Startling Results from Vitamin D and Covid-19 Cases

For many years now my wife Joan and I have been advocates for raising your vitamin D level into the protective normal range, which boosts your immunity and strengthens your bones.  But just this week a startling new study suggests that being deficient in vitamin D markedly increases your risk of becoming critically ill with a COVID-19 infection.

A retrospective multicenter study of 212 cases analyzed the range of severity of COVID-19 illness and rated the patients as mild, or ordinary, or severe, or critical, and then correlated that with the patients’ vitamin D levels, which ranged from normal (31 ng/ml or higher) or inadequate (21 to 30 ng/ml) or deficient (20 ng/ml or lower). See the results below.

Table 1: From Grassroots Health Nutrient Research Institute 

As the breakdown above shows, low vitamin D levels were associated with more severe COVID illness. This suggests that by increasing vitamin D levels into the normal range, the body’s immune system may be better able to successfully fend off the Novel Coronarvirus and prevent catastrophic outcomes such as respiratory failure and death.

In one respect, these results are not entirely unexpected. Studies have already shown that vitamin D deficiency can impair immune function and increase your risk of developing respiratory illnesses. We know that people who have a vitamin D deficiency are at a greater risk for tuberculosis, asthma, pneumonia, COPD, and even depression.

How Vitamin D Fights Covid-19 Symptoms:

The most important potential mechanism whereby vitamin D protects against the Coronavirus is by strengthening acquired immunity, which mobilizes an army of white blood cells to seek out and destroy the viruses. Maintaining a normal vitamin D level may also reduce the damage caused by acute respiratory infections to the alveoli—the tiny air sacs that exchange the carbon dioxide for oxygen in the lungs. Vitamin D supplementation also protects against acute respiratory tract infections (both bacterial and viral) through several other mechanisms:

• Produces cathelicidins and defensins, immunomodulators, that can lower viral replication rates

• Increases concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokines

What You Can Do:

Currently, there is no proven treatment or vaccine for COVID-19. However, there are important steps you can take to become more resistant to getting this virus and to also reduce the chances that if you do come down with it, you won’t become severely ill. Eat a healthy diet, stay well hydrated by drinking lots of water, get outdoors daily to get some exercise, fresh air, and sunshine, and make sure you are getting enough vitamin D.

On a similar note, a large, a recent review of over 11,000 people from 14 countries showed that vitamin D supplements in persons with low vitamin D levels at baseline lowered their risk of acute respiratory illness.  Importantly, the study found that the benefits were most significant for those people taking a daily supplement of vitamin D rather than a larger weekly or monthly dose of vitamin D.

Stay safe and be assured - we will defeat COVID-19.

In Good Health,

James O’Keefe, MD