The Impact of Vitamin D on COVID-19

How Can Vitamin D help to Fight Against COVID-19?

As the whole world is struggling to conquer the COVID-19, the headlines of the news are often the vaccination and pharmaceutical approaches. As the natural options to stay healthy and possibly preventing the infection are rarely talked about on mainstream media, I’d like to discuss some facts and options that I believe should be known and educated about our immune health.

As I will talk about immune health every few weeks, Today, I’d like to focus on vitamin D that seems to play a very important role, helping our body fight against COVID-19.

Here are some interesting facts and statistics about vitamin D;

• Vitamin D is one of the most important nutrients for our immune system, if not the most!
  Here is an important study – ” vitamin D and the immune system “ 
• 

  photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

  
  Vitamin D is known to prevent osteoporosis, rickets, depression, prostate cancer, breast cancer. Deficiency can also cause diabetes and obesity.
• It is almost impossible to get the necessary amounts of vitamin D just from the diet.
• One has to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk just to get minimally needed vitamin D into your diet.  The form of vitamin D commonly found in fortified milk is Vitamin D2 while the ideal form for supplementation is vitamin D3.
• Vitamin D is essential for calcium absorption in your intestines. Our body cannot absorb calcium without vitamin D. Supplementing calcium without vitamin D will not help.
• Chronic vitamin D deficiency takes months to be reversed – vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure are critical to rebuilding the body’s bones and nervous system.
• Obesity impairs vitamin D utilization in the body. Therefore extra vitamin D intake is needed for obese individuals ( One of the high-risk factors for COVID-19 is obesity).
• Vitamin-D deficiency can often be misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because of similar symptoms such as muscle weakness, aches, and pains.
• The dark-skinned populations need 20-30 times as much exposure to sunlight as light-skinned populations to generate the same amount of vitamin D. This explains why the COVID-19 infection rate is higher in the African and Hispanic American population as well as for prostate cancer among African American men.
• Having kidney/liver disease hinders the body’s ability to activate vitamin D because vitamin D is activated in kidneys and liver.
• Sunscreens block your body’s ability to generate vitamin D by 95% or more. Prolonged use of sunscreen may cause disease by blocking the absorption of vitamin D.

Symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency

• Muscles, joints, bone pain
• Depression
• Fatigue, weakness
• osteoporosis/osteopenia
• Gum disease
• Asthma
• Digestive issues
• immune disorders

Diseases and conditions associated with vitamin-D deficiency:

• Osteoporosis/Osteopenia
• Immune disorders – Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, type one diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease
• Cancers – prostate, colon cancer, breast, lung cancer, ovarian cancer
• Skin disorders – Atopic dermatitis, Psoriasis
• Type 2 Diabetes, insulin resistance

Vitamin-D-deficiency statistics:

• 40% of the U.S. population is vitamin-D deficient.
• 42% of African American women of childbearing age are vitamin-D deficient.
• 48% of young girls (9-11 years old) are vitamin-D deficient.
• up to 60% of all hospital patients are vitamin-D deficient.
• 76% of pregnant mothers are severely vitamin-D deficient, causing widespread vitamin-D deficiencies in their unborn children.
• up to 80% of nursing home patients are vitamin-D deficient. (which might be the reason why COVID-19 was rampant in these facilities)

The population that lives north of 35-degree latitudes does not get enough vitamin D, especially during fall and wintertime. They are at risk of vitamin D deficiency. Therefore, they need to supplement it to avoid being deficient, especially if one has darker skin which compromises the absorption. It explains why African and Hispanic Americans show higher incidences of COVID-19.

Dr. Ryan Cole, MD talks about the correlation between Vitamin D and COVID-19 in the clip below. What he talks about in this video can be highly controversial and some of the readers may not agree, but I think this gives us a different perspective and an opportunity of looking at it from a new angle on what is going on!

https://youtu.be/wPbxOeYAC7s

I don’t want to get too academic, but for you, nerds out there, please find a couple of published studies below that will further prove the importance of vitamin D!

Vitamin D supplementation to prevent COVID-19 infections and deaths – accumulating evidence from epidemiological and intervention studies calls for immediate action

“Those who had a circulating level of 25(OH)D < 20 ng/mL had a 54% higher positivity rate compared with those who had a blood level of 30–34 ng/mL in multivariable analysis. The risk of SARS-CoV-2 positivity continued to decline until the serum levels reached 55 ng/mL. The relationship persisted across latitudes, races/ethnicities, both sexes, and age ranges.”

“A recent clinic-based cohort study among 185 patients diagnosed with and treated for COVID-19 at a University Hospital in Germany showed more than 80% lower risk of invasive mechanical ventilation or death (primary endpoint) and more than 90% lower mortality among patients with sufficient vitamin D levels compared with patients with vitamin D deficiency even after multivariable adjustment for age, gender, and comorbidities [10], suggesting that close to 90% of deaths in this cohort were statistically associated with vitamin D insufficiency.”

“In the primary cohort of 444 patients from one hospital, cholecalciferol booster therapy was associated with a strongly reduced risk of COVID-19 mortality, with an odds ratio (95% CI) of 0.13 (0.05–0.35, p < 0.001) after adjustment for multiple potential confounders. This finding was replicated in a validation cohort of 541 patients from two other hospitals (odds ratio 0.38, 95% CI 0.17–0.84, p = 0.018).”

The impact of vitamin D level on COVID-19 infection – systematic review and meta-analysis

 

For those who are in need, here are some links for the supplements;
Vitamin D
Vitamin D liquid
Vitamin D/K2

Hope you find this blog helpful! Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT

SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULTATION

 

Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products mentioned on this page are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The content in this blog should not be used as a substitute for the professional advice and/or recommendation of qualified healthcare practitioners or licensed physicians. The content presented in this blog is intended for information purposes only. Consult your doctor or healthcare practitioners for your current conditions.