Study links vitamin deficiency to deaths in hospitalized Covid patients

The research is published in ‘Plos One Journal’.

In one study, researchers from the Azraeli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in Safed, Israel, and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Israel, showed an association between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 severity and mortality.

The study is among the first to analyze vitamin D levels before infection, which facilitates a more accurate assessment than hospitalization, when levels may be low secondary to viral illness. The reported findings are based on results initially published on MedRxiv.

The records searched for 1,176 patients admitted to the Galilee Medical Center (GMC) between April 2020 and February 2021 with positive PCR tests for vitamin D levels measured two weeks to two years before infection.

Patients with vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/mL) were 14 times more likely to have severe or severe cases of COVID than those with more than 40 ng/mL.

Surprisingly, the mortality rate was 2.3 percent in patients with adequate vitamin D levels, as opposed to 25.6 percent in the vitamin D-deficient group.

Studies adjusted for age, sex, season (summer/winter), chronic diseases, and similar results across the board highlight that low vitamin D levels contribute significantly to disease severity and mortality.

“Our results suggest that maintaining normal levels of vitamin D is advisable. This would be beneficial for those who contract the virus,” said Dr. Emil Dror of the Galilee Medical Center and the Azariel Faculty of Bar-Ilan University. of Medicine said. led the study.

“There is a clear consensus for routine vitamin D supplementation as advised by local health authorities as well as global health organizations,” Dror said.

Dr Amir Bashkin, an endocrinologist who participated in the current study, said that “this is especially true for the COVID-19 pandemic when adequate vitamin D has additional benefits for a proper immune response to respiratory illness.”

Study co-author Professor Michael Edelstein said, “This study contributes to an ever-evolving body of evidence that suggests that a patient’s history of vitamin D deficiency may lead to poor COVID-19 clinical disease course and is a predictive risk factor associated with mortality.” Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University.

“It is still unclear why some individuals suffer the dire consequences of COVID-19 infection while others do not. Our discovery adds a new dimension to solving this puzzle,” he concluded.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.