Association of Healthy Diet with Recovery Time from COVID-19: Results from a Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

Faisal F. Alamri, Aslam Khan, Abdulaziz O. Alshehri, Ahmed Assiri, Shahd I. Khan, Leen A. Aldwihi, Munirah A. Alkathiri, Omar A. Almohammed, Ahmad M. Salamatullah, Amer S. Alali, Waleed Badoghaish, Abdulmajeed A. Alshamrani, Yazed AlRuthia and Faleh Alqahtani
Additional contact information
Faisal F. Alamri: Basic Sciences Department, College of Science and Health Professions, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah 22384, Saudi Arabia
Aslam Khan: Basic Sciences Department, College of Science and Health Professions, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah 22384, Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz O. Alshehri: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Ahmed Assiri: General Directorate of Clinical Excellence, Ministry of Health, Riyadh 11176, Saudi Arabia
Shahd I. Khan: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Leen A. Aldwihi: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Munirah A. Alkathiri: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Omar A. Almohammed: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Ahmad M. Salamatullah: Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Food and Agricultural, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Amer S. Alali: Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia
Waleed Badoghaish: Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 71491, Saudi Arabia
Abdulmajeed A. Alshamrani: Clinical Nutrition Department, Eradah Hospital and Mental Health, Ministry of Health, Alkharj 16259, Saudi Arabia
Yazed AlRuthia: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Faleh Alqahtani: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 16, 1-12

Abstract: The world is still in need of an effective therapy to treat coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). This cross-sectional study was conducted on COVID-19 survivors in Saudi Arabia to investigate the influence of a healthy diet on the recovery time from COVID-19. A questionnaire was developed to assess participants’ dietary habits, based on the 2015 Dutch food-based dietary guidelines. A total of 738 COVID-19 survivors participated in the study, of whom 237 (32.1%) were hospitalized for COVID-19 treatment while 501 (76.9%) were not hospitalized, and 320 (43.4%) were females and 418 (56.6%) were males. Overall, no significant difference was noted in healthy diet score between males and females; however, this score was significantly lower for Saudis compared to non-Saudis. Among the non-hospitalized patients, eating a more healthy diet was associated with a shorter duration of recovery ( p < 0.05) and was significantly affected by gender (15.8 ± 9.3 male vs. 12.1 ± 8.9 female; p < 0.001) and marital status (12.1 ± 8.4 singles vs. 13.7 ± 9.3 married vs. 16.1 ± 11.8 divorced; p < 0.05). In contrast, no significant correlation was found with age or BMI. In this study, a more healthy diet was associated with a shorter duration of recovery from COVID-19. However, further studies are needed to thoroughly investigate the relationship between diet and recovery time from COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; healthy diet; recovery time; dietary habits; hospitalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8248/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8248/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:16:p:8248-:d:608008

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().