Food ingredients that could reduce the spread of COVID-19



[ad_1]

Covid Food
Some foods, like chocolate, could be modified to help prevent airborne transmission of the coronavirus. Credit: John Loo, CC BY 2.0

Researchers at the University of Central Florida are exploring the possibility that food ingredients help reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Researchers Michael Kinzel and Kareem Ahmed are interested in foods that actively thicken and decrease an individual’s saliva, thereby minimizing the amount of COVID pathogens they can release into the air.

The two researchers published their results this Saturday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

Grecian Delight supports Greece

“This is a new concept in the context of source control,” said Kinzel, who is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCF.

“There are obviously masks, but this is the first research that focuses on what comes out of the oral cavity or the mouth.”

Ahmed, who also works in UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as an associate professor, has been working with Kinzel for some time to determine the impact of masking in classrooms, as well as the characteristics that an individual could have that could allow it to be a super spreader of the virus, and, now, these studies on the role of food ingredients in limiting the transmission of airborne diseases.

“The group has studied droplet formation for years,” says Kinzel.

“When we heard sneezes carrying aerosols over 27 feet at the start of the pandemic, we realized they must be small aerosols, similar to what you see in a mist nozzle. Our thinking has been to focus on modifying these droplets so that they fall to the ground and don’t travel that far.

Research has taken a close look at various aspects of saliva, including its thickness and quantity, and how these qualities affect the distance traveled by droplets and aerosols from sneezing and coughing, two factors critical to the spread by airway.

The team used high-speed cameras to capture sneezes and analyze them frame by frame. They then used image processing software to determine the exact amount of droplets and aerosols.

How Certain Food Ingredients Reduce The Spread Of COVID-19 By Changing Your Saliva

The saliva has been altered with a variety of food ingredients including agar agar, cornstarch, ginger, and xanthan gum.

Researchers noted that ginger reduced the amount of saliva produced by sneezing by more than 80% and worked as well as a mask to reduce the distance traveled by droplets and aerosols.

Xanthan gum increased the thickness of saliva by 5%, while cornstarch increased it by 2000%. Both ingredients reduced the distance the aerosol traveled, but the masks remained more effective at containing the aerosols than the two substances.

The study used a neck warmer and surgical mask to get their results.

The study implies that existing food products could be modified to improve their saliva-changing effects and thus reduce airborne transmission. The researchers suggested that maybe a chocolate bar would work well:

“Much like vitamin gummies, it wouldn’t be a candy, but rather a form to provide the solution,” he says. “Maybe it could be called ‘chocaceutical’. “

[ad_2]

Source link