- Researchers report that the foods in your diet can increase or decrease risks associated with COVID-19.
- They said that foods such as coffee and kale, as well as breast milk, can reduce COVID-19 risks because they keep inflammation in the body in check.
- They add that tea, red meat, and fruit don’t seem to have an impact one way or the other, while processed meats such as hot dogs can raise risk factors.
What do coffee, breast milk, and kale have in common?
They all have the power to modestly reduce your COVID-19 risk factors, according to a new study on how nutrition affects immunity.
Researchers from Northwestern University in Chicago used UK Biobank data to examine the association between dietary behaviors from 2006 to 2010 and COVID-19 cases from March through November 2020 in the same people.
The study included 38,000 participants who had received a COVID-19 test. About 17 percent tested positive for the coronavirus. The specific foods used in the study were shown to affect the immune system in earlier human and animal studies.
Foods that reduced COVID-19 risk by 10 percent were:
- coffee (1 or more cups a day)
- vegetables (2/3 serving, cooked or raw, excluding potatoes)
- breast milk (having been breastfed as an infant)
Foods that had no impact included tea, fruits, and red meat.
Processed meats such as hot dogs and deli meats were associated with higher risk. Even half a serving of processed meat daily can increase COVID-19 risk by 10 percent, the researchers said.
But how?
The study may not be able to determine cause and effect, but experts suggest the link between nutrition and COVID-19 is more about inflammation than any one food ingredient.
Source: healthline