COVID-19: diet best weapon for protection, survival?
Photo: Adam Nieścioruk, Unsplash
Revised*
By Marika Sboros
You could wait around hoping for a vaccine to fight COVID-19 or you could use a weapon already here, close at hand, in your kitchen.
It is diet – but not just any diet. It is a low-carbohydrate diet.
Compelling research shows that low-carb diets treat and prevent the serious underlying conditions that significantly up your risk of dying from the virus. (*Editor’s note: It has been pointed out that it is more accurate to say that the evidence suggests improved outcomes from rather than prevention of infection. Noted.) Chief among these: obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD), in particular, hypertension (high blood pressure), heart attack and stroke that fall under the medical umbrella of metabolic syndrome.
Doctors call them “diseases of lifestyle”. They define lifestyle disease as a “medical condition or disorder resulting from lifestyle habits”. Diet is a major habit contributing to lifestyle disease.
Globally, expert voices for low-carb diets for protection (from the worst effects of the virus) have grown louder since the pandemic began. So loud, you could be forgiven for thinking that it’s a no-brainer by now. You would be wrong. The claim remains extraordinarily controversial.
The latest authoritative voice raised in support of low-carb is Australian researcher Dr Maryanne Demasi in an editorial in the BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.
