Yet More Evidence that Vitamin D Reduces the Risk of Hospitalization or Death due to COVID
Governments Need to WAKE UP!
It has been well-established for more than a year that those who were hospitalized with COVID or died of COVID infection typically had low levels of vitamin D3 in their blood.
There was some argument within the medical community as to whether these low Vitamin D level were the cause of serious COVID illness or a result of the disease. Some scientists argued there was some possibility that the COVID virus destroys Vitamin D in the body, in which case raising vitamin D levels through supplementation would not reduce COVID hospitalizations or deaths.
To eliminate this latter possibility, a group of German researchers did a literature search for studies where blood Vitamin D levels were measured early, either immediately after diagnosis, or, in one case, up to a year before the COVID infection occurred.
Their peer-reviewed analysis of data from one population study and six hospital studies was reported in the journal Nutrients on October 14th, 2021, under the title:
The journal article includes a review of the numerous ways Vitamin D is known to strengthen the immune system. Most importantly, vitamin D is known as an immune system modulator: It boosts the immune system whenever it is weak, and reins in the immune response if the immune system overreacts. This is very important because typically in a serious COVID infection the immune system’s over-reaction to the virus causes as much or more damage than the virus itself.
The study found a very strong negative correlation between Vitamin D levels in the blood and hospitalization or death among COVID patients. In other words, the higher the level of vitamin D a person had in their blood, the less likely they were to be hospitalized or die with COVID. The trend in the combined data was strong enough that the odds of it occurring by chance was one in a thousand.
Furthermore, their data strongly suggested that a person with 50 nanograms/millilitre or more of Vitamin D3 in their blood would have an extremely low risk of either hospitalization or death if infected with COVID.
The article recommended that anyone living in more northerly latitudes supplement their diet with between 5,000 and 10,000 International Units of Vitamin D during the winter months. They further recommended that anyone taking this level of Vitamin D supplementation also take 200 micrograms of vitamin K2 daily, and refrain from taking Calcium Supplements. (These latter two recommendations were designed to insure that Vitamin D supplementation did not interrupt the normal metabolism of Calcium in the body.)
Levels of serum vitamin D of 50ng/ml are quite common in people who spend lots of time outdoors in the summertime, so the recommended level of supplementation is simply designed to create in the winter the serum levels of Vitamin D a person with an active, healthy lifestyle would normally have in the summer months.
Dr. John Campbell covers the evidence for Vitamin D in the above journal article in two excellent Youtube videos.
The short version is here:
The longer, more detailed version is here:
Dr. Campbell is a retired professor of nursing. He has been producing excellent videos on the COVID pandemic for months. He was alerting people to research evidence suggesting the protective effects of vitamin D as long as nine months ago:
Dr Campbell is extremely well informed. He works very hard to back up anything he says with scientific evidence. For example, though he is generally favorable towards COVID vaccination, he is not afraid to talk about vaccine side-effects or the waning effectiveness of vaccines. This calm even-handedness is refreshing in an environment were information is often strongly polarized, or weak on documentation. I'm mentioning this because, in these three videos, Dr Campbell is far and away the most irate I've ever seen him. He is utterly incredulous that governments have been as out-to-lunch as they have been on the issue of vitamin D supplementation.
It's not as though there's a lack of clinical evidence evidence in support of vitamin D after 142 studies of the issue.
The issue of Canadians having inadequate levels of vitamin D, particularly in the winter time, has been known for a long time. A major study on this issue came out in 2016. A more readable summary of its findings can be found here:
That study reported that more than 90 percent of Canadians have blood levels of Vitamin D below the 40ng/ml. Even worse, one third of Canadians had Vitamin D levels below 20ng/ml. In other words more than 90 percent of Canadians have less than optimum levels of vitamin D, and one-third of Canadians have levels of vitamin D so low they are at high risk of hospitalization of death if they become infected with COVID.
That 2016 study also pointed out that low-levels of Vitamin D were associated with a diverse series of health risks, including higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, and respiratory infections.
Living in BC, I was curious whether my own Government would be proactive in alerting its citizens to the risks associated with low levels of Vitamin D, most particularly with regards to COVID.
The following document is from the BC Centre for Disease Control, at the BC Ministry of Health. It's entitled "Clinical Reference Group Recommendations: Therapies for COVID-19. UPDATED: October 19th, 2021."
Here's a screen shot taken from page 5 of the document:
I took a screen shot so you could know for sure: I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. The BC Government is saying you should only take Vitamin C or Vitamin D supplements to reduce your COVID risks if you are in an approved randomized trial.
How should we best describe this advice from the BC Government? Is it simply medical malpractice, or is it actually criminal negligence?
I understand what's going on. First of all, bureaucrats are incredibly afraid of making mistakes. If there's even a tiny chance Vitamin D supplementation may prove to be useless, they won't go out on a limb to recommend it. Secondly, it's very clear the BC Government wants everyone to get vaccinated. Telling people about anything they could do other than getting vaccinated to reduce their risk of dying of COVID might cause some people to hesitate on getting vaccinated.
Well, I would like to suggest to the BC Government, there is a way around these problems. Present the current research information in an even-handed way that allows for the limitations in the current data. Alert people to the risks associated with Vitamin D supplementation. And finally, present Vitamin D supplementation as a way to increase the effectiveness of vaccination.
I've even written a proposed press release for the BC Ministry of Health to speed up the process. Here it is:
For Immediate Release:
Recent research in the journal Nutrients has found a strong correlation between low blood levels of Vitamin D and hospitalization and death from COVID infection.
Given that more than 90 percent of Canadians have blood levels of vitamin D below the amount recommended by these researchers, particularly in the winter, BC residents may want to consider the possibility of taking supplemental Vitamin D3.
The researchers cited above recommend daily supplementation in the winter months of between 5,000 and 10,000 International Units of Vitamin D3 combined with 200mcg of Vitamin K2. Be aware this is far above the amounts of Vitamin D supplementation recommended by Health Canada.
Be aware that current research is still inconclusive. Researchers are only 99.9% sure that there is a relationship between low vitamin D and COVID mortality. There's fully one chance in a thousand that supplementing with Vitamin D3 will be completely useless. So make your own decision about whether it is worth spending approximately $10 per month on these supplements.
There are important side-effects associated with Vitamin D supplementation. Vitamin D supplementation has been shown to lower the risks of cancer, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, multiple sclerosisis, and lung infections. If any of these important side-effects are troubling to you, you are free to not take Vitamin D supplements.
The above researchers specifically recommended Vitamin D supplements to augment the effectiveness of vaccination. When you get your booster shots, your body will produce an even higher level of protection against COVID if you also supplement with vitamin D.
There you go, BC Ministry of Health, I've already written your press release for you. And, do you know the best part? Where the press release says that Vitamin D will increase the effectiveness of vaccinated people's immune response - I didn't make that up. They actually say that in the study!
Bruce O'Hara
P.S.: Be aware there are two ways of reporting blood levels of Vitamin D. One is nanograms per millilitre. (ng/ml) The other is nanomoles/litre (nm/l) If you have a Vitamin D test result in nm/l, you have to divide that number by 2.5 to get the result in nanograms/millilitre, which is the unit I have used in this posting, and which is the unit most commonly in the literature.