Long science article makes detailed argument elevated blood glucose is major risk factor for Covid-19
Great study!
It was long but did you see where low-carb or a ketogenic diet is recommended to increase your chance of survival?
I will post some excerpts after dinner from my laptop. Too difficult from a phone to select, copy and paste - easy with a mouse.
Yes. They did a good job of providing references and noting other studies and trials exploring keto diets as treatment for the already ill. But then later in the discussion section they mentioned common criticisms of keto such as “keto flu” as if it wasn’t well understood and of minimal concern with simple tactics such as getting sufficient salt.
Yes. The same obsticles keto faces from the medical community. When My T1D stepson was diagnosed I elimated ALL sugar and carbs from my house. He lived in a house of cakes, cookies, bread always available. Not in my house! But that was just the weekends. Didn’t stand a chance. Ended up on an insulin pump and very overweight. .
Lowering Carbohydrates in Diet
The strong link between COVID-19 severity and diabetes and obesity has led to consideration of nutritional interventions in the treatment of the disease (387), as for example the use of low-carbohydrate diets or ketogenic diet (low-carb, high fat diet) The basic principle is to diminish the intake of carbohydrates, providing fat instead of carbohydrates for the body to switch on ketosis and produce ketones as the primary energy source (388, 389). Indeed, there is growing evidence of therapeutic benefits of a ketogenic diet for severe pathologies (390) such as cancer (391, 392), diabetes (393, 394), and pharmaco-resistant epilepsy (395, 396), and for the prevention of Alzheimer disease (397, 398) and other neurodegenerative disorders (399). It is also the first line therapy for the management of the Glut1DS (Glut1 deficiency syndrome) rare disease (400) and there is evidence that a ketogenic diet decreases comorbidities linked to hyperglycemia (401, 402). Since viruses are high glucose consumers, just like cancers (141, 403, 404), diminishing the indispensable primary source of energy for the virus may be an effective intervention. Importantly, it was recently shown to be a safe intervention for patients even in ICU (405, 406).
One study recently showed that the ketogenic diet (KD) activates protective gamma delta T (γδT) cell responses against influenza virus infection (407). These γδT cells are IL-17-producing T cells that play an important antiviral protection in the lung (see Figure 13), maintaining epithelial integrity, regulating homeostasis and providing a first line of defense against pathogens and injury (408). Importantly, γδT cells were shown to be reduced in COVID-19 patients (409). Goldberg et al. showed a significant increase in the frequency and absolute number of γδT cells in the lungs of KD-fed mice; this increase was required for the KD-mediated protection against influenza disease, resulting in lower viral titers and overall better preservation of airway tissue integrity. Interestingly, in 2010, Taylor et al. (408) reported that γδT cells were reduced and impaired by hyperglycemia in a mouse model of obesity. In a similar way, KD could also have the potential to help the immune defense against pulmonary viral infection, but this has to be confirmed for SARS-CoV infection.
Supporting this hypothesis, a clinical trial on KD for intubated critical care COVID-19 was initiated (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04358835). The aim of the study was to measure the benefit of KD on gas exchange, inflammation, and duration of mechanical ventilation in intubated patients with COVID-19 infection (on 15 patients at start). Additionally, two recent reports advised on the use of a carbohydrate-restricted diet for the management of the disease (410, 411) and a randomized controlled trial on KD has been developed [see (410)]. Cooper et al. (411), claim that the ketogenic diet would be more beneficial than insulin therapy because large fluctuations in blood glucose concentrations are primarily driven by dietary sources, and it would also avoid the adverse effects of hyperinsulinemia. Lowering carbohydrate consumption could therefore manage both hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia and may additionally help manage hypertension (412).
In the discussion I was shocked to see, “It is contra-indicated for some groups such as those with type 1 DM.” There are books such as Dr. Bernstein’s which clearly discuss how and why T1Ds should embrace keto. It boggles my mind when people write authoritatively in science papers about things of which they are clueless and thoughtlessly repeat some bit of misinfo. Kind of taints the credibility of the entire article for me even when much of it makes so much sense.
At one point our family internist shared with us that he is a Type 1 diabetic. When we told him we’d “gone keto” a couple of years ago, he gave us copies of his favorite keto recipes - a sampling of how he managed his diabetes all these years. He didn’t seem to think it was contra-indicated. 
I saw that also but it didn’t affect my opinion about the rest of his research. Obviously dietary affects on health is not his area of expertise 
The thoroughness of how he explored the link between blood glucose and COVID-19 was impressive. He went into the microbiology of how the virus replicates and how much it depends on glucose. Also how excessive glucose weakens the defense mechanisms in your lungs. Then he presented the correlation data (with the caveat it doesn’t prove causation) that aligned with his research information - which to me was a bit shocking. 50% of all hospital deaths the patients have diabetes? 20% of all deaths they have diabetes? This is a BIG.DEAL. Those aren’t small numbers!
My gut feeling is most researchers shy away from linking anything negative to developing diabetes from consuming excessive amounts of sugar over a long period of time due to the influence of Big Food. I believe this research group is based in Switzerland so maybe not as affected.
Besides covering how the virus replicates in the lungs and how your body fights it off, he compared the behavior of the COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) virus to the SARS-COV-1 outbreak in 2003 and also the flu and how different COVID-19 virus behaves.
And he went into other ways people die from the virus and how glucose affects that - whole body organ failure and blood clots.
All I can say is it really made me grateful I found keto a few years ago!
It is possibly connected with the fact that Crédit Suisse and Swiss Re have both been promoting the ketogenic diet as the result of their concerns about how declining life expectancy (resulting from diabetes and other chronic diseases) is affecting investments and the life insurance industry.
That’s what the article is all about. Explaining HOW a virus - and particularly spike proteins - take advantage of glucose in the bloodstream.
And those with higher levels of glucose encourage replication at a much faster rate.
Grandma wasn’t so dumb when she said “feed a cold, starve a fever” !
The article pointed out the misconception that bodies need energy to heal and pump people in ICU and on ventilators full of glucose or don’t give insulin to lower blood glucose. This is exactly OPPOSITE of what they should be doing to treat COVID-19 or the flu.
I’m not clear whether you are asking if glucose fuels viruses or asking whether glucose helps fight a viral infection. In either case, though, I would guess it depends on the virus
Early on in the current pandemic, researchers were saying that it appeared that higher glucose levels might help fight Covid, but this article now suggests the opposite. We do know in general that excessive glucose and insulin levels interfere with the immune system, so one researcher suggested possibly eating keto to strengthen the immune system and perhaps fend off the virus, but then switching to a higher carb intake as a treatment while infected. That was just his reaction to the preliminary data, however. We’ve learned a lot more since, and I don’t know what his current thinking is.
After reading that study I will definitely fast or eat 0 carb the next time I have a fever.
I believe the article has much to offer which is why I posted the link. But it only takes a couple examples of what I strongly suspect to be careless inaccuracies to wonder how many more I am missing due to my lack of knowledge or confirmation bias.