The influence of vitamin-C intake on blood glucose measurements in COVID-19 pandemic

INTRODUCTION: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is declared as pandemic by the World Health Orgnazation (WHO) on March 2020 One of the heavily utilized measures during this pandemic is vitamin C (aka ascorbic acid) Unfortunately, vitamin C has been associated with glucose measurement interference and thus this study highlights the elevated levels of blood glucose correlated with the presence of vitamin C interference METHODOLOGY: Thirty samples were selected randomly and the blood glucose were measured prior and post the addition of spiked standard concentrations of vitamin C The interference of vitamin C with glucose readings in COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated and observed employing the Auto Chemistry Analyzer machine RESULTS: The addition of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) standards (spikes) into the isolated samples shows a correlated increment in the reading measures Thereafter, the increments of Random Blood Sugar (RBS) readings after being spiked with the vitamin C standards shows a logarithmic correlation with good interesting R-squared (R2 = 0 9921) CONCLUSIONS: The authors find that the presence of vitamin C in blood actively and significantly alters the glucose level readings especially with the highly consumption of vitamin C during the COVID-19 pandemic