AUTHOR=Spuch Carlos , López-García Marta , Rivera-Baltanás Tania , Cabrera-Alvargonzález J. J , Gadh Sudhir , Rodrigues-Amorim Daniela , Álvarez-Estévez Tania , Mora Almudena , Iglesias-Martínez-Almeida Marta , Freiría-Martínez Luis , Pérez-Rodríguez Maite , Pérez-González Alexandre , López-Domínguez Ana , Longueira-Suarez María Rebeca , Sousa-Domínguez Adrián , Araújo-Ameijeiras Alejandro , Mosquera-Rodríguez David , Crespo Manuel , Vila-Fernández Dolores , Regueiro Benito , Olivares Jose Manuel TITLE=Efficacy and Safety of Lithium Treatment in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pharmacology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.850583 DOI=10.3389/fphar.2022.850583 ISSN=1663-9812 ABSTRACT=

At the beginning of the pandemic, we observed that lithium carbonate had a positive effect on the recovery of severely ill patients with COVID-19. Lithium is able to inhibit the replication of several types of viruses, some of which are similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, increase the immune response and reduce inflammation by preventing or reducing the cytokine storm. Previously, we published an article with data from six patients with severe COVID-19 infection, where we proposed that lithium carbonate could be used as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Now, we set out to conduct a randomized clinical trial number EudraCT 2020–002008–37 to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lithium treatment in patients infected with severe SARS-CoV-2. We showed that lithium was able to reduce the number of days of hospital and intensive care unit admission as well as the risk of death, reduces inflammatory cytokine levels by preventing cytokine storms, and also reduced the long COVID syndromes. We propose that lithium carbonate can be used to reduce the severity of COVID-19.