Dataset Information

Inverse Association Between the Mediterranean Diet and COVID-19 Risk in Lebanon: A Case-Control Study.

ABSTRACT: Background: Since 2019, the world is confronting the COVID-19 public health crisis that deeply impacted all aspects of life, from the health sector to economy. Despite the advancement of research targeting pandemic containment measures, more strategies are still needed to alleviate the burden caused by this novel disease. In particular, optimal nutrition was proposed as a possible mitigating factor in the context of COVID-19. Indeed, the light is shed on balanced diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, which present the finest nutritional quality to support the immune system and other physiologic functions. In contrast, less varied diets that lack the needed nutrients and favor inflammation have been correlated with adverse health effects, including a hindered immune response, such as the western diet. Methods: This observational case control study aimed at exploring the possible associations between the different dietary patterns present among a sample of the Lebanese population and the COVID-19 occurrence and outcomes. An online survey collected information about the sociodemographic characteristics, health status, lifestyle, and dietary habits through the Mediterranean diet questionnaire and a semi-quantitative fod frequency questionnaire, and the COVID-19 infection and its burden. The sample consisted of 399 respondents divided into the case and control groups (37.6 and 62.4%, respectively) on the basis of the presence or absence of a COVID-19 infection history. Results: The participants in the case and control groups had average adherence to the Mediterranean diet and their dietary intake was closer to the western diet. However, the cases had a lower mean of the MedDiet score (p = 0.009). Food groups consumption analysis showed that this significant difference within the overall similar dietary patterns was due to a higher consumption of poultry and a trend toward decreased consumption of olive oil and increased read meat and alcohol intake among the cases. Additionally, gender influenced the levels of different foods' consumption. Nonetheless, the dietary intake did not impact the COVID-19 burden. Conclusion: It is recommended to adopt healthy food choices within the different dietary patterns for a better protection against COVID-19. These findings should be validated in larger-scale studies.

SUBMITTER: El Khoury CN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8363114 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Background COVID-19 epidemic has paralleled with the so called infodemic, where countless pieces of information have been disseminated on putative risk factors for COVID-19. Among those, emerged the notion that people suffering from autoimmune diseases (AIDs) have a higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods The cohort included all COVID-19 cases residents in the Agency for Health Protection (AHP) of Milan that, from the beginning of the outbreak, developed a web-based platform that traced positive and negative cases as well as related contacts. AIDs subjects were defined ad having one the following autoimmune disease: rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, Sjogren disease, ankylosing spondylitis, myasthenia gravis, Hashimoto’s disease, acquired autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and psoriatic arthritis. To investigate whether AID subjects are at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and whether they have worse prognosis than AIDs-free subjects once infected, we performed a combined analysis of a test-negative design case–control study, a case–control with test-positive as cases, and one with test-negative as cases (CC-NEG). Results During the outbreak, the Milan AHP endured, up to April 27th 2020, 20,364 test-positive and 34,697 test-negative subjects. We found no association between AIDs and being positive to COVID-19, but a statistically significant association between AIDs and being negative to COVID-19 in the CC-NEG. If, as likely, test-negative subjects underwent testing because of respiratory infection symptoms, these results imply that autoimmune diseases may be a risk factor for respiratory infections in general (including COVID-19), but they are not a specific risk factor for COVID-19. Furthermore, when infected by SARS-CoV-2, AIDs subjects did not have a worse prognosis compared to non-AIDs subjects. Results highlighted a potential unbalance in the testing campaign, which may be correlated to the characteristics of the tested person, leading specific frail population to be particularly tested. Conclusions Lack of availability of sound scientific knowledge inevitably lead unreliable news to spread over the population, preventing people to disentangle them form reliable information. Even if additional studies are needed to replicate and strengthen our results, these findings represent initial evidence to derive recommendations based on actual data for subjects with autoimmune diseases.

Project description:BACKGROUND: Although there are solid findings regarding the detrimental effect of alcohol consumption, the existing evidence on the effect of other dietary factors on breast cancer (BC) risk is inconclusive. This study aimed to evaluate the association between dietary patterns and risk of BC in Spanish women, stratifying by menopausal status and tumour subtype, and to compare the results with those of Alternate Healthy Index (AHEI) and Alternate Mediterranean Diet Score (aMED). METHODS: We recruited 1017 incident BC cases and 1017 matched healthy controls of similar age (±5 years) without a history of BC. The association between 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' developed dietary patterns and BC in general and according to menopausal status and intrinsic tumour subtypes (ER+/PR+ and HER2-; HER2+; and ER-/PR- and HER2-) was evaluated using logistic and multinomial regression models. RESULTS: Adherence to the Western dietary pattern was related to higher risk of BC (OR for the top vs the bottom quartile 1.46 (95% CI 1.06-2.01)), especially in premenopausal women (OR=1.75; 95% CI 1.14-2.67). In contrast, the Mediterranean pattern was related to a lower risk (OR for the top quartile vs the bottom quartile 0.56 (95% CI 0.40-0.79)). Although the deleterious effect of the Western pattern was similarly observed in all tumour subtypes, the protective effect of our Mediterranean pattern was stronger for triple-negative tumours (OR=0.32; 95% CI 0.15-0.66 and Pheterogeneity=0.04). No association was found between adherence to the Prudent pattern and BC risk. The associations between 'a priori' indices and BC risk were less marked (OR for the top vs the bottom quartile of AHEI=0.69; 95% CI 0.51-0.94 and aMED=0.74; 95% CI 0.46-1.18)). CONCLUSIONS: Our results confirm the harmful effect of a Western diet on BC risk, and add new evidence on the benefits of a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, oily fish and vegetable oils for preventing all BC subtypes, and particularly triple-negative tumours.

Dataset Information

Inverse Association Between the Mediterranean Diet and COVID-19 Risk in Lebanon: A Case-Control Study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets