JAMA Network Open: Vitamin D deficiency in the body may increase an individual's risk of COVID-19.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal JAMA Network Open, scientists from the University of Chicago Medical Center and others revealed a link between vitamin D deficiency in the body and the risk of individual SARS-CoV-2 infection after a retrospective study of PATIENT-19 patients.
Photo Source: David Meltzer, M.D., CC0 Public Domain, says vitamin D plays a vital role in the body's immune system, after previous studies have shown that vitamin D supplements may be effective in reducing the risk of respiratory viral infections, and statistical analysis in this paper suggests that vitamin D supplementation may be promising to treat SARS-CoV-2 infections. In the
article, researchers studied 489 patients who had been tested for the body's vitamin D levels in the year prior to their diagnosis of COVID-19, and found that untreated vitamin D deficiency patients were almost twice as likely to develop COVID-19 as individuals with adequate vitamin D levels.
researchers point out that half of the U.S. population is deficient in vitamin D, and that African-Americans, Hispanics, and people living in winter areas such as Chicago, where adequate sunlight is difficult to get, understand whether treating vitamin D deficiency can alter an individual's risk of COVID-19, which is important for the health of people everywhere, nationally and globally, and is not expensive, widely available and safe to take. Meltzer, a
researcher, said more in-depth studies are needed later to determine whether additional vitamin D supplementation can reduce an individual's risk of COVID-19 or a potentially serious disease, and the researchers highlighted how the study uses a variety of strategies to make vitamin D supplementation beneficial to specific populations, and researchers have conducted several clinical trials at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
() Original source: David O. Meltzer, MD, PhD1; Thomas J. Best, PhD2; Hui Zhang, PhD2; et al Association of Vitamin D Status and Other Clinical Features With COVID-19 Test Results, JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3 (9): e2019722. doi: 10.1001 / jamanetworkopen.2020.19722.