Healthy diet can potentially reduce risk of COVID, reveals US research

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, several types of research are being conducted to devise ways of fighting the deadly virus. In the latest research conducted by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and published in Gut, people whose diets were based on healthy plant-based foods had lower risks of contracting the virus and they also battled it out easily.

Dietary influences on COVID-19 risk appeared to be especially important in people living in low-income areas. The researchers discovered a synergistic link between poor diet and increased socioeconomic deprivation and COVID-19 risk.

What was the Research?

Jordi Merino, the lead researcher and his colleagues collected data from 592,571 people who took part in the smartphone-based COVID-19 Symptom Study. Participants were recruited on March 24, 2020, and followed until December 2, 2020, in the United Kingdom and the United States. Participants answered a questionnaire regarding their food habits before the pandemic at the start of the study.

The results on the follow up showed that the COVID-19 was developed in 31,831 participants during the follow-up period. Individuals in the top quartile of the diet score had a 9% reduced chance of developing COVID-19 and a 41% lower risk of having severe COVID-19 than those in the lowest quartile.

Findings from the Research

"Although we cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting vaccinated and wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings, our study suggests that individuals can also potentially reduce their risk of getting COVID-19 or having poor outcomes by paying attention to their diet," said co-senior author Andrew Chan, MD, MPH, a gastroenterologist and chief of the Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit at MGH.

"Our models estimate that nearly a third of COVID-19 cases would have been prevented if one of two exposures--diet or deprivation--were not present," said lead author Jordi Merino.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes have been associated with an increased risk of COVID-19, however, the impact of food on these risks is uncertain. "Previous reports suggest that poor nutrition is a common feature among groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic, but data on the association between diet and COVID-19 risk and severity are lacking," said lead author Jordi Merino, PhD, a research associate said.

The findings also show that public health interventions aimed at increasing the availability of healthy diets and addressing social determinants of health could assist to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic's impact.

"Our findings are a call to governments and stakeholders to prioritize healthy diets and wellbeing with impactful policies, otherwise we risk losing decades of economic progress and a substantial increase in health disparities," said Merino.
The study was co-led by investigators at Kings College London. 

(With ANI Inputs)
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