Communicable diseases
Nutrition and a balanced diet play a central role in the development of the immune system, and its maintenance during illnesses. Nutrition is, therefore, a key player in the prevention of communicable diseases and associated mortalities. In addition to boosting the immune system, nutrition plays a central role in the efficacy of medical treatments, lowering the progression, duration, and severity of a disease, and in the prevention of serious in-hospital complications.
Moreover, infectious diseases such as acute respiratory infections, vomiting, diarrhea, and associated reduced appetite due to illness affect the nutritional status of the patients negatively. At the same time, infectious diseases increase protein and energy requirements to maintain the increased demand of the immune system function. Hence, suboptimal nutritional intake and increased nutritional demand during infectious diseases compromise the immune system function, leading to increased mortality, hospitalization, and morbidity, thus creating a negative synergy between malnutrition and communicable diseases. The effect of malnutrition in infectious disease contributes to 56% of child deaths of which 83% were attributable to mild-to-moderate malnutrition. (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-0690(18)30264-7).
Nutrients in food play a protective role by functioning as coenzymes to enzymes that are critical to the function of the immune system, by keeping skin and tissues intact to protect against infection, stimulating the formation of immune antibodies, helping the function of antimicrobial proteins, and by engaging in wound healing. Through these mechanisms, a nutritious and balanced diet plays a vital role in protection against communicable diseases. In the case of the SARS-Cov-2 infection, the mechanistic role of diet and dietary components in modulating the receptor of the virus, the ACE2 receptor, activity, the immune system, inflammation, and viral replication were all affected by dietary components Zinc (Zn), Vitamin C (Vit C), Vitamin D (Vit D), Vitamin E and Selenium (Se) that affected one or more of the mechanisms: regulation of the ACE2 receptor, virus-host cell fusion, immune system, inflammation, and RNA replication involved in the virulence and adverse outcome of the SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, the synergic antioxidative effect of vitamin E protecting the integrity of cell membranes from damage caused by free radicals, preventing the cell from infectious organisms.
Hence, keeping the human immune system top-notch and inflammation and oxidation levels minimized through optimized nutrition intake is probably the only sustainable approach for the prevention and mitigation of severe health outcomes due to known/unknown or mutated variants and even form other novel infections yet-to-emerge. Investing in malnutrition to control and manage communicable diseases is therefore fundamental to improving health and survival rates an improv per capita production rate and consequently economic development.