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Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients who had sufficient vitamin D, with a 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood level of at least 30 ng / ml (a measure of vitamin D status), had a significantly lower risk of adverse clinical outcomes including loss of consciousness, hypoxia (the body lacked oxygen) and death. In addition, they had lower blood levels of an inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein) and higher levels of lymphocytes (a type of immune cell that helps fight infection).
“This study provides direct evidence that vitamin D sufficiency can reduce complications, including cytokine storm (releasing too much protein into the blood too quickly) and ultimately death from COVID-19,” explained the corresponding author Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor of medicine, physiology, and biophysics and molecular medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.
A blood sample was taken to measure vitamin D status (measured serum level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D) from 235 patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. These patients were followed up to determine clinical outcomes, including clinical severity of infection, loss of consciousness, shortness of breath leading to hypoxia, and death. The blood was also tested for an inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein) and the number of lymphocytes. The researchers then compared all of these parameters in patients who were vitamin D deficient with those who had enough vitamin D.
In patients older than 40 years, they found that those patients who had enough vitamin D were 51.5 percent less likely to die from the infection compared to patients who were vitamin D deficient or insufficient with a level in 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood less than 30 ng / mL.
Holick, who recently published a study that found that a sufficient amount of vitamin D can reduce the risk of contracting coronavirus by 54 percent, believes that having enough vitamin D helps combat the consequences of being infected not only with the coronavirus but also with other viruses. causing diseases of the upper respiratory tract, including influenza. “There is great concern that the combination of an influenza infection and a coronal viral infection could substantially increase hospitalizations and deaths due to complications from these viral infections.”
According to Holick, this study provides a simple, cost-effective strategy to improve one’s ability to fight coronavirus and reduce adverse clinical outcomes from COVID-19, including the need for a ventilator, an overactive immune response that leads to a cytokine storm. and death. “Because vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency is so widespread in children and adults in the United States and around the world, especially in the winter months, it is prudent for everyone to take a vitamin D supplement to reduce the risk of COVID infection and complications. 19. “
Reference: “Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D of at least 30 ng / ml reduces the risk of adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection” by Zhila Maghbooli, Mohammad Ali Sahraian, Mehdi Ebrahimi, Marzieh Pazoki, Samira Kafan, Hedieh Moradi Tabriz, Azar Hadadi, Mahnaz Montazeri, Mehrad Nasiri, Arash Shirvani and Michael F. Holick, September 25, 2020, PLUS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0239799
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