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Vitamin D and Covid-19
By Bruce Barbour - August 2022. See also the February 2023 Update belowJust browsing around the internet the other day and came across the Mayo Clinic site and an article about whether Vitamin D was effective in, either or both, stopping people getting Covid-19 or if you got it in treating people with Covid-19.
The Mayo clinic is a well regarded US medical institution. Here is the article in response to the question above.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/coronavirus-and-vitamin-d/faq-20493088
My issue is that they quote a couple of very small trials (which had been done years before, early in the pandemic) regarding the efficacy of Vitamin D which showed good efficacy. It was encouraging. But right at the start of the article they say "There isn't enough data to recommend use of vitamin D to prevent infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 or to treat COVID-19, according to the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization."
And based on the small trials quoted it was reasonable that they could not have made a general recommendation for the whole populace. However my issue is that when the couple of small trials that have been done show very promising results why aren't the bigger trials done? Trials that would allow a definitive population wide recommendation to be made. Over six million people have died from the virus around the world. And over five hundred of million have become sick with the virus (by August 2022). Whole economies have been closed down for 12 and more months costing over ten trillion dollars. It is still impacting around the world. And yet apparently enough money could not be found for a bigger trial on Vitamin D. Why? Surely a decent trial would cost a whole lot less than a million dollars - a mere nothing in terms of the cost of the virus to the world. If it validated the results from the earlier smaller trials the world would have a very cheap, safe and readily available dietary supplement for the treatment and prevention of a significant proportion of Covid-19 sickness. If the large trial failed - well at least we would know - and its only a million dollars or less.
It is issues like this that tempt you to conspiracy theories - but I will resist. If there is no conspiracy then it begs the question why funding cannot be obtained for this type of research and how can this be fixed?
So do I take Vitamin D? Yes I do. I was tested for Vitamin D levels before the Covid-19 pandemic. The levels were found to be low and my doctor suggested I start taking a Vitamin D supplement, which I did. I have kept taking it.
Update - February 2023
Two further studies have come to light. Both indicate a level efficacy for Vitamin D in the prevention of ICU admission and in the prevention of death from Covid-19.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8862170/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9864223/
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