International Journal of Nutrition Sciences
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Jun 2021

The outbreak of COVID-19 and a large number of infected people led to this viral disease of varying severity and hospitalization of patients. During periods of illness and recovery, the body uses its reservoirs and resources to fight the disease. In the post-recovery period, the body may experience nutritional insufficiency and deficiency. Therefore, adequateintake of micronutrients, such as water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins, minerals, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and phytochemicals, as well as the preparation of safe food is of great importance for the recovery of the immune system and strengthening rehabilitation for survived COVID-19 patients. In this work, we aim to review the literature and present a guide for nutritional needs and food hygiene practices for survived COVID-19patients.

The global number of hemodialysis patients has an increasing trend and is still one of the most important protein-energy malnutrition with high morbidity and mortality. Therefore, proper assessment of nutritional status of these patients seems essential. In this review, we compared several methods of nutritional assessment in these patients. It was shown that subjective methods such as subjective global assessment (SGA) were widely used with good validity and accuracy. Malnutrition-inflammation score (MIS) as another common method evaluated the patient’s physical and mental condition based on the level of inflammation. Mini Nutrition Assessment (MNA) as another method assessed the nutritional status of elderly hemodialysis patients, but the interpretation of the results is based on the specific conditions of renal patients. Assessment of body composition by bioelectrical impedance has been one of the most accurate nutritional assessment methods predicting the risk of malnutrition based on the amount of lean tissue loss in the body, but it requires advanced equipment and high financial cost. There are other assessment methods, such as normalized protein catabolic ratio (nPCR) that tries to determine malnutrition based on the amount of dietary protein intake, which is nearly the metabolized protein in the body. Using them alone or in combination with other methods was demonstrated to be beneficial.

Elderly population is growing rapidly in all parts of the world; therefore, the health related outcomes of aging are important to be studied. Frailty is a major health condition associated with aging that increases the risk of adverse outcomes including falls, disability, and mortality. Nutritional inadequacies such as vitamin D deficiency have been implicated as important factor in increasing the risk of this chronic condition. Deficient vitamin D status has been reported to be common in frail older adults, and it was suggested to be one of the risk factors that might cause muscle weakness, decline in functional capabilities and leads to strength loss. Effects of vitamin D deficiency on frailty might happen through multiple dysregulated pathways including DNA synthesis, protein biosynthesis, mitochondrial function, and cell regulation processes. Results of studies on the effects of vitamin D supplementation on frailty are still inconclusive, and there are not sufficient evidences on vitamin D supplementation in frail patients. So this study has investigated vitamin D and frailty in aging adults.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, one of the most changing practices of individuals has been the eating habits. This study evaluated the effects of COVID-19 on nutritional habits of vegetarian, vegan and omnivorous individuals. In a cross-sectional online survey, questions about eating habits, lifestyle behaviours and self-reported anthropometric measurements were assessed using dfferent social media platforms (instagram, twitter, facebook, etc.). A total of 965 people (357 vegetarians, 246 vegans and 362 omnivores) were enrolled. Organic food consumption and food label reading habits of vegan (respectively OR:4.66; 95%CI 1.81-5.9 and OR:4.64; 95%CI 1.13-8.91) and vegaterian (respectively OR:4,66; 95%CI 1.60-7.54 and OR:1.79; 95%CI 1.08-2,97) individuals in the COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased compared to omnivores. While the physical activity duration of individuals in all groups decreased at a high rate, the most significant change was observed in the vegan group. Body weight increased mostly in the omnivorous group. Those in the vegetarian group had the least change in screen time, body weight and sleep time. With the COVID-19 pandemic, orthorexia nervosa (ON) score of vegetarians (-1.0±2.9), vegans (-1.6±3.09) and omnivores (-1.4±3.0) decreased significantly. With the COVID-19 pandemic, physical activity duration and ON score decreased in each group. More than one third of the individuals in each group stated that their body weight increased. Considering the nutritional sensitivity of vegetarian and vegan individuals, it is recommended that the nutritional and physical activity recommendationsgiven during the COVID-19 pandemic to be increased.

