Category: COVID19

Monkeypox has now spread to 90 different countries, with one-third of the cases occurring in the U.S..

The top way that monkeypox spreads is through prolonged skin-to-skin contact, especially when there are lesions, research finds.

Lesions are abnormal areas of skin that have been affected by disease or injury.

In monkeypox these can be rashes, scabs, pimples or bumps on the skin.

The other two main ways that monkeypox is spread is through touching contaminated objects and surfaces and by contact with respiratory secretions such as mucus.

However, simply brushing against someone or shaking their hand might not spread the virus.

Scientists are also not convinced that contaminated surfaces are strong vectors for the transmission of the virus.

Monkeypox has now spread to 90 different countries, with one-third of the cases occurring in the U.S..

Most cases have been among men who have sex with men, especially those who have more casual or anonymous sex.

Dr Michael Marks, co-author of a recent study on monkeypox, said:

“The more we understand about the monkeypox virus and how it spreads, the better we can diagnose and treat patients in order to get this outbreak under control.

One striking finding was that the viral load – the amount of virus present – was more than 1000 times higher in skin lesions than in lesions in the throat.

This, combined with the correlation between sexual contact type and location of lesions, suggests that transmission is most likely to have occurred by direct close contact during sex rather than through respiratory droplets.

This points to an increased risk of disease spread through sexual networks.”

The study examined 181 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Spain.

Skin-to-skin contact, mainly during sexual intercourse, emerged as the main method of transmission, certainly above airborne transmission.

Next researchers want to find out how the viral load changes over time, said Dr Marks:

“We now need to see how the viral load caries over time during the infection.

For example, whether the amount of virus in the throat is highest during early stages of illness, which could indicate how the risk of transmission may vary over the course of infection.”

The study was published in the journal The Lancet (Tarín-Vicente et al., 2022).

A supplement that enhances immunity against COVID-19 and other viral infections.

The human gastrointestinal tract is populated with trillions of tiny living organisms called gut flora or gut microbiota.

The gut microbiota contains a series of good bacteria that are beneficial to the immune system.

There is a delicate balance between beneficial and bad bacteria which is important for immune function and regulation.

Dysbiosis is a condition that refers to an imbalance in the gut microbial community that would make individuals highly vulnerable to infections.

Gut dysbiosis seem to be also common in COVID-19 patients since many beneficial bacteria are missing in their gut, a study has found.

Many probiotics supplements which are designed to improve the immune system have potential drawbacks.

For instance, a large number of probiotics are destroyed by stomach acid, high levels of humidity and temperature, and have short shelf-life.

Besides that, not all probiotics can boost immunity against infections as well as the coronavirus disease.

Professor Francis Chan, the study’s co-author author, said:

“Gut health rules over the immune system of our bodies.

We must identify the composition of intestinal bacteria that helps maintain our defense.

From there on, we can modulate the gut microbiota to boost our immunity against viral and bacterial infections.

This will be a novel approach in the combat of COVID-19.”

The research team identified the missing good bacteria in patients with COVID-19 by comparing a range of microorganisms in their guts with healthy people.

They have then created a probiotic formula addressing gut dysbiosis in order to enhance immune defence against viral infections such as COVID-19.

They expect that this formula will be on the market shortly as a daily supplement to help the body fight off infections.

Professor Paul Kay Sheung Chan, study co-author, said:

“This is the first study in the world to realize that severe gut dysbiosis exists in COVID-19 patients.

Some commensal symbionts, generally good bacteria, were missing while other pathogens were increasing in the patients’ guts.

The condition prevailed even after patients had been discharged.”

The research team have designed a processing method for the probiotic formula to increase the quantity of live bacteria and also improve their stability.

The study was published in Gastroenterology (Zuo et al., 2020).

“Food is our first medicine and the kitchen is our first pharmacy.”

Vitamin B6 has a potential role in preventing cytokine storms in COVID-19 patients, research suggests.

The beneficial effects of vitamin C and D and minerals such as magnesium and zinc on the immune system have attracted attention, but there are hardly any studies on vitamin B6.

Vitamin B6 is an essential nutrient and belongs to the B vitamins which are water-soluble, meaning they are not stored in the body so we consume them from everyday foods and dietary supplements.

Vitamin B6 is found in various foods such as beef, fish, bananas, whole grains, chickpeas, soya beans, sweet potatoes, nuts, and milk.

The new study reveals that vitamin B6 has a potential ability to reduce the risk of cytokine storms by improving immune function and supressing inflammation.

