An Italian Survey on Dietary Habits and Changes during the COVID-19 Lockdown.

The World Health Organization has declared the coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern; the outbreak has led to lockdowns in several parts of the world, and sudden changes in people's lifestyles. This study explores the impact of the first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic period on dietary habits, lifestyle changes, and adherence to the Mediterranean diet among the Italian population, through an online questionnaire, conducted from April to May 2020, involving 1519 participants. The 14-point Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener (MEDAS) highlighted a medium Mediterranean diet adherence in 73.5% of responders, which principally included the younger population, aged 18-30 years (p < 0.05). In regards to changes in eating habits, 33.5% of responders declared an influence of the pandemic period on nutritional practice. A decrease in alcohol consumption was reported by 81% of responders, while an increase in frozen food consumption was reported by 81.3% of responders. In addition, 58.8% reported positive weight modification (40.8%, +1-3 kg); physical activity reduction was reported for 70.5% of responders. Our study contributes toward amplifying the investigation on the dietary habits and changes of the Italian population during the COVID-19 lockdown, although the pandemic is ongoing. Similar studies should be performed around the world to understand how the emergency has impacted people's habits.

Polyphenols vs. Coronaviruses: How Far Has Research Moved Forward?

The epidemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2 at the beginning of 2020, led us to a serious change in our lifestyle that for about three months has confined us to our homes, far from our laboratory routine. In this period, the belief that the work of a researcher should never stop has been the driving force in writing the present paper. It aims at reviewing the recent scientific knowledge about in vitro experimental data that focused on the antiviral role of phenols and polyphenols against different species of coronaviruses (CoVs), pointing up the viral targets potentially involved. In the current literature scenario, the papain-like and the 3-chymotrypsin-like proteases seem to be the most deeply investigated and a number of isolated natural (poly)phenols has been screened for their efficacy.

Anthocyanin derivatives as potent inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 main protease: An in-silico perspective of therapeutic targets against COVID-19 pandemic.

A new pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread worldwide and become pandemic with thousands new deaths and infected cases globally. To treat the patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), currently no effective drug or vaccine is available. This necessity motivated us to explore potential lead compounds based natural products targeting main protease (Mpro) enzyme of SARS-CoV-2. The Mpro enzyme plays a key role in mediating viral replication and transcription and thus being considered as an attractive drug target. Herein, comprehensive computational investigations were performed to identify new lead compounds against main protease enzyme. In this study, the candidate anthocyanin-derived compounds from PubChem database were filtered considering antiviral characteristics of anthocyanins. The structure-based pharmacophore modeling was developed based on the co-crystallized structure of the enzyme with its biological active inhibitor. The generated hypotheses were applied for virtual screening-based PHASE Screen Score. Docking based virtual screening work flow was used to generate hit compounds using HTVS, SP and XP based Glide Gscore. The obtained hit compounds were filtered using ADMET pharmacological and physicochemical properties screening. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed to explore the binding affinities of the considered compounds. Our study identified six best anthocyanin-derived natural compounds which could be used as promising lead compounds against main protease SARS-CoV-2 virus.