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Remove the food to those invisible realities that can trigger the body’s improper reactions after infection with the sars-CoV-2 virus and therefore reduce the risks in case of serious illness. This is the strategy studied at the Policlinico San Martino in Genoa to reduce, through a special diet, the risks that the so-called “Cytokine storm” which tends to worsen the situation through widespread inflammation, which involves several organs.
The study that suggests this possible effect of nutrition was published in Nutrition and was conducted by Samir Giuseppe Sukkar and Matteo Bassetti, respectively directors of Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition and of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino Polyclinic Hospital.
According to the publication, the administration of a diet low in carbohydrates and high lipid content in patients with Covid-19 could contribute to the reduction of mortality, the use of artificial ventilation and the need for hospitalization in intensive care.
Reduce the stimulus to cytokine production
The ketogenic diet involves a significant restriction of carbohydrate intake. This would result in a lower availability of nutrient for the M1 macrophages, with consequent control and limitation of the production of cytokines, capable of triggering, if produced in excessive quantities, the so-called ‘cytokine storm’.
The study, conducted between February and July 2020 on 102 positive Covid patients afferent to the Polyclinic, compared 34 people who had followed a normocaloric, normoproteic ketogenic diet with 68 subjects who had followed, in the same period, a common diet, with results extremely relevant on 30-day survival and the need for transfer to intensive care. In fact, both parameters were lower in patients undergoing ketogenic diet.
In fact, it has been observed up to now that in patients suffering from Covid-19 characterized by a more serious picture, the so-called cytokine storm plays a decisive role an exaggerated immune response implemented by the body to defend itself from the virus. Among the main responsible for the release of cytokines, molecules involved in the inflammation process, there are the M1 macrophages, cells which, when activated, consume exclusively glucose.
“In this study, for the first time, we consider nutrition to be no longer supportive but also therapeutic as it can strongly contribute to block the serious complication of COVID-19 or the cytokine storm, capable of contributing to the improvement of the prognosis of affected patients. from Covid-19 – explains Sukkar. Furthermore, even if the recently published experience will be followed by a multicentre randomized controlled study for further confirmation, I believe that, at present, it is strongly necessary to consider the ketogenic diet especially in positive subjects undergoing treatment at home “.
Nothing do it yourself
Sukkar himself remembers that he must anyway this is a very early intervention, particularly in the first week of illness, because being the ketogenic diet based on the reduction of the activation of inflammatory cells (macrophages), it does not seem to have therapeutic efficacy when the inflammation and the cytokine storm has already exploded. And above all we must not think of “taking care of yourself”.
“The diet should be recommended for obese subjects, highly at risk of complications from Covid-19 but it cannot and must not be a do-it-yourself – recalls the expert. Particular attention must be paid to diabetic, nephropathic and pregnant women as, although it is a normocaloric diet, the reduced presence of sugars could be dangerous for subjects undergoing insulin therapy, hypoglycemic or nephropathic. You should always ask your doctor if there may be any contraindications to its use “.
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