The Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Dietary Food Supplement Usage Habits

Abstract

With COVID-19 pandemic, it is seen that people are in demand for dietary food supplements in order to protect themselves from this virus-related disease. In this study, we aimed to evaluate what extent the COVID-19 pandemic affects people's food supplement usage habits by controlling blood levels of vitamin D, vitamin B12 and zinc. In this retrospective study design, we examined patients test results collected from laboratory information system over a two-year period including one year before and after the date of first COVID-19 infection in Türkiye. There were 197,669 eligible test results for statistical evaluation. Mean vitamin D levels for preCOVID group spring, summer, autumn and winter were 22.3, 25.2, 25.4, and 21.9 ng/mL, respectively. As for the postCOVID group, identical values were 21.3, 22.7, 23.8, and 24.4 ng/mL. For vitamin D levels, there were statistically differences between subgroups (seasons) but no difference between main groups (p>0.05). Mean vitamin B12 levels were 262.6 pg/mL and 264.1 pg/mL (p>0.05), and mean zinc levels were 84.0 µg/dL and 91.1 µg/dL (p<0.001) for preCOVID and postCOVID groups, respectively. In recent years, as integrative medicine has become popular all over the world, interest in dietary food supplements has started to climb. The belief on such food supplements increase protection against viral diseases suggested that the increased usage of these products in the pandemic period. In this study, except zinc there was no statistically difference between pre and postCOVID periods in terms of serum levels. The results showed us the change of supplement usage behavior due to COVID-19 is suspicious.