Does Vitamin D protect against Covid-19?

Does Vitamin D protect against Covid-19? The answer is yes! Several weeks ago I encouraged everyone to take Vitamin D daily to help protect against Covid. The benefits of vitamin D for the immune system, bones and cardiometabolic health has long been known and most of my patients know I have been a stickler for vitamin D supplementation. Well now it seems Harvard is on board, based on an article put out today by JoAnn E. Manson MD, DrPH, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She noted that now it is more important than ever to take your vitamin D. There is a growing body of evidence that vitamin D status may be relevant to the risk of developing COVID-19 infection and to the severity of the disease, (as expected). Vitamin D is important to various parts of the immune system, most relevant right now is that it boosts immune function against viral diseases. Vitamin D 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. The cytokine storm (see previous blogs) is thought to be responsible for why a lot of the critically ill patients develop respiratory failure. The protective effect of vitamin D on respiratory cells has been demonstrated in the laboratory. But there is also evidence that patients with respiratory infections tend to have lower blood levels of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. So now we have some evidence from COVID-19 patients as well. Studies from three south Asian hospitals showed that the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was much higher among those with severe COVID illness compared with those with mild illness. In fact, there was about an eight fold higher risk of having severe illness among those who entered with vitamin D deficiency compared with those who had sufficient vitamin D levels. Did you get that? Eight fold! There was also an article in the prestigious BMJ (British Medical Journal) a couple of years ago which documented the protective effect of vitamin D in respiratory illnesses. So the evidence is becoming quite compelling. Getting outdoors is important and diet is also important. Everyone should be reading food labels which list the vitamin D content. Food sources that are higher in vitamin D include fortified dairy products, fortified cereals, fatty fish, and sun-dried mushrooms. Dr. Manson and her team are in the process of planning a randomized clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation in moderate to high doses to see whether it has a role in the risk of developing COVID-19 infections and also in reducing the severity of disease and improving clinical outcomes. In the meantime, taking vitamin D is something easy you can do for yourself and your loved ones. Clearly, while we wait for more results, it's important to encourage measures that will, on a population-wide basis, reduce the risk for vitamin D deficiency. Many of you have heard my lecture on vitamin D supplementation. But for those of you who haven’t, remember to take vitamin D with some food that contains some fat because it is a fat soluble vitamin. Otherwise you will not absorb it well. Better yet, take it as drops and then you don’t have to worry about not absorbing it. Check your levels when you can but in the meantime everyone needs at least 2000 i.u (maintenance) per day.

Dr. Tuakli Thanks in advance for your time. And as always, thanks for being a loyal patient. Your health is my success. My goal as always is to give you real information as a means to counteract so much misinformation. I want us all to still be here when this pandemic is over. Stay whole and be well. Sincerely, Dr. Nadu Tuakli