Study: Vitamin D deficiency may be linked to COVID-19 mortality — how a common vitamin could become pivotal

A new study from researchers at Trinity College Dublin has hypothesized that vitamin D deficiency may be linked to higher mortality rates from COVID-19. Published in the Irish Medical Journal, the report analyzed vitamin D levels of older people in countries heavily affected by the coronavirus and found that places with high death rates from COVID-19, including Italy and Spain, also had rates of vitamin D deficiency.

Dr. William Schaffner, an epidemiologist and a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University, tells Yahoo Life that the research from Ireland is promising but doesn’t prove a causal link between the two. “This study is done from 50,000 feet,” Schaffner says. “These authors have gathered data from clinics in a variety of countries. ... But we haven't done an actual study in patients in a prospective fashion.

One of the studies Patel is referring to is a 2017 global meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials, involving more than 11,000 individuals, which concluded that taking vitamin D supplements daily or weekly could significantly reduce the risk of severe respiratory infections like influenza. For those deficient in vitamin D , the risk of respiratory infection was cut in half.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, agrees that the theory is probable. “There's long been an understanding that vitamin D deficiency is underdiagnosed in many countries,” Adalja tells Yahoo Life. “And that vitamin D deficiency does play a role in how the human immune system functions and that correcting vitamin D deficiencies can help with the clinical course of individuals with infectious diseases.

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