Much has been said about vitamin D deficiency as a result of social isolation and confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, there are studies that point it out as useful for the prevention of respiratory diseases, although there is no scientific consensus at this point.
The consequences of vitamin D deficiency in the human body are widely known: it can cause multiple problems in the bones, such as rickets. Therefore, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, scientists began to worry that social isolation from confinement could cause a deficiency of the vitamin in people.
In addition to this, several studies found that a large percentage of patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus had a lack of vitamin D in their body. In May, a team of British researchers attributed the high death rate from COVID-19 in the country to the fact that its population tends to have low levels of this vitamin.
At that time, the conclusions of another study prepared by Irish and English specialists suggested prescribing vitamin D supplements to COVID-19 patients.
These were just a few of the researches around vitamin D and its link to COVID-19, especially aimed at checking whether the substance could cure or mitigate the consequences of the disease.
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“However, while the data on the role of vitamin D in bone growth and maintenance are clear and have informed practical clinical guidelines and public health policies over the years, the supporting evidence the role of vitamin D in other health and disease processes, particularly acute respiratory tract infection, remains uneven,” summarizes an editorial in the British medical journal The Lancet.
While certain observational studies suggest that supplementing vitamin D may prevent the development of respiratory infectious diseases, especially among those with vitamin deficiency, randomized trials made in this regard give conflicting results.
The magazine cites several. Among them, a pre-specified analysis of the D-Health randomized clinical trial in more than 20,000 Australian adults, which did not see a reduction in the risk or severity of acute respiratory diseases. The reduction in symptoms of these diseases was statistically reduced by only half a day, making the evidence not “clinically significant.”
A systematic review of several clinical trials published in MedRxiv concluded that vitamin D supplementation was safe, and they identified a slight positive effect towards acute respiratory diseases, but it was recognized that there was significant heterogeneity in each of the trials.
While the question of whether or not vitamin D can be useful against COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases remains open, the National Institute for Excellence in Health and Care of England (NICE) in collaboration with Public Health England and the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, reaffirms the Government’s recommendation to take vitamin D supplements to maintain bone and muscle health during times of confinement, but not to reduce symptoms or severity of the pandemic disease.
The message concluded that “there is still insufficient evidence to support vitamin D supplementation with the aim of preventing or treating COVID-19 and the issue should be further investigated,” the journal explains.
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This generated disappointment among many in the scientific community who, connoisseurs of vitamin D, assure that although there is evidence to demonstrate its effectiveness, it is known that this vitamin is safe, of extremely low toxicity, and at a time when the situation health continues to deteriorate, should be taken into account.
“In an ideal world, all health decisions would be made based on overwhelming evidence, but a time of crisis may require a slightly different set of rules,” the study concludes.