July 20, 2020
CORONAVIRUS FUELS GREATER FOCUS ON DIET-RELATED DISEASES: After months
of the Covid-19 pandemic with no end in sight, you can expect to hear a lot
more in the coming weeks and months about how poor diet and diet-related
disease has made the U.S. population way more vulnerable to the virus.
Parallel epidemics: The Dietary Guidelines Advisory
Committee, the influential outside panel of experts advising HHS and USDA on
the 2020 iteration of the government’s nutrition advice, highlighted this issue
as the group released its report released last week. In a little-noticed letter last month to Agriculture
Secretary Sonny Perdue and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the committee chair and
vice chair pointed out that the two “parallel epidemics,” one non-communicable
(obesity and other diet-related diseases) and one infectious (Covid-19),
“appear to be synergistic.”
They also noted that isolation and economic disruption “ has led
to significant increases in food insecurity and hunger, further increasing
susceptibility to both infectious and diet-related chronic diseases.”
Getting nutrition policy right: “These
parallel epidemics demonstrate the central role of nutrition and healthy
dietary patterns in susceptibility to both infections and diet-related chronic
diseases and these relationships should be further examined in future dietary
guidelines,” the committee wrote.
More
calls to fund nutrition research: Those trying to convince
Congress to establish a National Institute of Nutrition at NIH are seizing on
the moment to argue the pandemic shows there’s a huge need for more dietary
research. Last week, the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Tufts Friedman School
of Nutrition Science hosted an event with members of Congress on both sides
of the aisle, as well as Scott Hutchins, deputy undersecretary of research,
education and economics at USDA, and others making this point.