Does Keto diet help with Coronavirus?

Give a ketogenic diet and help with a coronavirus.

I'm Dr. Abhinandan, the dietician and Researcher back here to give you updates on Coronavirus. In this crazy, unprecedented time when the whole world is really trying to find some sliver of hope of how to prevent or treat a novel infection a lot of attention has turned to nutrition. I recently wrote a post that we covered here at www.abhiguru.com and post on diet. We focus on shreds of evidence, say about boosting your immune system, and part of that I address nutrition. I've been getting more questions specifically about what does a ketogenic diet do in? Is there something beneficial about it to either prevent infection with the coronavirus or prevent complications?

WHAT IS KETOGENIC DIET?

In order to explain how the ketogenic diet works, I must first explain the basic workings of the body's metabolism. Your body has two opposing biochemical pathways promoted by the peptide hormones insulin and glucagon. Think of them as the yin and yang of your metabolism, where the goal is to balance your blood glucose levels to maintain the availability of energy for your body's cells. Insulins' job is to lower blood sugar levels. It does this by promoting the uptake of glucose into cells. Once glucose is absorbed into cells, it can undergo glycogenesis or lipogenesis. Glycogenesis is the process by which glucose absorbed by the cells is converted to the polysaccharide glycogen and lipogenesis is the process by which glucose is converted to triglycerides. In other words, fat glycogenesis occurs in skeletal muscles. Lipogenesis occurs in fat cells and both of these processes occur in the liver. Glucagon's job is the opposite as it raises blood sugar levels by promoting glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. In glucose analysis, glucagon binds receptors in the liver. The liver cells then convert glycogen to glucose and release it into the blood. An average person's glycogen stores can last about 12 to 14 hours or 2 hours, of moderate exercise. This is maintained via the ingestion of about 250 to 400 grams of carbs daily. Glycogen stores run out during prolonged exercise, hence the feeling that you hit a wall and can't keep going it can also be depleted during fasting. Low carb diets or with untreated type 1 diabetes gluconeogenesis is the term for the metabolic pathway in which glucose is generated from non-carb sources like glycerol which are components of fat or from glucose.

FACT

No any study about nutrition in this novel coronavirus outbreak is designed or talked about it. We have no idea. But there are plenty of studies out there that we can try and pull from to talk about it. Well, how does this affect our immune system and how might it affect certain infections. Interestingly, as I was looking into this I found a study back from the 1930s where investigators looked at the ketogenic diet for treating urinary tract infections. So this isn't the first time this question came up they thought it was probably helpful as it turned the urine acidic and made it with the acetone coming out. That's a completely different story, completely different infection, but very interesting this isn't the first time it came up now. What we eat clearly can affect our immune system? There's no question about that so it makes sense that there might be a relationship. Now, one study that's been getting a lot of attention is a recent study in mice. Half of them were inoculated with influence simple diet. Later half of them got a ketogenic version, and those who have the ketogenic version had improved function of a T-cell, which is a sort of an immune cell in their lungs which reduces their manifestation of the infection of influenza. Now, this is an interesting study because it shows the importance of how to measure immune function. The study measured T-cell functioning which is important. It also measured whether or not they actually got the infection, that's what we care about. Because there are a lot of studies that will measure you know a specific immune function, but not actually measure if you get the infection or not or have a complication from the infection. This one did, so that's pretty reassuring, but of course it was in mice, so ketosis and mice may be the different things you ptosis. In humans an immune system and immune function, especially talking about lung function responding to viruses all are very different from mice to humans. Although that does have some encouraging information, it's still a big jump to say it's going to be the same in humans. Now there's also evidence that ketones themselves can inhibit what we call them as inflammatory mediators.  It is felt to bean an inflammatory process in the body and part of the complication. Once you get a coronavirus infection you may get an extreme inflammatory response and that's where the RDS the lung disease can come from a heightened. The inflammatory response was so inhibiting that it could potentially be beneficial. No evidence to say that it clearly is but theoretically connecting the dots.

Evidence

The study, published in Science Immunology, claimed that Keto-diet enhances mucus production in the body and fights the flu-like symptoms. The study says that long term use of Keto diet boost body immune system to fight coronavirus. The mice studies also proven that this diet block the formation of inflammasomes, which is against COVID-19 development inside the body.

Moral of story

Any diet which act as immunity-boosting foods should be included to fight against all viral diseases (particularly rich in vitamin C, zinc) and the ones which keep you healthy and happy.

If stomach happy ……….. you are also happy.