Eating lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean protein is associated with up to a 25 percent reduced risk of getting COVID-19, according to a new study.
A Mediterranean-style diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and lean protein like chicken and fish may help reduce your risk of getting COVID-19, suggests a new analysis published in the journal PloS One.
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Researchers examined data from six studies with more than 55,000 participants who filled out questionnaires to assess how closely they adhered to a Mediterranean-style diet. Five of these studies found people with eating habits aligning most closely with the Mediterranean diet were 5 to 25 percent less likely to report getting a COVID-19 infection than individuals whose diets had the least in common with a Mediterranean diet.
Can a Mediterranean Diet Reduce COVID-19 Symptoms?
Four of the studies looked at the association between a Mediterranean diet and symptomatic COVID-19. Three of these studies found either no connection or one that was too small to rule out the possibility that the link was due to chance.
The fourth study looked at individual COVID-19 symptoms and found a Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduced risk of several of them. This included a 68 percent lower chance of breathing difficulties, a 91 percent lower risk of cough and fever, a 92 percent lower risk of sore throat, and a 94 percent lower chance of chills, nausea, or vomiting.
Three studies also examined the connection between a Mediterranean diet and severe COVID-19 that required hospitalization. While all three pointed toward a benefit by this measure, with a risk reduction between 11 and 78 percent, only one had results that were statistically significant. The difference in risk based on diet in the other two studies was too small to rule out the possibility that the association was due to chance.
The Study Had Some Limitations
One drawback of the new study is that researchers just reported findings from previously published studies; they didn’t do what’s known as a meta-analysis that pools all the data from those earlier studies to calculate how much a Mediterranean diet might reduce COVID-19 risk.
Another limitation is that these earlier studies didn’t objectively assess how people ate, whether they got COVID-19, or how sick they got by referring to medical records or COVID test results. Instead, these studies relied on participants to accurately recall and report on their past eating habits and any COVID infections they experienced.
Mediterranean Diet Emphasizes Anti-Inflammatory Foods
Even so, it makes sense to consider adopting a Mediterranean diet to reduce COVID-19 risk, both because there is evidence for a protective effect and because the diet is considered among the healthiest in general, says the senior study author Andre Marolop Pangihutan Siahaan, MD, PhD, of the department of neurosurgery at University of Sumatera Utara in Medan, Indonesia.
“Adopting a Mediterranean diet to help reduce the COVID risk is not a bad idea,” Dr. Siahaan says. “Besides, the Mediterranean diet is also beneficial for several noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease and stroke.”
In particular, many nutrients in a Mediterranean diet have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting properties, Siahaan notes.
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“Mediterranean-type diets and most importantly plant-based diets hold great promise in terms of preventing not only COVID-19 infections but also hospitalizations due to COVID-19 infections,” says Christos Mantzoros, MD, DSc, PhD, a professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of the human nutrition unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
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