High-Fat High-Sugar Diet-Induced Changes in the Lipid Metabolism Are Associated With Increased COVID-19 Disease Severity and Delayed Recovery in the Syrian Hamster

Pre-existing comorbidities such as obesity or metabolic diseases can adversely affect the clinical outcome of COVID-19. Chronic metabolic disorders are globally on the rise and often a consequence of an unhealthy diet, referred to as a Western Diet. For the first time in the Syrian hamster model, we demonstrate the detrimental impact of a continuous high-fat high-sugar diet on COVID-19 outcome. We observed increased weight loss and lung pathology, such as exudate, vasculitis, hemorrhage, fibrin, and edema, delayed viral clearance and functional lung recovery, and prolonged viral shedding. This was accompanied by an increased trend of systemic IL-10 and IL-6, as well as a dysregulated serum lipid response dominated by polyunsaturated fatty acid-containing phosphatidylethanolamine, recapitulating cytokine and lipid responses associated with severe human COVID-19. Our data support the hamster model for testing restrictive or targeted diets and immunomodulatory therapies to mediate the adverse effects of metabolic disease on COVID-19. Funding Information: This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests. Ethics Approval Statement: Approval of animal experiments was obtained from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Performance of experiments was done following the guidelines and basic principles in the United States Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Work with infectious SARS-CoV-2 strains under BSL3 conditions was approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). Inactivation and removal of samples from high containment was performed per IBC-approved standard operating procedures.