosts – us. We wondered if COVID-19, being new to humans, might help us understand the battle between humans and viruses over iron. We don’t expect that it’s particularly well adapted–yet–to accessing our iron. Better iron nutrition should benefit immune defenses and reduce COVID risk if that’s the case. However, if COVID can already exploit our iron, high iron levels might increase the likelihood of infection.
We studied healthcare workers in Nigeria who were working in dedicated COVID wards. We tested them for iron deficiency and anemia, and then monitored them for COVID for about three months.
We found a surprise: people with anemia were more likely to test positive for COVID, as we expected, because anemia can harm immune defense. BUT, people with the best iron nutrition were also more likely to test positive for COVID. This could mean that although the COVID virus is still relatively new to humans, it has already adapted to many of our iron defenses.
Emerging infectious diseases like COVID have increased over at least a few decades. We must understand iron’s role in a virus’s ability to infect new species. Part of that understanding comes from investigating how iron nutrition affects our vulnerability to these infections.
