Could the diet have to do with the Coronavirus?
Said like this it would seem a fake news worthy of water and lemon to fight viral pneumonia.

In reality, the identification of diet and intestinal health as Covid risk factors comes from a project curated by Dr Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London.

On Dcomedieta I have often spoken of prof. Spector, because for years he has been interested in the correlation between intestinal health and the risk of disease.
To be clear,  he lived with the Hazda tribe , an ancient community of hunter-gatherers with iron health, to study their diet. And in the past he has written a book to debunk some myths about diet.

With the Coronavirus pandemic, Spector has created an app that tracks the symptoms of the virus in people, through a collection of data. The app, which is called Covid Symptom Tracker , essentially works to streamline the diagnosis and detection procedures of Covid cases, so that a person can download it, put data and illustrate the symptoms.

Let’s say it’s an app similar to Immuni, but with a different diagnostic side.

In the app you can describe all the symptoms, adding some, it is a kind of diary of the disease that serves not only to identify the risk of outbreaks, but to learn more about the Coronavirus.

It is a symptom and case tracking app, but not of people who remain virtually anonymous, because their data is used for research purposes only.

Thanks to this app, Spector and his collaborators have managed to get a lot of different data on people affected by the virus. For example how many are overweight, what they eat, how many have high cholesterol and so on.

In England, where it was created, the app managed to track the infection in 15 million people.
From their data, Spector noted that diet and gut health are modifiable risk factors for Covid.
Let’s try to understand why.

DIET AND INTESTINAL HEALTH ARE COVID RISK FACTORS

The first thing that was discovered thanks to the app is that the poorest areas are those at greatest risk of becoming the new Covid outbreaks.
There is talk of a ten times greater risk.

One explanation is that people who cannot afford a better diet and have weight problems or metabolic syndrome tend to be at greater risk of becoming seriously ill due to a weaker immune system.

In fact, those who are overweight or obese can suffer more easily from diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The presence of these pathologies aggravates the body’s immune response to the virus. A healthy person is obviously not immune to the virus, but they have a better chance of not developing interstitial pneumonia.

In England, where the app was developed, 64% of people in intensive care suffered from severe overweight or obesity. So at least at the epidemiological level, let’s say statistical, a correlation exists.

Considering that many obese people already suffer from apnea episodes and often have shortness of breath, it can be thought that they are more susceptible to the worst consequences of the Coronavirus.
But what Spector says is that at least this condition is modifiable with a healthier lifestyle and a better diet.

Given that we are not sure when this pandemic will end, today more than ever a healthy diet is important.