Vitamin B6 protects against long-term health conditions including diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) by decreasing inflammasome activity, carbonyl stress, and oxidative stress.

On the other hand, vitamin B6 deficiency would result in poor immune function, increased risk to viral infection, and higher death rate from CVD.

Dr Thanutchaporn Kumrungsee, the study’s first author, said:

“In addition to washing your hands, food and nutrition are among the first lines of defence against COVID-19 virus infection.

Food is our first medicine and the kitchen is our first pharmacy.

Recently, many scientists have published papers regarding the role of diet and nutrients in the protection against COVID-19.

However, very few scientists are paying attention to the important role of vitamin B6.”

The main harm caused by respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 is related to inflammation and lung injury.

Antioxidant supplementation such as N-acetylcysteine and carnosine has been shown to improve lung injury.

Oral intake of vitamin B6 seems to have similar beneficial effects on lung injury by using its antioxidative and anti-inflammatory power against the COVID-19 virus.

The authors wrote:

“Coronaviruses and influenza are among the viruses that can cause lethal lung injuries and death from acute respiratory distress syndrome worldwide.

Viral infections evoke a cytokine storm, leading to lung capillary endothelial cell inflammation, neutrophil infiltration, and increased oxidative stress.”

Dr Kumrungsee pointed out that a high incidence of cytokine storms and thrombosis are associated with a greater severity of COVID-19 infection.

Cytokine storms or hyper-inflammation happen when the immune system overreacts and attacks healthy cells.

Thrombosis or blood clots seen in COVID-19 patients cause serious damage to organs such as the liver, heart, kidneys, and lungs.

However, vitamin B6 intake is known to have anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombosis effects.

Dr Kumrungsee said:

“Vitamin B6 has a close relationship with the immune system.

Its levels always drop in people under chronic inflammation such as obesity, diabetes and heart diseases.

We can see from the news that obese and diabetic people are at high risk for COVID-19.

Thus, our attempt in this paper is to shed light on the possible involvement of vitamin B6 in decreasing the severity of COVID-19.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition (Kumrungsee et al., 2020).

The protective effect of the diet against COVID appears to be even greater for those living in deprived areas.

Eating healthy plant-based foods will reduce the risk of COVID infection and its severity, a study finds.

The protective effect of a healthy plant-based diet against COVID appears to be even greater for those living in deprived areas.

Dr Jordi Merino, the study’s first author, said:

“Previous reports suggest that poor nutrition is a common feature among groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic, but data on the association between diet and COVID-19 risk and severity are lacking.”

Past research suggested that good nutrition has a direct impact on reducing infectious diseases.

These studies have reported that the replication of common human coronaviruses such as 229E and SARS-CoV-1 were halted when linoleic or arachidonic acid were administrated to patients.

The others found an association between specific dietary supplements and nutrients with reduced risk of COVID infection.

During 2020, the present research followed up 592,571 residents in the UK and the US.

To assess the quality of diet, participants were asked about their dietary habits before the pandemic.

The team used a scoring system that included food categories like vegetables, fruits, oily fish, fat, and sugary products.

The unhealthiest food group scored 1 and the healthiest scored 3 points.

They found that those with a high diet quality were less likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19.

Participants in the highest quartile of the diet score were 9 percent less likely to become ill with coronavirus disease and 41 percent less likely to develop severe illness.

Dr Merino said:

“These findings were consistent across a range of sensitivity analysis accounting for other healthy behaviors, social determinants of health and community virus transmission rates.”

Dr Andrew Chan, study co-author, said:

“Although we cannot emphasize enough the importance of getting vaccinated and wearing a mask in crowded indoor settings, our study suggests that individuals can also potentially reduce their risk of getting COVID-19 or having poor outcomes by paying attention to their diet.”

Moreover, the negative health impact of poor diet was found to be even bigger when accompanied with low-socioeconomic status.

Dr Merino said:

“Our findings are a call to governments and stakeholders to prioritize healthy diets and wellbeing with impactful policies, otherwise we risk losing decades of economic progress and a substantial increase in health disparities.”

The study was published in the journal GUT (Merino et al., 2021).

These nutritional supplements may reduce risk of testing positive for COVID-19.

According to a large study, women taking omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, multivitamins or vitamin D supplements are less likely to test positive for COVID.

The protective effects from these nutrients were modest but significant.

On the other hand, the study found that taking vitamin C, zinc, or garlic supplements had no beneficial effect on reducing infection risk.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, many celebrity doctors, via social media, have encouraged taking specific dietary supplements to prevent and treat coronavirus.

