Nutrition and Covid-19
Good nutrition is essential for health, for it helps boost immunity. During the coronavirus pandemic, strong immunity is crucial to enable the body to fight back when the infection rates are unprecedented. Therefore, eating a healthy and balanced diet plays a significant role in promoting optimal health (Brugliera et al., 2020). This is critical, particularly among the covid-19 patients, who are at a higher risk of severe health complications contributed by the virus. As a professional nutritional doctor, it would be essential to offer dietary recommendations to covid-19 patients to boost their immune and improve their wellbeing.
In today’s world, people are opting for fast foods and lack nutritional education on nutritional management. These are among the issues leading to weak immune status, preventing the body from acting as recommended in fighting infections. Fernández-Quintela et al. (2020) necessitate the importance of nutritional therapy as a first-line intervention in treating covid-19 patients and should follow the dietary standards of immune-boosting. In this case, an essential dietary recommendation for the patients is increasing protein intake, which they can access in items like eggs, milk, lean meat, and fish. An issue raised regarding the coronavirus is the increased systematic inflammation, heightening the severity of the respiratory symptoms. Problems like thrombotic complications, high blood pressure, as well as compromised cardiovascular and lung functions, are among the issues that exacerbate the risk for adverse health effects and mortality. The greatest challenge is reducing the inflammation; however, Fernández-Quintela et al. (2020) inform that the increased intake of the mentioned proteins contains essential amino acids needed to exert the anti-inflammatory effect. Arginine and glutamine are examples of amino acids that modulate the immune system. Another recommendation is to encourage the patients to take omega-3 fatty acids, which inactivate the enveloped viruses by regulating the optimal lipid conditions in viral replication. For instance, Fernández-Quintela et al. (2020) explain that the eicosapentaenoic acids (EPA), as well as the docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are among the fatty acids that help achieve the modulation aspect. Notably, the EPA and DHA also suppress prostaglandin, meaning the pro-inflammatory production, thus enhancing the recovery process of the patients.
Further, it would be crucial to suggest the increased consumption of carbohydrates and dietary fiber during the nutrition therapy. However, while carbohydrate intake is vital, the patients need to know the importance of reducing the consumption of highly processed starch to regulate the inflammatory status. As Brugliera et al. (2020) inform, the nutritional treatment should ensure that the required ratio of lipids to carbohydrates ranges from 30:70 in patients who do not present respiratory insufficiency. However, those with respiratory deficits should have a ratio of 50:50 of the lipids and carbohydrates considering low glycaemic carbohydrate index in foods, such as pasta, grainy bread, and porridge (oats) essential. With fibers, such as oats, psyllium, and wheat bran, it would be necessary for the patients to know that they should consume about 25–35 g/day. This would help minimize the body’s systemic and gut inflammation. While focusing on vegetables and vitamins, emphasis regarding the intake of items with vitamin A, C, D, E, B6, B12, folate, iron, magnesium, and zinc nutrients would be crucial (Fernández-Quintela et al., 2020). Notably, these items would improve the body’s immune function that helps fight the virus.
Overall, nutritional gaps may limit the body’s ability to fight the virus due to the weak immune system. However, encouraging the patients to take more proteins, the recommended ratio of carbohydrates, lipids, and fibers, as well as the vitamins, would help in their recovery process. Therefore, nutritional therapy is mandatory to enhance optimal health outcomes and support the patients to full recovery.
Reference
Brugliera, L., Spina, A., Castellazzi, P., Cimino, P., Arcuri, P., Negro, A., … & Iannaccone, S. (2020). Nutritional management of COVID-19 patients in a rehabilitation unit. European journal of clinical nutrition, 74(6), 860–863.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0664-x.pdf
Fernández-Quintela, A., Milton-Laskibar, I., Trepiana, J., Gómez-Zorita, S., Kajarabille, N., Léniz, A., González, M., & Portillo, M. P. (2020). Key Aspects in Nutritional Management of COVID-19 Patients. Journal of clinical medicine, 9(8), 2589. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7463687/
