Vitamin D supplementation has a protective effect, against the incidence of COVID-19 in RCT studies,
OR 0.403, (95% IC 0.218, 0.747)
In the RCTs performed on HCWs, the overall reduction in risk in the population supplemented with vitamin D was approximately 80%
Against the incidence of COVID-19 in analytical studies
OR = 0.592, (95% IC 0.476–0.736)
Against the incidence of COVID-19 ICU admission
OR 0.317, (95% IC 0.147–0.680).
Our meta-analysis suggests a definitive and significant association between the protective role of vitamin D and COVID-19 incidence and ICU admission.
Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/5/679
(28th Feb 2024)
Vitamin D, crucial roles
Bone homeostasis, muscle function, oncogenesis, immune response and metabolism.
In the context of the COVID-19
Numerous researchers have tried to determine the role vitamin D in the immune response to the virus.
Systematic review and meta-analysis, 15th May 2023
Preventive vitamin D supplementation, 16 publications
N = 1,262,235 participants,
A protective role in
Incidence of COVID-19
Mortality
Admission to intensive care units (ICUs).
We calculated the Odds Ratios
The assessment of potential bias and the evaluation of study quality will be conducted independently by two researchers.
Extra information
The majority of the effects of vitamin D are mediated by the VDR, which promotes the expression of genes containing specific DNA sequences and is expressed in almost all nucleated cells
Approximately 3 percent of the human genome is under the control of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D
Vitamin D has been observed to contribute to the synthesis of defensins,
to be pivotal for enhancing the phagocytic activity,
and to modulate the immune system response by regulating the inflammatory cascade
Well war and welcome to today’s talk Wednesday the 13th of March I’m going to share with you some pretty important vitamin D research data from Italy now and you can decide if you want to watch now vitamin D supplementation according to these researches has a protective effect against the instance of covid-19
In randomized controlled trial studies but of course Co is just another viral infection so we would expect this to be effective against all evading viral infections because it’s optimizing the immune system we would effect expect this to be effective against all bacterial infections because it’s optimizing the immune system so but Co
Is an interesting example and it’s where the data is so we’ll stick with it um now the figures here the odds ratio is uh 0.43 and that means it’s about a 60% protective effect so 60% less likely to actually get the infection for people that have got good levels of vitamin D
As opposed to low levels of vitamin D so quite impressive really and in the randomized control Tri performed on healthcare workers the overall reduction in Risk in the population supplemented with vitamin D was Approximately 80% so about an 80% protection in healthcare workers and these ones are particularly relevant because these were
Well- conducted clinical trial so this is pretty convincing data so why wouldn’t you want to reduce your chances of getting a viral bacterial infection by 80% why why wouldn’t you it’s uh it’s pretty obvious really moving on against the inance of covid-19 uh in analytical studies so they were randomized control studies in
Analytical studies uh what well it’s odd ratio 0.592 so that’s what a bit more than a 40% protective effect so still pretty good but the randomized control trial data was of course the one most likely to accurate now against the incidence of covid-19 uh intensive care admissions well look at that odds ratio
Is 0 uh 317 that’s getting on for a 70% protective effect so we’ve got these protective effects against getting covid the instance of covid now these people might still be getting it of course but they’re not testing and get because they’re probably not getting symptomatic they probably got very minor infections
And they weren’t testing um that’s the analytical studies and that is the reduced incidence to intensive care nearly 70% so that’s what this is about if you want to stay now our metaanalysis this is the conclusion our meta analysis suggests a definitive and significant association between the protective role
Of vitamin D in covid-19 incidents and ICU admissions so this is really quite a convincing study from Italy now let’s look at some of the details this is the time title of the study here prevented the vitamin D supplementation of the risk for covid-19 infection a systematic review and
Metaanalysis it’s published in the peer review journal nutrients that’s the um that’s the paper there available in PDF do download it for yourself or freely available which of course is very generous of the journal published in February 28th February 2024 now the authors say this vitamin D crucial roles bone homeostasis well we
Know about that strong bones because it deficiency causes rickets muscle function oncogenesis this is the formation of cancers now good levels of vitamin D are protective we believe in from our conversations with Professor angal Gish arrange probably a whole against a whole range of cancers just by optimizing
Vitamin D levels and this makes sense because by optimizing vitamin D levels you’re optimizing the immune system and if you optimize the immune system you optim immune surveillance and that can spot cancers at an early stage and hopefully eradicate the vast majority of them or certainly an awful lot of them
So oncogenesis immune response and Metabolism important now in the context of covid-19 uh numerous researchers have tried to determine the role of vitamin D in the immune response to the virus systematic reviews and metaanalysis in this case now they did the day they actually did this data they collected
This data was the 15th of May 2023 so obviously it takes a while to put together a complicated paper like this but that was like the cut off point for the data so it’s it’s it’s fair it’s fairly up to- dat data um preventative vitamin D supplementation they found 16 good
Publications on that 1.26 million people I mean the this is just a huge amount of data that’s gone into this one one what did I say 1.26 million people a huge number of participants a protective role in the incidence of covid-19 as we’ve said um mortality the paper really can’t give
