Dr. Mariela Glandt
“We have two epidemics: obesity and COVID-19,” said Dr. Mariela Glandt, a Harvard University and Columbia University-trained endocrinologist.
According to experts, nutrition is the biggest coronavirus risk factor that not enough people are talking about.
“We have two epidemics: obesity and COVID-19,” said Dr. Mariela Glandt, a Harvard University and Columbia University trained endocrinologist and nutritionist who now lives in Israel and runs a clinic for diabetics in Ramat Aviv.
She said, “As long as the pandemic is still going on, anyone who cares about their health should do everything they can to improve the risk factors that they control” – among them diet.
While eating right cannot prevent contracting coronavirus, optimal metabolic health can help prevent the negative impact of infection, several studies have shown. That’s because “good nutrition and maintenance of a healthy body weight is essential for adequate immune function, supporting resistance to infectious disease and reducing adverse outcomes in the event of illness,” according to Prof. Mona Boaz of the Department of Nutrition Sciences in the School of Health Sciences at Ariel University.
“A poor diet, like the modern American diet, with its junk food, ultra-processed starches and cheap fats, causes metabolic dysfunction that can be a disaster when it’s combined with the coronavirus,” Glandt wrote in an eBook titled How to Eat in the Time of COVID-19
Severe COVID-19 – hospitalization, treatment in an intensive care unit, mechanical ventilation and even death – has been associated with higher body mass index, and elevated blood sugar levels the Centers for Disease Control has said.
To help lose weight and reduce blood sugar levels, Glandt advocates for the ketogenic diet, which includes avoiding all seed oils, such as canola, soybean, sunflower and corn; avoiding all sugars; and keeping complex carbohydrates to a minimum.
Boaz, on the other hand, has said that a modified Mediterranean diet to achieve the right balance, which includes fish, nuts, hummus, tahini and refried beans, is high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and olive oils and low in processed foods.
“This particular pandemic highlighted the impact that obesity can have on the immune system,” Boaz said.
Read the original article here at JPOST
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