Researchers in Israel have found that Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of a hospitalised Covid patient dying more than seven-fold.
Looking retrospectively at the pre-infection Vitamin D levels of the 253 Covid patients for whom such records exist admitted to the Galilee Medical Centre up to February 4th 2021, the researchers found that the mortality rate among the Vitamin D deficient (under 20 nanograms per millilitre) was 25.6% (34 out of 133) compared to 3.4% (4 out of 116) of the non-deficient. That’s an increase in mortality risk of over seven and a half times, or 653%.
The study (which is not yet peer-reviewed) also found that more than half the hospitalised patients (52.5%) were Vitamin D deficient, suggesting Vitamin D deficiency contributed to the patients’ hospitalisation in the first place.
It also found that patients who suffered severe or critical disease were more than 14 times more likely to be Vitamin D deficient than those who suffered mild or moderate disease, once confounding factors had been controlled for.
The figure below shows the Vitamin D levels of the patients and the severity of their illness, broken down by age; the lines indicate the strong correlations.
The researchers noted there is no evidence that using Vitamin D to treat hospitalised Covid patients improves outcomes (seems it’s too late by that point). However, there is some evidence that Vitamin D supplements reduce risk of acute respiratory infection in general, though not yet specifically for COVID-19.
The researchers recommended that further study of the potential benefits of protective Vitamin D supplementation for the Vitamin D deficient is warranted. Sixteen months into the pandemic, you have to say there doesn’t appear to be a hurry to investigate what seems to be a key factor in Covid risk and may provide a cheap way to save many lives.
Read the full study here.
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