eighty percent of covid patients in a hospital in spain were found to be vitamin d deficient hey dr cedric here according to a study published in the endocrine society’s journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism researchers found eighty percent of the 216 covet patients involved had vitamin d deficiency and men had lower vitamin d levels than women cova patients with lower vitamin d levels had longer hospital stays they also had higher levels of inflammatory markers such as ferritin and d dimer these markers have been linked to poor covid19 outcomes in addition to the correlation between vitamin d levels and covet 19 risk researchers are looking at how vitamin d can protect people or help them recover from the disease one approach is to identify and treat vitamin d deficiencies especially in high-risk individuals such as the elderly and those with co-morbidities more than 40 of the us population is currently deficient in vitamin d which can be found in foods such as salmon egg yolk mushrooms whole food supplements and fortified foods such as milk or going outside to get some sunlight