The Role of Vitamin D in The Age of COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Quite honestly - we thought for a long time whether we should write a blog post on this topic, because what we have seen since March is a lot of bull**t from companies that try to scare people with products like “superfoods against CoVid” which made us angry.

Tired of scrolling down pages to find the summary? Here we go! Summary: We´re not going to say that supplementing Vitamin D3 is a cure against C19 or will give you 100% protection against it – but besides the scientific facts about low D3-status in sick people and good results in therapy, we do know that it´s a great and cheap supplement which should be taken by everyone who is interested in supporting his immune system. The fact is that meanwhile meta-studies (means that the results of many studies that have already been done are compared and evaluated as a collective) give us a fairly precise picture of what vitamin D3 and CoVid19 are all about.

Let´s take a quick look on the disease C - 19 itself - what actually happens here in the body?

In patients who have a severe course of the disease, an overreaction and an incorrect reaction of the immune system, a so-called cytokine storm, can be seen. This means that the immune system is extremely sensitive to certain proteins and, in response to this, releases uninhibited cytokines (proteins that the body uses, among other things, to control the body´s natural defense against pathogens) that cause massive inflammatory reactions in tissue, such as the lungs and other organs. Such an overreaction of the immune system promotes complications such as thrombosis, acute lung failure, pneumonia or other inflammatory diseases of the respiratory tract. Immune-modulating substances strengthen the immune system and are able to prevent an overreaction. Vitamin D3 can have a strong immune-regulating and anti-inflammatory effect and even reduce cytokine overreaction. The meta-study has now evaluated 16 studies with 4922 people and came to the following result: The vitamin D level in the serum of all patients was low, 48% of the patients had a clear vitamin D deficit and 41% of the patients only had an inadequate vitamin D level. In addition, many of the patients had previous illnesses such as high blood pressure, obesity, respiratory diseases and diabetes.

What does all this tell us now?

What can be said about the current state of science is actually quite a lot:
  • Previous illnesses favor a severe course of the illness
  • All patients had a too low vitamin D3 level
  • High doses of vitamin D3 (35,000 IU daily over several days) could accelerate the recovery process in sick people
  • So-called immunomodulating substances like vitamin D3 can reduce the unchecked immune defense

What else we know about vitamin D3 and what is important in the cool season:

  • Supplementation with vitamin D3 reduces the risk of respiratory diseases by up to 70%
  • The WHO recommends vitamin D3 for the prevention of respiratory diseases
  • Vitamin D3 maintains to a normal function of the immune system
Summary: We´re not going to say that supplementing Vitamin D3 is a cure against C19 or will give you 100% protection against it – but besides the scientific facts about low D3-status in sick people and good results in therapy, we do know that it´s a great and cheap supplement which should be taken by everyone who is interested in supporting his immune system.
ref: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.05.20123554v3