The hospitalization curve in New York seems to be running down a hill.
Governor Cuomo went over several hospitalization graphs on April 24, most of which indicated that New York is well-past the apex. Besides social distancing, Dr. Nicole Avena, an assistant professor of neuroscience from Mount Sinai and a nutrition expert, said a healthy diet could help bring down that curve even further.
“What we’re trying to do now is reduce the number of people that need to go into the hospital for any reason,” she said in an interview with NTD News. “And we’re finding that diet and body weight status seems to be linked to some of the cases in which people need to be admitted to the hospital and are having complications from the coronavirus.”
The CDC hasn’t drawn any conclusions on how the CCP virus that causes COVID-19 disease affects patients with unhealthy diets.
But one of its studies on patients infected with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, found that about 90 percent of patients admitted in March had underlying health conditions.
Obesity and hypertension being the most common.
“If we’re eating well and maintaining a healthy body weight and doing our best to eat things that are nutritious, it’s going to not only improve our immune response, but it’s also going to potentially decrease the chance that we’ll need to be admitted to the hospital,” said the doctor.
Besides eating healthy, Avena said people should also try to minimize their stress.
“Stress is linked to decreased immunities, so the more highly stressed you are chronically, the more susceptible you are,” said Avena. “It’s actually gonna weaken your immune system leaving you susceptible to getting ill.”
At this point, it’s not clear when the country will fully open up.
But the doctor said it’s better to try not to worry so much about the unknown, and instead focus on the things we do have control over.
