A recent controlled study shows significantly lower hospitalization rates for COVID patients receiving vitamin D (calcifediol) supplements:
Out of 447 patients treated with calcifediol at admission, 20 (4.5%) required ICU, compared to 82 (21%) out of 391 non-treated (p-value<0.0001).
Vitamin D is naturally produced when skin is exposed to sunlight and the effect is greatest for lighter skin. With the exception of fish oils and fortified milk, vitamin D is absent from most food.
Does a lack of vitamin D help to explain higher hospitalization rates for people with dark complexions?
Did lockdowns have the unintended effect of increasing hospitalizations by discouraging people to get outside in the sun?
Will the FDA move to ban vitamin D for people who test positive for COVID since inexpensive supplements may threaten expensive proprietary COVID treatments?
Interesting findings. I’m confused though. Were there ever mandatory lockdowns in America that forced people to stay inside? I was able to leave my home freely at all times.
States issued “stay at home orders” that prohibited going outside of their homes with few exceptions. Parks and beaches were closed.
Here is an example from California:
To protect public health, I as State Public Health Officer and Director
of the California Department of Public Health order all individuals living
in the State of California to stay home or at their place of residence
except as needed to maintain continuity of operations of the federal
critical infrastructure sectors . . .
Yes, remember when the ventilator shortage was a national crisis? It turned out that except in rare cases, ventilators were doing more harm than good.
Vitamin D supplements should logically be given to anyone who tests positive to COVID. The cost is small, the risks are practically zero, and the benefits appear to be quite large.
Of course drug companies can not make much money with that approach so I expect they will develop scare campaigns against vitamin D.
At minimum, they’ll downplay vitamin D as much as they need to, much like most people do with diet and exercise. People want to be slop bodies, but don’t want to live with their consequences.
Vitamin D is commonly used in treating patients presenting with ARDS, or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.
It has been proposed that the activation of the vitamin D receptor (VDR) signaling pathway may generate beneficial effects in ARDS [11] by decreasing the cytokine/chemokine storm, regulating the renin‑angiotensin system, modulating neutrophil activity and by maintaining the integrity of the pulmonary epithelial barrier, stimulating epithelial repair and tapering down the increased coagulability.
Quesada-Gomez J.M., Entrenas-Castillo M., Bouillon R. Vitamin D receptor stimulation to reduce acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in patients with coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infections: revised Ms SBMB 2020_166. J. Steroid Biochem. Mol. Biol. 2020;202 doi: 10.1016/j.jsbmb.2020.105719.[PMC free article] [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
Melatonin is useful here as well, due to it’s ability to quell cytokine activity.
The study you mentioned was underpowered, observational and never published.
But there is solid science already in place about it.
As far as Black people and Vitamin D, their higher melanin levels do impede Vitamin D absorption but their active levels of it in the bloodstream are on par with Whites, which means they more efficiently produce it. Blacks are often misdiagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency because we use standards set with White patients. There are no current tests to measure the level of binding proteins used to convert Vitamin D to its active form.
In general, just check calcium levels and parathyroid hormone levels, and if they are normal the patient has enough Vitamin D for their body.
