Association of dietary inflammatory index and the SARS-CoV-2 infection incidence, severity and mortality of COVID-19: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
Xuanyu Hao, Shiwen Li, Yanmin Yang, Huixu Dai, Yumeng Yan, Dongyang Li
Nutrition Journal, doi:10.1186/s12937-024-00927-3
Background Several studies have reported the association between dietary inflammatory index (DII) and the SARS-CoV-2 infection risk, severity or mortality of COVID-19, however, the outcomes remain controversial. Objective We sought to examine whether a dose-response association of DII and SARS-CoV-2 infection exists. Design A dose-response meta-analysis was performed to investigate the association of DII and SARS-CoV-2 infection. We conducted a systematic search of PubMed, Embase and Web of Science up to March 15th, 2023. The odds ratios (OR) of DII and COVID-19 risk and severity were computed.
Results Totally, 5 studies were included (1 from UK and 4 from Iran), consisting of 197,929 participants with 12,081 COVID-19 cases. Although there was heterogeneity among studies, the results indicated that higher DII was independently related to higher SARS-CoV-2 infection incidence (OR = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.14, 2.17) and COVID-19 severity (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.07, 1.15) but not COVID-19 mortality (risk ratio = 1.13, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.27). The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection increased by 31% for each 1-point increase in the E-DII (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 1.20, 1.43).
Conclusions This meta-analysis suggests that an elevated DII score is associated with increased SARS-CoV-2 infectious risk and severity of COVID-19. There were not enough studies on COVID-19 mortality. Further large prospective studies in different countries are warranted to validate our results.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi. org/10.1186/s12937-024-00927-3.
Supplementary Material 1
Declarations Ethical approval Not applicable.
Consent to publication Not applicable.
Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests.
Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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