Food Supplement, Vitamin D3. (Photo By BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
There’s new evidence that getting enough vitamin D provides significant support in protecting hospitalized individuals infected with Covid-19 from adverse outcomes.
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) analyzed data from 235 people who were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19. They found that patients older than 40 years old were 51.5 percent less likely to die from the infection if they had a sufficient level of Vitamin D, which they define as being at least 30 ng/mL.
Dr. Michael F. Holick, lead author of the study, and professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics, and molecular medicine at BUSM, says, “This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce the complications, including the cytokine storm (release to too many proteins into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from Covid-19.”
Patients in the study were followed for the following clinical outcomes including clinical severity of the infection:
· Becoming unconscious
· Having difficulty in breathing resulting in hypoxia and death
· Blood analyzed for inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein
· Blood analyzed for numbers of lymphocytes
· All parameters compared between groups of patients divided by vitamin D deficient and vitamin D sufficient
Dr. Holick published a separate study recently that found having a sufficient level of vitamin D can reduce the risk of catching Covid-19 by 54-percent. He also believes having adequate vitamin D levels helps ward off other viruses causing upper respiratory tract illnesses including influenza.
Holick adds, “Because vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is so widespread in children and adults in the United States and worldwide, especially in winter months, it is prudent for everyone to take a vitamin D supplement to reduce risk of being infected and having complications from Covid-19.”