Apart from a vaccine, there is no foolproof reaction to COVID-19.
Scientists agree on essential hygiene principles to prevent infection, as well as in the primary direction of transmission of the virus. As for a multitude of other safeguard or causality points, the jury is excluded.
This vitamin D.
“Recent studies on vitamin D raise eyebrows. They can generate hypotheses, and that’s a smart question, but it’s inappropriate to start making statements about vitamin D and COVID-19,” said Isaac Bogoch, a disease-infective agent founded at Toronto General Hospital.
“We call it ‘talking beyond data’. And that’s what happens with vitamin D.”
Vitamin D is well known for its role in bone, tooth and muscle health by selling calcium absorption through the body. Its absence has its drawbacks and risks, adding bone weakness (osteoporosis) in adults and a bone deformity disease, called rickets, in children.
Advice has long been given that vitamin D strengthens the immune formula and is helping to prevent infections in addition to the common cold. Since the onset of COVID-19, studies have highlighted the imaginable role of vitamin to prevent infections and how supplementation can improve a person’s results.
In theory, the accusations may have some weight, Bogoch said, but overall the evidence is inconsistent.
“He’s under consideration, and rightly so, but those claims of effectiveness overestimate knowledge about what we have today,” he said.
“If there were simple answers, we’d give them.”
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A Medicine from the University of Chicago examined the physical fitness records of more than 4,300 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in March and April, 499 of whom had been evaluated for vitamin D levels last year.
Researchers found that others who had vitamin D deficiency in the last tests and did not accumulate doses were 77% more likely to be inflamed with the virus than those who had sufficiently good levels.
The study has not yet been peer-reviewed, but its lead author, Dr. David Meltzer, warned the New York Times that other people who take vitamin D and contract the virus will likely have fewer symptoms “because the immune formula is less likely to have an exaggerated inflammatory response.”
Other studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is “prevalent” in severe cases, or that low grades are similar to mortality, or even that higher rates of infection in minority teams in the UNITED Kingdom and the United States recommend a role for vitamin D, as they tend to have decreasing levels of vitamin D.
But it’s hard to tell the difference between vitamin D and all other COVID-19-related hazards and points, said Kelly Grindrod, a pharmacist and professor at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy.
A person’s susceptibility to the virus can be affected by pre-existing fitness problems, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, other respiratory diseases, cancer and kidney disease.
Low vitamin D levels are linked to many of these conditions, Grindrod said.
“We might think that if we just raised his vitamin D levels, we wouldn’t be in that position,” he said. “But it would possibly be the opposite cause, i.e. other people who have all these situations have a low vitamin D content. This also turns out to be the challenge with COVID.”
This is why randomized controlled trials are needed, which aim to ensure bias resources when testing the effectiveness of new treatments, he said.
Studies to date come from “large observation studies,” which have their place, Grindrod said, but can provide signals and clues.
Almost all studies recognize that more is needed.
“There are many other situations under study, but so far vitamin D supplementation has not been reduced,” he said. “Having a low vitamin D content can be a threat, whether it’s vitamin D or anything that leads to low vitamin D levels,” however, supplementing it doesn’t solve the problem.
Other studies are going in this direction.
A review of the evidence through the British National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) suggests that there is no help in taking vitamin D supplements to save it or treat COVID-19. The UK already recommends increasing vitamin D intake during the winter months, when the sun and outdoor weather are limited and the bodies are protected from the cold.
Another research from the UK biobank did not help establish a link between vitamin D grades and the threat of viral infection, nor that vitamin D grades may be just ethnic differences in infection.
“What we have are questionable quality studies that approve or refute,” Bogoch said. “What we haven’t noticed is high-quality knowledge on this front.”
People get adequate amounts of vitamin D regardless of the COVID-19 threat, experts agree.
According to the rules of the Institute of Medicine, supported by Health Canada, adults at most consume up to six hundred foreign sets (equivalent to 15 micrograms) of vitamin D from food or supplements. If they’re 71 or older, it’s 800 years old.
Health Canada continues to propose that others over the age of 50 take a vitamin D supplement of 400 strange units, as aging reduces nutritional intake and the ability to synthesize vitamin D from the sun.
Bogoch cautioned that any replacement in supplementation (vitamin D or otherwise) deserves to be performed in consultation with a doctor.
Tips on a good enough intake of vitamin D “were already there,” Grindrod added.
“Will this help you with COVID? Well, there are many more who can help you yourself with COVID, like washing your hands.”