Firm data on that we need more studies on that but admission to intensive care units for sure they calculated the odds ratio the assessment of potential bias and the evaluation of study quality will be conducted by independent researchers now if you read through the paper they
Give all the details of how this was done and very a very thorough piece of work it is giving rise to fairly conclusive as as they’ve said significant and basically conclusive conclusions given that we know this now and I think okay we we can’t say we know it because we haven’t had expensive
Randomized double blind control trials firstly because no one wants to pay for them and secondly of course it will be unethical to artificially reduce people’s vitamin D levels then expose them to infections because we’ve reason to believe quite a lot of them would probably die so this is this is good
Combined data that we’ve got here and I’m clearly convinced by it as as you can tell partly because it’s so consistent with all the other data we’ve been looking at in fact quite a few of the papers in here we have previously looked at on this channel and of course
We’ve talked to many of the people that have done the original research now just some extra information here that adds to the veracity of this really the majority um of the effects of vitamin D are mediated by vdr vitamin D receptors so you you know this uh what’s happening
Now you’ve got the Vitamin D it fits into a receptor the combination of the vitamin D and the receptor Trot off and does something it triggers what we call a secondary messenger system and in the activation of vitamin D that’s very often the activation of genes and of
Course a lot of those genes are in cells that are important like uh cells in the immune system so it makes scientific sense which is always reassuring so the the vitamin D are mediated by the vitamin D receptors which promotes the expression of genes containing specific DNA
Sequences in the uh expressed in almost all nucleated cells so the vitamin D receptor is in virtually all nucleated cells and of course that’s basically all cells in the body apart from the red blood cells and certainly all the white blood cells have these vitamin D receptors that are so important for
Immunity so it makes sense there because this is vital for having all this DNA you know if You’ got all this sort of useful DNA there that can promote immune resp sponsors and optimize metabolism and do other things like that if you can’t use it um if you haven’t got the
Vitamin D receptors that the activated vitamin D receptors with the vitamin D to activate all these genes then they’re not much use it’s a bit like having money in your wallet but you can’t open your wallet you know the potential is there as humans we just have to optimize it for for our
Health so they are all over the place approx approximately three % of the human genome is under the control of this activated form of vitamin D quite amazing 3% of the human genome needs vitamin D to work properly so in us we’ve probably got about
21,000 active genes so we can see that a lot of them 3% of those require vitamin D for their normal physiological activation why aren’t the medical authorities getting this it really is not too hard to understand vitamin D has been observed to contribute to the synthesis of defensins these are small immune
Proteins and to be pivotal in the enhancement of phagocytic activity so the bacteria are GED up by fago cytic F Fage means to eat cytic cells eating cells aites that’ll eat up viruses and bacteria which of course is a good idea if you want to get rid of
Them um and to modul the immune system response by regulating the inflammatory Cascade so importantly people with vitamin D are less likely to get this runaway inflammatory cyto kind storm that of course kill so many people killed so many people in the pandemic and uh kills a lot of people still from
Sepsis why wouldn’t we want to mediate a pathological reaction to an infection because we haven’t got the vitamin D to damp it down now last picture I’ve got to show you here this is uh Professor Anderson’s actually just sent me this from Italy caly dial this is the activated form of
Vitamin D so when you take vitamin D as a tablet like you normally get from the supermarket it takes a week or two to um activate that into this active form so if You’ got someone who’s acutely ill and give them vitamin D they’re not going to get an immediate benefit but if
You give them the activated form which this is here this is the calc if dial the already activated form already available in Italy then that is there’s pretty good reason to believe that has an immediate benefit because this calid works within um a couple of hours we got that information from Dr Grimes
Just a week or two back Works within a couple hours whereas the vitamin D You Take by mouth takes a couple of weeks to work so if someone’s already topped up with vitamin D and they get an infection in the best position to combat that infection but but if someone gets an
Infection and their vitamin D is low then you could top it up with this and it works really quickly within a couple hours and that means that’s working actually way quicker than antibiotics so if someone’s got a viral infection the antibiotics aren’t going to work but the calid could probably help them if
Someone’s got a bacterial infection they need the antibiotics but why not optimize their immune system as well by making sure they’re topped up with calidi if their vitamin D levels are low so in my view everyone being admitted with an acute infection should have their vitamin D levels checked and if
Their vitamin D levels are low it should be considered to boost it with calid we really need studies on this but of course vitamin D and calid are not very expensive whereas new drugs from Big farmer tend to be astronomically expensive I’ll leave toate your own conclusions from what I’ve said there
For now uh thank you for watching and it feels good that we were Vindicated that we thought this was the case way back in early 2020 and the research is supporting it vitamin D reduces the incidence of getting covid in the first place reduces the likelihood of going to
Intensive care and if the studies were done I suspect we’ find the same for a whole range of viruses and bacterial infection because we are optimizing the immune system in in terms of vitamin D physiology which is essential for the activation of 3,000 genes over to the chief medical officers
I expect they’ll watch this video and act on this within days or not but you’ve watched it and thank you for watching
