Publication date: Jul 15, 2026
Inflammatory responses and immune dysregulation are considered core mechanisms of Long COVID. Given that diet can modulate systemic inflammation, we evaluated the associations between two indices reflecting dietary inflammatory potential-the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and the Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Pattern (EDIP)-and the risk of Long COVID in a prospective cohort of 69,070 participants from the UK Biobank. The DII and EDIP were calculated and categorized into quartiles based on Dietary information obtained from the Oxford WebQ online system. Outcome information was obtained from hospital admission records (HESIN, ICD-10) linked to the UK Biobank. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Restricted cubic splines were employed to evaluate the nonlinearity. After full adjustment, the highest EDIP quartile (most pro-inflammatory) was associated with increased Long COVID risk (HR = 1. 15, 95% CI: 1. 08-1. 22, p
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| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Diet | |
| Dietary Inflammation Index | |
| Long COVID |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | Long COVID |
| disease | MESH | inflammation |
| disease | MESH | ICD |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Carboxyamidotriazole |
| pathway | REACTOME | Reproduction |
| disease | MESH | included |
| disease | MESH | COVID 19 |
| disease | MESH | infection |
| disease | MESH | severe acute respiratory syndrome |
| disease | MESH | chronic condition |
| disease | MESH | fatigue |
| disease | MESH | cognitive dysfunction |
| disease | MESH | syndrome |
| disease | MESH | cardiovascular disease |
| disease | MESH | cytokine storms |
| disease | MESH | death |
| disease | MESH | underweight |
| disease | MESH | overweight |
| disease | MESH | obesity |