A new preprint article, published in medRxiv analyzed how a diet that includes healthy plant-based foods affects the risk and severity of COVID-19. The authors point out that poor metabolic health and certain lifestyle factors are associated with risk and severity of COVID-19, but not many studies examine diet due to lack of data.
The study included 592,571 individuals from the smartphone-based COVID Symptom Study and diet quality was assessed using a healthful plant-based diet score. This score emphasizes consuming plant-based foods, a category that nuts and dried fruits would fit into. The researchers concluded that participants who had a dietary pattern including healthy plant-based foods were associated with lower risk and severity of COVID-19.
Merino, J., Joshi, A. D., Nguyen, L., Leeming, E., Drew, D. A., Gibson, R., … & Chan, A. T. (2021). Diet quality and risk and severity of COVID-19: a prospective cohort study. medRxiv.