In the UK, shares in food supplements rose by 19.5 percent before the first national lockdown, with a 93 percent increase in sales of multivitamins and a 110 percent increase in sales of vitamin C.

In the USA, the sales of zinc supplements increased by 415 percent when COVID fears were at their height.

Nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc are important for supporting the immune system but whether any particular supplement can reduce the risk of being infected by coronavirus is not evident.

Consequently, this study tracked 445 850 individuals for 3 months to find out whether taking dietary supplements would reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19.

The UK results showed that regular supplementation of vitamin D lowered the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by 9 percent,omega-3 fatty acids by 12 percent, multivitamins by 13 percent, and probiotics by 14 percent.

Taking supplements regularly was defined as a minimum of 3 times a week for at least 3 months.

Women of different ages and weights were the ones who benefited from taking these supplements but not men.

The protective effect for the participants in the US and Sweden was even higher.

Americans who were taking multivitamins had a reduced risk of COVID infection of 12 percent, probiotics 18 percent, omega-3 fatty acids 21 percent, and for vitamin D, 24 percent.

Swedes who were taking multivitamins had a reduced risk of COVID infection of 22 percent, probiotics 37 percent, omega-3 fatty acids 16 percent, and for vitamin D 19 percent.

The differences in the figures might be related to the fact that this study relied on self-reported information and self-reported dietary supplement usage.

Professor Sumantra Ray, Executive Director of the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health, commented:

“We know that a range of micronutrients, including vitamin D, are essential for a healthy functioning immune system.

This, in turn, is key to prevention of, and recovery from, infections.

But to date, there is little convincing evidence that taking nutritional supplements has any therapeutic value beyond maintaining the body’s normal immune response.”

He added:

“What’s more, this study wasn’t primarily designed to answer questions about the role of nutritional supplements in COVID-19.

This is still an emerging area of research that warrants further rigorous study before firm conclusions can be drawn about whether specific nutritional supplements might lessen the risk of COVID-19 infection.”

The study was published in the BMJ Nutrition (Louca et al., 2021).

A diet that can assist people in fending off COVID-19 and lowers the risk of severe illness.

A whole food, plant-based diet is not only a heart-healthy diet but also reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection, a study reveals.

Not all plant-based diets are healthy, as a whole food, plant-based product means an unprocessed or at least minimally processed food.

Dietary studies often describe plant-based diets as low or no meat and high in fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, olive oil, tea and coffee.

While all the focus is on the pandemic, we forget that the first killer is heart disease and actually people with a heart condition are more likely to develop a severe COVID infection.

Last year the coronavirus killed more than 400,000 Americans, but at the same time about 655,000 Americans died from cardiovascular disease, taking someone’s life every 37 seconds.

Individuals with obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure tend to develop heart disease and those with these conditions (or risk factors) are extremely vulnerable to COVID.

Dr Kim Williams, the study’s co-author, said:

“It’s particularly tough because both heart disease and COVID-19 have the same risk factors for having a bad outcome—it’s a perfect storm.

If you want to avoid a bad outcome from cardiovascular causes, or even COVID-19, this is the time to change your diet.”

According to the study, a whole-food, plant-based diet can reduce cardiovascular disease risk as well as COVID risk.

People can see the benefit from this type of diet within a short period of time as it is able to reduce the risk factors related to heart disease and improve markers of immune function.

Dr Williams said:

“Your level of heart inflammation goes down when you eat a whole-food, plant-based diet, and it helps to build your immune system.”

Our planet contains more than 20,000 edible types of vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans, but if they are full or partially processed then they lose their nutrients and are not as healthy.

Dr Williams said:

“If it’s a plant, go ahead and eat it, but be careful if it is made in a factory.

There is such a thing as an unhealthy vegan diet.

For example, eating refined grains, fried potatoes and sugar-sweetened beverages may indeed be vegan, but they are actually worse than eating an animal product.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention (Petersen et al., 2021).

How long Omicron symptoms will last is suggested by the latest data from current cases.

Omicron has now become the dominant COVID variant in many countries around the world.

At the moment the main concern is that new coronavirus variants may cause serious illness.

The data on the latest Omicron variants suggests that it is somewhat different with other COVID variants.

Omicron shares many similar symptoms with a common cold such as fatigue, runny nose, sneezing, headache, and sore throat.

The data collected on Omicron by the ZOE COVID Symptom study indicates that the virus is less severe than the other COVID-19 variants.

So far Omicron symptoms have also been generally milder than those associated with the previously dominant Delta variant.

