Thu, Dec-03-20, 08:10
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
The anti-Covid diet: how zinc, selenium and probiotics could boost your immune response
Key nutrients found in everyday foods could help your body fight back against Covid-19 – and even enhance your response to a vaccine
At the British Nutrition Foundation’s virtual conference last week, leading scientists discussed the critical role of nutrition in the battle against Covid-19. Emerging research on Covid-19 patients, and a wealth of existing studies relating to other viral infections, suggests key nutrients such as selenium, zinc, vitamin D and probiotics may fortify the immune system, limit the severity of coronavirus symptoms and even reduce intensive care admissions and mortality rates.
Although this nutritional data requires further research, the results so far are intriguing. German research suggests patients who survived Covid-19 had higher levels of selenium – a nutrient found in turkey, sardines, eggs, Brazil nuts, liver and kidney – than those who died of the virus.
A Spanish study found that healthy levels of zinc – a mineral found in meat, poultry, cheese, shellfish and seeds – are linked to higher survival rates. Another paper found that 82.2 per cent of hospitalised coronavirus patients were deficient in vitamin D, which we gain through exposure to the sun. And an Italian study found that probiotics reduced the severity of Covid-19 symptoms and cut mortality rates.
“Nutrition is very important, not for ‘resistance’ in protecting you from getting Covid-19 but rather for improving your ‘tolerance’ of it,” explains Prof Mike Gleeson, Emeritus Professor of Exercise Biochemistry at Loughborough University and author of Eat, Move, Sleep, Repeat. “Tolerance means a decreased infection burden when you get infected, so you could get less severe symptoms and recover more quickly. That’s the possible role of nutrition. We're talking about compounds which may optimise immune response or have beneficial anti-inflammatory or antioxidant actions.”
Nothing you eat is going to stop you contracting Covid-19, warns Prof Gleeson: “This virus is so contagious it is going to get past our immunity barriers.” But a strong immune system will inevitably help you to fight it more effectively. “What we're relying on is our immune response when we do get infected. And if you're deficient in micronutrients, it may increase your risk of severe symptoms.”
The general link between a healthy diet and improved resilience to infections is nothing new, but interest in which nutrients may best support this “tolerogenic” effect is growing. Your body’s immune response to any virus requires a delicate balancing act: if your immune response is too low, your body’s defences will be overwhelmed. But if your immune response is too high, the defensive processes involved can cause excessive tissue damage and drive resources away from other vital functions, weakening your body further. Good nutrition can help to optimise this immune response.
“Essentially your immune system gets rid of viruses by seeking out your own cells which have become infected and destroying them,” explains Prof Gleeson. “So there's a real balance needed in your immune response. You want to be able to tolerate the virus, to some degree, in order to dampen your defence a little bit but still control the infection in order to reduce the risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome (when the lungs cannot provide the vital organs with enough oxygen) which can develop if you get too much inflammation in the lungs.”
So how might these key nutrients help your body get it right? Research suggests selenium helps to cleverly refine your immune response. “You get less severe inflammation if you have a good selenium status,” says Prof Gleeson. “There's evidence that you get improved proliferation of your lymphocytes (white blood cells) which help to activate the cell lines that specifically respond to a virus.”
Zinc, meanwhile, helps to prevent viruses from proliferating. “Viruses have a protective coat which surrounds their genetic material and the first thing they do when they get into your cells is un-coat themselves, release their genetic material and take over your own machinery for enzymes to help generate other viruses within that cell,” explains Gleeson. “But zinc helps to inhibit that viral un-coating, as well as the enzyme which allows that genetic material to be reproduced in the cell, to help prevent a virus from proliferating.”
Probiotics may also play an important role because your gut is a key part of your immune system. “About 70 per cent of your immune cells are located in and around the gut,” explains Prof Gleeson. But your gut is also a harbouring site for Covid-19.
“The gut is a nice nutrient soup which bacteria and viruses love to feed on. Research suggests probiotics can modify that gut population of bacteria to give it a healthier profile. Probiotics can also modify immune cells in the gut which can then migrate to other areas, including the lungs – and this may be where you get some protection.”
The link between vitamin D and Covid-19 is not yet confirmed but the vitamin plays a key role in general immunity. “We know from studies on the common cold that with low vitamin D you're more likely to pick up viral infections,” says Gleeson. “Although 10ug is the recommended dose, if you’ve not had sun for months that’s not enough to get you up to the levels you want for optimal immune function, so we suggest at least 1000IU, or 25ug.”
So Vitamin D supplements may be necessary over winter but Prof Gleeson insists we can get most of the other immunity-optimising nutrients from our everyday diet. As well as the foods listed above, nuts, cod and wholegrains also contain selenium (RDA 75μg for men, 60ug for women); beef, dairy and spinach also provide zinc (RDA 9.5mg for men, 7mg for women); and a healthy mix of fruit and veg will contribute to your healthy gut bacteria, which can be topped up with probiotics.
But if this nutritional evidence is not compelling enough, it seems that improving your diet may even help you ahead of the imminent roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines. “We know that with vaccines like the one for the influenza virus, selenium and vitamin D are linked to stronger antibody responses to the vaccination,” explains Prof Gleeson. “So it makes sense to boost up, ready for when we all get the chance to have this vaccine.”
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-...d-boost-immune/ |
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Dame Sally got the title right, but head copy editor at The Times needs to throw away spell-checker!
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