There are many theories flying around about Coronavirus, the Covid-19 pandemic we are currently in. One of the biggest questions we have is why do some people get super sick, while others get a mild case? You may wonder why am I writing about this as a plastic surgeon? Because your health is so important. I do mostly elective surgery. As such, your safety is paramount. If there are simple things you can do to improve your health and safety profile, I want to tell you about them.
Vitamin D may be one of those.
These are letters and publications in the scientific literature. To see the original articles, you can go to PubMed HERE. (type in vitamin D & Covid in search bar)
Most of these are letters, small reviews- so as far as scientific methodology goes, not so great. For true scientific analysis, we need big numbers and randomized trials. But Vitamin D is something many of us are low in, it is easy to improve, and if it helps you have a more mild case of Coronavirus? Sign me up.
The thoughts for why it may help are listed below. It is thought Vitamin D helps through:
- inducing cathelicidins and defensins, which lowers inflammatory cytokines
- Several studies and trials reveal Vitamin D supplementation reduces the risk of influenza (though other studies have shown no correlation)
- The outbreak started in the winter, when Vitamin D levels are lowest
- The number of cases in the Southern Hemisphere is lower
- ARDS has been shown to correlate with low D levels
- Older age and chronic disease patients tend to have lower Vitamin D levels
The study I read out of the journal Nutrients, April 2020, suggested these endpoints:
- GOAL Vitamin D level: 40-60 ng/ml (or higher)
- To raise your level if low, consider taking 10,000 IU of D3 (better than D2) for a few weeks
- Then change to 5000 IU/day
- NOTE: DON”T JUST TAKE A TON OF VITAMIN D if you don’t know your level. The daily dose is usually around 400 a day, so 10,000 and 5,000 are a lot more. There can be toxicity if you have too much Vitamin D. So this is something to do with a doctor’s supervision.
It is unclear if treating COVID-19 infected people with Vitamin D will help. There is one journal article, Vitamin D: A simpler alternative to tocilizumab for trial in COVID-19? which postulates Vitamin D may help like tocilizumab (a rheumatoid arthritis drug found to have some efficacy) because it helps with IL-1 and IL-6, the factors thought to trigger the cytokine storm.
My thoughts?
I am not here to spread conspiracy theories. I am a true believer in science. But when there is something easy to do which may help reduce the severity of this disease, and it is as simple as taking a Vitamin D pill, particularly when we know many people are low on Vitamin D levels, I think why not?
There is much data on Vitamin D being good for so many illnesses and issues. For more information, go to the Harvard School of Public Health (they did a huge study on supplements years ago, and found Vitamin D was one of the only supplements they recommended taking). VITAMIN D INFO