Nutritional fulfillment in the first thousand days of life has a big influence on children’s intelligence. The prevalence of stunting toddlers in East Nusa Tenggara was shown to be higher than the number of underweight toddlers and there are still children with a very short nutritional status. A short nutritional0status of 17.9% shows that thenutritional status of children in the first thousand days of life is still not optimal. The goal to find out the determinant factors of the nutritional status of two-year-old infant’s first thousand days0of life in the work area of Oepoi Public Health Center, Kupang City, Indonesia. This quantitative study used a retrospective cohort design. It enrolled data from June to November02017 in0the work area of Oepoi Public Health Center, Kupang City, Indonesia with a sample of 100 twoyear-old infants. The determinant factors related to underweight or severely underweight nutritional status were exclusive breastfeeding, birth weight, and maternal nutritional status/anemia during pregnancy. The determinant factors related to the body height/age nutritional status were exclusive breastfeeding, early complementary feeding, and maternal nutritionalstatus/anemia during pregnancy, maternal nutritional status/chronic energy deficiency during pregnancy, and colostrum administration. The determinant factors related to the wasting or thinness nutritional status were exclusive breastfeeding, maternal nutritional status/anemia during pregnancy, and ante natal care status. This study found that all the independent variables were not the determinant factors related to body mass index/age nutritional status.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the most common causes of mortality worldwide. The purpose of the current study was to determine the prevalence of risk factors related to NCDs among health center personnel who worked in this field. Two hundreds and ten females and 73 males from health center staff in Karaj, Alborz, Iran with the mean age of 40.55±0.48 years were randomly recruited in this cross-sectional study. Socio-demographic, anthropometric, and biochemical variables related to NCDs were collected by an expert. The relationship between risk factors and NCDs was investigated too. The mean body mass index (BMI), and waist and neck circumferences were 26.8±0.25 kg/m2, 88.01±0.65, and 35.58±0.02, respectively. Totally, 65.2% of study population were overweight and obese, and about 40% had abdominal obesity. Approximately, 59.5% were inactive, and 1.8% and 7.3% had high systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. About 15.8% and 29% of them had fasting blood sugar (FBS) and cholesterol above the normal level, respectively. BMI had a positive correlation with age, occupation and blood factors and a negative relationship with physical activity. The prevalence of associated risk factors of NCDs especially the obesity, and physical inactivity was high among Karaj health center staff. Regarding the role of BMI in NCDs, the modification in BMI and an increase in physical activity can be effective to decrease NCDs.

Gluten-free diet (GFD) may influence the nutritional quality and adequacy of celiac disease (CD) patients. The aim of the present study was to evaluate quality of diet and nutrients intake of children and adolescents with CD and compare those with healthy subjects. This cross-sectional study included 50 patients with CD (18 boys and 32 girls; mean age: 11.5 y; range:7-18 y) and 50 healthy children and adolescent matched by age, sex and body mass index (BMI). The subjects’ height, weight, body composition evaluated by bioelectrical impedance analysis were measured and a food frequency questionnaire(FFQ) was administered. Diet quality was assessed using modified healthy eating index (mHEI) and visual analog scale (VAS) was used to evaluate appetite. The weight, height, fat-free mass (FFM) and body fat percentage (BF%) were not different between groups. Intake of energy, macro-nutrients and some micro-nutrients like vitamin A, vitamin D, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B12 and zinc was significantly lower in celiac patients. The scores of mHEI were not different between case and control groups(55.24±8.8 vs. 55.84±8.6; p=0.819). VAS results revealed no difference in sensation of hunger, satiety, fullness and prospective food consumption between the groups; but there was a higher desire to eat in celiac patients. Although intake of macronutrients and a few micronutrients were more than recommended dietary allowance (RDA) in both groups; but diet quality of CD patients is needed to be improved.

Non-governmental organizations’ (NGOs) are one of the financial providers of the health sector and one of the key factors in development of social partnership in the community. In this study, the role of NGOs was evaluated in improvement of the dietary intake of burn patients. In this case-control study, nutritional indices of 30 burn patients who received nutritional support by NGOs were compared with nutritional indices in 30 matched burn patients who were treated before the start of nutritional support by NGOs. Dietary intake for the three-day record was provided. Finally, the amount of macro- and micronutrients intake was analyzed by Nutritionist IV software. Laboratory and clinicaldata were compared between the two groups. Burn percentage in the intervention group was 39±20.27% and in the control group was 28.91±16.40%. The mean age of case group was 40.74±17.02 years and of the control group was 41.60±20.80 years. Charity aid increased calorie intake in the case group (1425.77±432.93 vs. 1038.12±438.40 Kcal, p=0.002). Patients in the case group received a significantly higher amount of protein (60.28±16.32 vs. 45.03±17.16 g, p= 0.002). The changes in blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and creatinine were higher in cases, when compared to the controls: BUN: (2.34±16.67 vs. -6.9±12.55 mg/dL, p=0.03); creatinine (0.1±0.36 vs. -0.21±0.4 mg/dL, p=0.002). NGOs’ support can be effective in improvement of nutritional indices in severely burn patients, especially in developing countries, where hospital and families are not able to supply expensive nutritional supplements.