Improvement of the Nutritional Status Regarding Nicotinamide (Vitamin B3) and the Disease Course of COVID-19

A broad range of symptoms is recorded during telephone interviews at baseline, at weeks 2, 4 and 6 and after 6 months in an electronic case report form. Key symptoms include performance drop / limited physical capacity, the ability to perform normal activities, cough and fatigue. A complaint scale for lower respiratory tract infections is queried with the aspects of cough, mucus production, shortness of breath, sleep, ability to perform normal activities, and general feeling of illness, with gradations from 0 = normal to 6 = maximally poor. In addition, patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires are recorded: SF-36 V.1.0 and FACIT-F are completed in parallel to the telephone interviews from baseline to through study completion (up to 6 months); a subgroup of patients records daily changes in symptom occurrence and severity during the time of dietary supplementation (4 weeks), with gradations from 0 = not at all to 4 = intolerable.

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline, at weeks 2, 4 and 6 and after 6 months in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0, FACIT-F, 4-week daily symptom questionnaire).

A validated smell test (Smell Identification Test™; Sensonics / MediSense) is performed by the patient and recorded as patient-reported outcome by a paper questionnaire. Questionnaires on olfactory and gustatory abilities (incl. Questionnaire of Olfactory Disorders, QOD), respiration (Multidimensional Dyspnoea Profile, MDP), mental state (Patient Health Questionnaire Depression, PHQ-8; Generalised Anxiety Disorder 7, GAD-7; Perceived Stress Scale, PSS; Brief Resilience Scale, BRS), sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, PSQI) and fatigue (Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory, MFI) are recorded as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires. In addition, a cognition test (T3MS) validated for telephone interviews will be performed.

ELISA measurements of antibodies recovered from dried blood spots are performed using a validated procedure in a central laboratory.

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at week 2 in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0, FACIT-F, 4-week daily symptom questionnaire).

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at week 4 in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0, FACIT-F, 4-week daily symptom questionnaire).

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at week 6 in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0 and FACIT-F).

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0, FACIT-F, 4-week daily symptom questionnaire).

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 in an electronic case report form and as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0, FACIT-F, 4-week daily symptom questionnaire).

See https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/covid-19-therapeutic-trial-synopsis. Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 in an electronic case report form.

Frequency of severe COVID-19, defined as achieving one of the following characteristics:

• examination in an emergency department;
• hospitalisation with continuous oxygen requirement of at least 24 hours;
• intensive care requirement;
• ventilation requirement;
• death by COVID-19.

Characteristics are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months in an electronic case report form; if necessary, the records are completed by data from the attending physicians, for which informed consent is given prior to enrolment into the trial.

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months in an electronic case report form.

Symptoms are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months in an electronic case report form.

Symptoms are recorded at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (FACIT-F).

Parameters relevant for quality of life are recorded during telephone interviews at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months in an electronic case report form.

Parameters relevant for quality of life are recorded at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months as patient-reported outcomes by paper questionnaires (SF-36 V.1.0).

Blood levels are measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients).

Blood levels are measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients).

Blood levels are measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients).

Blood count and standard blood profile are measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients).

Blood metabolome composition is measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients). Targeted metabolomics will be performed using a commercial kit for the identification of approx. 600 metabolites (MxP Quant 500, Biocrates, Innsbruck, Austria). Untargeted metabolomics will be performed by NMR.

Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 virus from nasopharyngeal swab samples (in selected patients).

Stool microbiome composition is measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients). DNA will be isolated from fecal samples using DNeasy PowerSoil Kit (Qiagen), the V3-V4 region of the 16S gene amplified and barcoded amplicons will be sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq (2 x 300 nt) with >10,000 reads per sample. Reads passing quality control will be paired-end assembled and after rarefaction to normalize for sequencing depth using QIIME2 data analysis will be performed, i.e. alpha and beta diversity, taxonomic summaries, differential features, indicator analyses and correlation with metadata.

Stool metagenome composition is measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients). DNA will be isolated from fecal samples using DNeasy PowerSoil Kit (Qiagen) and sequenced on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 using NexteraXT with 2 x 125 bp and 20x coverage. After quality filtering (removal of low-quality reads, 3' trimming, removal of reads from human DNA) MEtaGenome Analyser (MEGAN) will be used for taxonomic classification of metagenomic reads and the reads will be de novo assembled into contigs using Metagenomic Data Utilization and Analysis (MEDUSA) and then annotated to genes and functions in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG) and Pfam for functional analysis.

Stool metabolome composition is measured at baseline and at weeks 2, 4 and 6 as well as after 6 months (in selected patients). Targeted metabolomics will be performed using a commercial kit for the identification of approx. 600 metabolites (MxP Quant 500, Biocrates, Innsbruck, Austria). Untargeted metabolomics will be performed by NMR.

The short-term plasma pharmacokinetics after a single dose of the trial supplements (500 mg conventional nicotinamide and 500 mg nicotinamide released in a controlled manner in the intestine) will be measured in short intervals on Day 1 (every 30 min until 2 h after administration followed by hourly sampling until 12 h after administration) as well as after 24 h (Day 2) and 48 h (Day 3) in up to 5 trial participants from the subgroup of blood donors.