Dr. Wes Youngberg and Dan Houghton discuss COVID19 updates.
The handout on “Vitamin D for Prevention and Management of COVID” is available for download at the Youngberg Clinic Facebook page:
Castillo, Marta Entrenas, et al. “Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study.” The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2020): 105751.
Randomized and blinded clinical study giving Vitamin D to hospitalized patients with COVID at University of Cordoba in Spain published results in October 2020.
In those receiving calcifediol, the equivalent of slightly over 20,000iu of Vitamin D on the day of hospital admission and another slightly over 10,000iu of vitamin D on days 3 and 7 of hospital stay only 2% required advanced ICU support and no one died. In comparison, of those not getting the vitamin D, 50% required advanced ICU support and 8% of the non supplemented group died.
Study author, Dr. Marta Castillo speaking about the lifesaving impact of Vitamin D in COVID patients stated, “Vitamin D3 may be the most promising approach.”
Study: “Is ethnicity linked to incidence or outcomes of covid-19?” April 20, 2020 British Medical Journal
Risk of requiring hospital Intensive Care Unit support is 20 times greater for those who are Vitamin D deficient including Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, United Kingdom residents, elderly, obese and institutionalized individuals with focus on care-home residents.
Actionable Point: Ensure access to effective vitamin D supplementation for all ethnic groups and people groups who are known to have very low and inadequate vitamin D levels. This has great potential to greatly limit sickness and death from COVID-19.
Here is documentation and the study link for one of the key quoted statements on the importance of Vitamin D in preventing and managing COVID:
McCartney, Daniel M., and D. G. Byrne. “Optimization of vitamin D status for enhanced Immune-protection against Covid-19.” Ir Med J 113.4 (2020): 58.
“Vitamin D deficiency is common and may contribute to increased risk of respiratory infection including Covid-19. We recommend that all older adults, hospital inpatients, nursing home residents and other vulnerable groups (e.g. those with diabetes mellitus or compromised immune function, those with darker skin, vegetarians and vegans, those who are overweight or obese, smokers and healthcare workers) be urgently supplemented with 20-50μg/d [2,000iu] of vitamin D to enhance their resistance to Covid-19, and that this advice be quickly extended to the general adult population.”
Kaufman HW, Niles JK, Kroll MH, Bi C, Holick MF (2020) SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. PLoS ONE 15(9): e0239252.
The largest observational study to date was published in the journal PLOS ONE, September 17, 2020. It looked at data for 191,779 American patients with a mean age of 50 who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 between March and June 2020 and had had their vitamin D tested sometime in the preceding 12 months. It found:
• 12.5% of patients who had a vitamin D level below 20 ng/ml (deficiency) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
• 8.1% of those who had a vitamin D level between 30 and 34 ng/ml (adequacy) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
• Only 5.9% of those who had an optimal vitamin D level of 55 ng/ml or higher tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
According to the authors:
“SARS-CoV-2 positivity is strongly and inversely associated with circulating 25(OH)D levels, a relationship that persists across latitudes, races/ethnicities, both sexes, and age ranges. Our findings provide impetus to explore the role of vitamin D supplementation in reducing the risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease.”
