Curcumin in turmeric may have blocked pathways and mechanisms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and severity of Covid-19 and reduced mortality, the researchers said.
Release Date – 06:00 AM, Thu – 20 April 23
New Delhi: According to a study published in the April edition of the Indian Journal of Medical Research, India’s diet rich in iron, zinc and fiber, regular tea consumption and dietary use of turmeric reduced the severity and death rate due to Covid-19 in the country. Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the death rate in densely populated India has been reported to be 5-8 times lower than in less populated western countries.
The study, conducted by an international team of scientists from India, Brazil, Jordan, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia, aimed to investigate whether dietary habits were associated with differences in Covid-19 severity and mortality between Western and Indian populations.
“Our findings suggest that Indian food components suppress cytokine storm and various other severity-related pathways of Covid-19, and may play a role in reducing the severity and mortality of Covid-19 in India compared with Western populations make a difference,” said the researchers, including those from the Center for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology at the West Bengal Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology and the Center for Biomedical Research Policy at the Institute of Translational Health Science and Technology, Haryana.
“However, large multicenter case-control studies are needed to support our current findings,” they added.
The findings suggest that maintaining high blood iron and zinc concentrations and a fiber-rich composition of the Indian diet play a role in preventing carbon dioxide (CO2) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-mediated severity of Covid-19.
LPS is a common inflammatory mediator that induces inflammatory processes in the brain.
In addition, regular tea consumption by Indians helps maintain high HDL (high-density lipoprotein), also known as “good” cholesterol. The catechins in tea also act as natural atorvastatin (a type of statin used to prevent cardiovascular disease) to lower blood triglycerides.
Importantly, Indians regularly consume turmeric in their daily diet to boost immunity, they said.
Curcumin in turmeric may have blocked pathways and mechanisms associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection and severity of Covid-19 and reduced mortality, the researchers said.
On the other hand, increased consumption of red meat, dairy products, and processed foods has led to increased severity and deaths from COVID-19 among Western populations.
These foods “activate cytokine storm-related pathways, intussusception angiogenesis, hypercapnia, and elevate blood glucose levels due to high levels of by-products such as sphingolipids, palmitic acid, and carbon dioxide and lipopolysaccharide,” they wrote in the study. .
Palmitic acid — the most common saturated fatty acid in the body — also induces ACE2 expression and increases infection rates, the team says.
Coffee and alcohol, which are consumed in large quantities in Western countries, have also contributed to increased severity and mortality from Covid-19 through deregulation of blood iron, zinc, and triglyceride levels.
In the study, the team used blood transcriptomes from patients with severe Covid-19 in three Western countries (showing high mortality rates) and two datasets from Indian patients.
Gene set enrichment analysis of pathways, metabolites, nutrients, etc. was performed and compared with Western and Indian samples to identify food and nutrient-related factors that may be associated with the severity of Covid-19. A
Daily consumption data of twelve major food components were collected in four countries, and the correlation between nutrigenomic analysis and per capita daily dietary intake was also investigated.