The data on the duration of Omicron infection also suggests that the recovery time is quicker and the illness is getting shorter — perhaps as little as a few days.

Professor Tim Spector who specialises in genetic epidemiology and the lead scientist of the ZOE COVID study, said:

“Broadly what we’re seeing now is the majority of people testing PCR positive actually have cold-like symptoms and they do not have the classical triad of ill Covid symptoms of fever, loss of smell and taste and persistent cough.”

Omicron symptoms

The Omicron variant is not so strongly linked to some signs that are frequently connected to COVID.

For example, a loss of the sense of smell does not seem to be linked to Omicron.

Infection with the Omicron variant can be difficult to diagnose without testing because the symptoms vary between people.

It will depend on the person’s age, their vaccination status and other biological factors specific to them.

Some people may experience a very heavy cold, others lighter symptoms and others no symptoms at all.

However, both prior coronavirus infection and vaccination can neutralize the Omicron variant and reduce the risk of serious symptoms and hospitalisation.

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These vitamins could reduce respiratory conditions and COVID-19 infections.

Vitamin A, D, and E could help people ward off respiratory illnesses and viral infections like COVID-19.

The effect of nutrition on improving the immune system due to the human body’s complexity is not wholly clear.

However, we know for sure that some nutrients play a key part in the reduction of different infections and diseases.

Past studies show that vitamin C is effective in treating or preventing pneumonia as well as supporting white blood cells to overcome viral infections such as flu and the common cold.

Data from an eight-year survey on 6,115 UK adult patients has now found that vitamin A, D and E intake were linked to a reduction in respiratory complaints, in particular viral infections.

However, this study didn’t find any effect from vitamin C supplements or food intake on respiratory diseases.

Vitamin A and vitamin E from supplements and food intake, vitamin D supplements (but not from the diet) showed significant reductions in respiratory conditions such as colds and lung diseases including asthma.

Food such as cheese, full-fat milk, liver, dark green leafy vegetables, and carrots are high in vitamin A while wheat germ oil, nuts and seeds, avocado, and olive oil are sources of vitamin E.

Dr Suzana Almoosawi and Dr Luigi Palla, the authors of this study, wrote:

“It is estimated that around a fifth of the general population in the UK have low vitamin D, and over 30% of older adults aged 65 years and above do not achieve the recommended nutrient intake.

Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that supplementation is critical to ensuring adequate vitamin D status is maintained and potentially indicate that intake of vitamin D from diet alone cannot help maintain adequate vitamin D status.”

Professor Sumantra Ray from NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health, said:

“Nationally representative data continue to remind us that micronutrient deficiencies are far from a thing of the past, even in higher income nations like the UK, and this trend is mirrored by comparable global data sources from lesser resourced countries to those with advanced health systems.

Despite this, micronutrient deficiencies are often overlooked as a key contributor to the burden of malnutrition and poor health, presenting an additional layer of challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The study was published in the journal BMJ Nutrition Prevention & Health (Almoosawi & Palla., 2020).

Researchers tracked nearly 17,000 patients admitted to UK hospitals for coronavirus treatment.

Obese people have the lowest chance of surviving a COVID-19 infection, a study has found.

Also being a man will enlarge the odds of becoming seriously ill from the infection.

The ratio of hospital admissions between men and women is 60.2 percent for male to 39.8 percent for female.

Meanwhile, dementia and heart disease were found to be the other underlying health conditions among currently infected patients.

Researchers tracked nearly 17,000 patients admitted to UK hospitals for coronavirus treatment.

Dementia patients were more likely to die from the virus showing a 39 percent higher risk.

Obese patients were at 37 percent higher risk and in those with heart disease the death risk increased by 31 percent.

One reason that obese patients suffer severely and die from the infection is due to poor lung function and perhaps higher inflammation in the fatty tissues surrounding the internal organs.

Possibly this leads to cytokine storm syndromes (CSS), an overreaction of the immune system which can be deadly, as seen in COVID-19 patients.

Professor Calum Semple, study co-author, said:

“Despite the best supportive care that we can provide, the crude case fatality rate for people who are admitted to hospital with severe Covid-19 is 35% to 40% which is similar to that for people admitted to hospital with Ebola.”

Professor Semple added:

“One in three people admitted to hospital with of COVID-19 in the UK have contributed to this vital research.

The contribution of UK patients in such tragic circumstances been critical to improving the global understanding of this terrible disease.

We must do everything humanly possible to understand this disease, so that we are better prepared for the next wave of this pandemic.”

The study was published in Medrxiv (Docherty et al., 2020).