Recent scientific papers have highlighted the role vitamin D may be playing in the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in severe cases. Considering researchers have also shown that SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly inactivated by sunlight,1 areas that are banning people from parks and beaches, are undoubtedly committing a grave error. Social Distancing Is a Miserably Failed ExperimentStay-at-home recommendations in general may also have been a bad idea overall. Indeed, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated,2 May 6, 2020, that 66% of new hospital admissions for COVID-19 were individuals who had been sequestering at home. A majority of those cases were also minorities such as African-Americans, who are far more prone to vitamin D deficiency due to their darker skin.3 When Cuomo first heard about it, he said he immediately thought maybe people had been going out in spite of the shelter-in-place order, and maybe taking public transportation.4 In actuality they were all at home where they were supposed to be. Interestingly, Dr. David Katz, president of True Health Initiative and founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, predicted5,6 this would happen. Chinese researchers have also noted that a majority of outbreaks in the 320 municipalities reviewed were the result of indoor spread of the disease, with the home accounting for 79.9% of cases, followed by transportation at 34%. According to the authors,7 "All identified outbreaks of three or more cases occurred in an indoor environment, which confirms that sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk." As noted in a May 11, 2020, American Thinker article:8
Banning Outdoor Activities — A Disastrous IdeaIn the video above, published May 11, 2020, on Medscape.com, Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, professor of medicine and chief of the division of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School, discusses the protective role of vitamin D against COVID-19. Manson points out that growing evidence suggests your vitamin D status may in fact play an important role in your risk of developing COVID-19, as well as the severity of the illness. It's well-known that vitamin D is important for innate immunity and that it boosts your immune function against viral diseases. Importantly, as noted by Manson, vitamin D also has "an immune modulating effect and can lower inflammation, and this may be relevant to the respiratory response during COVID-19 and the cytokine storm that's been demonstrated." Manson cites evidence from three South-Asian studies showing people with serious COVID-19 infection are far more likely to have insufficient levels of vitamin D compared to those with mild illness. Vitamin D deficient patients had, on average, an eightfold higher risk of serious COVID-19 illness compared to those with sufficient levels. Harvard Medical School is starting a study to investigate whether vitamin D supplementation lowers the risk of COVID-19 specifically, and/or improves clinical outcomes, but in the meantime, Manson urges people to spend more time outdoors to improve their vitamin D levels through sun exposure, and to optimize their vitamin D levels through food and supplements. Manson is far from alone in her recommendations. Irish researchers recently published an editorial13 highlighting the role of vitamin D deficiency in severe COVID-19 infections. According to the authors:14
Low Vitamin D Linked to Greater SARS-CoV-2 Infection RiskA May 6, 2020, report15 in the journal Nutrients points out that vitamin D concentrations are lower in patients with positive PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for SARS-CoV-2. As noted in this report, which retrospectively investigated the vitamin D levels obtained from a cohort of patients in Switzerland:16
Low Vitamin D Levels Linked to Increased COVID-19 MortalityAnother May 6, 2020, report,17 published in Aging Clinical and Experimental Research (its prepublication featured in the Daily Mail May 118), found that countries with lower vitamin D levels also have higher mortality rates from COVID-19. According to the authors:19
In the preprint version20 of this paper, the authors concluded: "We believe that we can advise vitamin D supplementation to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection." In the final version,21 they toned down the recommendation to: "We hypothesize that vitamin D may play a protective role for COVID-19." GrassrootsHealth StudyData22 from a clinical trial by GrassrootsHealth — an organization that we have supported for over 13 years — also reveals a link between vitamin D status and COVID-19 severity. Mark Alipio — who received no funding for his work — released data from an analysis of 212 people with lab-confirmed COVID-19 and for whom serum 25(OH)D levels were available. Using a classification of symptoms based on previous research, he employed statistical analysis to compare the differences in clinical outcomes against the levels of vitamin D. Of the 212 people, 49 had mild disease; 59 had ordinary disease; 56 were severe and 48 were critical. In the initial study group of 212 patients (see Table 1 below), 55 had normal vitamin D levels, which Alipio defined as greater than 30 ng/ml; 80 had insufficient levels of 21 to 29 ng/ml and 77 had deficient levels of less than 20 ng/ml. Vitamin D levels were strongly correlated to the severity of the illness experienced. It is important to note that most experts consider 30 ng/ml half of what an optimum vitamin D level should be, which is 60 to 80 ng/ml. Of the 49 with mild illness, 47 had normal vitamin D levels. For those of you who are not good with math that means that 96% of the patients with mild illness had "normal" levels of vitamin D. Note again this "normal" level was above 30 ng/mL, and most experts would raise that to 60 ng/mL. Of the 104 with severe or critical illness, only four had normal levels of vitamin D. That is 4% or the reciprocal of the mild group. How much stronger a correlation could one hope for? Alipio concluded:23
Vitamin D Protects Against Viral InfectionsIndeed, there is strong scientific evidence vitamin D plays a central role in your immune response and your ability to fight infections in general, so there's little reason to think it wouldn't provide similar protection against COVID-19. In this video, Ivor Cummins, biochemist and chief program officer for Irish Heart Disease Awareness, explains how higher levels of vitamin D may reduce your risk of negative outcomes from COVID-19. He also reviews some of the conditions associated with low vitamin D levels, such as insulin resistance and high levels of inflammation. As discussed in "The Real Pandemic Is Insulin Resistance," obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease are comorbidities for severe COVID-19, and insulin resistance is the underlying problem in all of these. As noted in "Vitamin D and the Antiviral State," a literature review article published in the Journal of Clinical Virology in 2011:24
SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped type of virus,25 which means vitamin D may actually have a direct antiviral effect on it. Future studies will have to confirm that, but in the meantime, there's absolutely no reason to ignore your vitamin D level. As reported in a recent GrassrootsHealth press release:26
from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/05/28/vitamin-d-levels-at-home.aspx
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