Abstract: Clinical Nutrition ESPEN 42 (2021) 280e285 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Clinical Nutrition ESPEN journal homepage: http://www.clinicalnutritionespen.com Original article Are history of dietary intake and food habits of patients with clinical symptoms of COVID 19 different from healthy controls? A caseecontrol study Houra Mohseni a, Shirin Amini b, *, Behnaz Abiri a, Mojtaba Kalantar c, Masoumeh Kaydani c, Barat Barati d, Elham Pirabbasi b, Faezeh Bahrami b a School of Para-medicine Sciences, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran Department of Nutrition, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran Department of Occupational Health, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran d Department of Radiologic Technology, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran b c a r t i c l e i n f o s u m m a r y Article history: Received 23 December 2020 Accepted 18 January 2021 Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that put unprecedented significant strain on clinical services and healthcare systems. The aim of the present research was to assess dietary food groups and also food habits of patients with clinical symptoms of COVID 19 and healthy controls. Methods: This caseecontrol research was carried out on 505 participants (279 subjects with clinical symptoms of COVID-19 and 226 controls), in age 18e65 years. Dietary food group's intake last year was investigated by a food frequency questionnaire. Food habits were asked by a general information questionnaire. The strength of the association between food group's intakes with the odds ratios (ORs) of COVID-19 was assessed using Logistic regression models. Results: After adjusting for physical activity in the logistic regression models, intake of dough and yogurt had a significantly protective role on occurrence of COVID19 (OR ¼ 0.62; 95% confidence interval (CI) ¼ 0.44e0.87; P ¼ 0.006) (OR ¼ 0.74; 95% CI ¼ 0.56e0.98; P ¼ 0.044), respectively. No significant differences were seen in food habits between the two groups in the last year ago. Conclusions: High risk population for COVID19, advised to consume enough amount of yogurt and dough at the time of this pandemic. © 2021 European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Symptoms of COVID 19 Food group's intake Food habits 1. Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), that puts unprecedented significant strain on clinical services and healthcare systems, is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first human cases of COVID-19 were identified in China in late December 2019 [1]. The ongoing pandemic has resulted in more than 17.5 million confirmed cases and 677, 000 deaths worldwide and there have been almost 92, 000 deaths in the Asia Region up to 1 August 2020 [2,3]. Coronaviruses * Corresponding author. Assistant professor of Nutrition, Department of Nutrition, Shoushtar Faculty of Medical Sciences, Shoushtar, Iran E-mail addresses: amini-sh@shoushtarums.ac.ir, aminishirin83@yahoo.com (S. Amini). belong to b-coronaviruses and are transmitted through secretions of infected people such as saliva and respiratory secretions or their respiratory droplets [4,5]. The severity of clinical symptoms in positive COVID-19 patients is varied, ranging from asymptomatic to acute respiratory distress syndrome and multi-organ..