VITAMIN D3 AND COVID INFECTION                

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Context

• Vitamin D3 can protect against fatal COVID-19 infection: Study published in PubMed.

Findings

• Widespread vitamin D deficiency was recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
• The study attributed this shortfall to modern lifestyle that is “far from optimal with respect to nutrition, physical fitness, and recreation”.
• Patients with sufficiently high D3 serum levels preceding the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are highly unlikely to suffer a fatal outcome.
• There is an inverse correlation between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 death rate.
• Vitamin D3’s effectiveness in curing several diseases, especially acute respiratory distress syndrome that is also a COVID-19 after-effect, is well-known.
• Vitamin D3 effectively suppresses “the progression of inflammation by reducing the generation of inflammatory cytokines”.
• Cytokine release syndrome, also known as “cytokine storm”, causes multiple organ damage — a key cause of death in late stage COVID-19 cases.
• The research, recommended “combining vaccination with routine strengthening of the immune system of the whole population by vitamin D3 supplementation to consistently guarantee blood levels above 50 nanograms per millilitre”.
• After rickets — a condition that softens bones — in the 19th century, “SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is becoming the second breakthrough in the history of vitamin D3 association with disease”.

Significance

• From a social and political point of view, it will lower the need for further contact restrictions and lockdowns.
• From an economical point of view, it will save billions of dollars worldwide, as vitamin D3 is inexpensive, and together with vaccines, provide a good opportunity to get the spread of SARS-CoV-2 under control.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/vitamin-d3-can-protect-against-fatal-covid-19-infection-study-80683