In a new review, researchers examined emerging evidence suggesting that poor gut health adversely affects COVID-19 prognosis.
While most people associate a COVID-19 illness with high fevers and respiratory problems, autopsies and other studies reveal that the infection can affect other major organs as well as the gastrointestinal tract. When the virus gets involved in the GI tract, a significant number of COVID patients experience diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, which increases the severity of the illness.
"There seems to be a clear connection between the altered gut microbiome and severe COVID-19," said microbiologist Heenam Stanley Kim, from Korea University's Laboratory for Human-Microbial Interactions, in Seoul.
Kim started analyzing the studies after realizing that wealthy countries with a good medical infrastructure, including the United States and nations in Western Europe — who were among the hardest hit by the virus — consume foods very low in fiber, one of the main causes of altered gut microbiomes.
Eating more fiber, Kim said, may lower a person's risk of serious disease. And, fecal microbiota transplantation might be a treatment worth considering for patients with the worst cases of COVID-19. "The whole world is suffering from this COVID-19 pandemic," he said, "but what people do not realize is that the pandemic of damaged gut microbiomes is far more serious now."
SOURCE: Science Daily, January 12, 2021