Vitamin D and Its Effects on Coronavirus Severity

As COVID-19 rises around the nation, many continue to seek ways to build immunity. Can vitamin D help decrease severity of symptoms?

Vitamin D and Its Effects on Coronavirus Severity

As COVID-19 rises around the nation, many continue to seek ways to build immunity.  Can vitamin D help decrease severity of symptoms?

The virus known as COVID-19, or the coronavirus, has ripped through the world in just one year and many places are currently seeing the largest rates of infection since the beginning of the pandemic.  As doctors and researchers learn more about the disease and its effects, there are also many studies being conducted and under review regarding immunity boosting nutrients or vitamins.  Limited studies have been produced but some are linking benefits of vitamin D to coronavirus severity.  

Benefits of Vitamin D 

Vitamin D is an important nutrient the human body needs to function in a healthy way.  According to Medical News Today, “Vitamin D is essential for several reasons, including maintaining healthy bones and teeth. It may also protect against a range of diseases and conditions, such as type 1 diabetes. Despite its name, vitamin D is not a vitamin, but a prohormone, or precursor of a hormone. Vitamins are nutrients that the body cannot create, and so a person must consume them in the diet. However, the body can produce vitamin D”.  Vitamin D can also help boost immunity and help in fighting disease.  Vitamin D can be absorbed through the skin when a person gets adequate sunlight, approximately 10-15 minutes a day.  Many people, especially those in colder climates and long winters, are at risk for vitamin D deficiency as they do not get out in the sunlight enough in the cold months.  Likewise, those who work indoors or work night shifts are also at risk for having too little vitamin D in their body.  General recommendations for vitamin D dosage for children and adults is 600 IU, or 15 mcg.  Those who do not get enough or close to recommended doses are at a greater risk in general for infection or disease.  (retrieved from Medical News Today).  

Vitamin D and Coronavirus

Several studies have been conducted over the past year regarding the supplementation of vitamin D and it’s correlation to coronavirus severity.  According to Healthline, recent scientific research has concluded that vitamin D supplementation might protect against respiratory infections, especially in people who were already deficient in vitamin D to begin with.  Keeping sufficient vitamin D levels in the body has been shown to potentially help aid in preventing serious complications or fatalities.  Furthermore, Medical News reports that studies showed a reduction in effects of the cytokine storm, which is the escalated inflammatory response that occurs in some individuals with the coronavirus. “Additional data suggests that vitamin D may reduce some of the unfavorable downstream immunological responses to COVID-19 that are associated with severe manifestations through the disease. Some of these downstream pathways that vitamin D may be involved in include preventing the rise of interleukin 6 (IL-6) levels and delaying the interferon-gamma response”. (retrieved from Medical News).  The Mayo Clinic also reports similar findings, showing that of those who had serious complications, vitamin D showed to help.  In a small, randomized study of 50 participants given a high dose of a type of vitamin D (calcifediol), only one needed to be treated in the ICU.  They had 26 patients who were not given the vitamin D, and 13 of the 26 participants needed to be treated in the ICU (retrieved from The Mayo Clinic).

Conclusion

Although supplementation with vitamin D is not proven to either prevent or treat the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), there have been a number of positive findings that support vitamin D as a helpful immune boosting nutrient.  These findings are in line with what has been supportive evidence in favor of vitamin D and its immune support against other viruses and infections.  Most people can benefit from vitamin D supplementation and from eating immune boosting foods. To see our blog on best foods to boost immunity, click here.  The best ways to prevent contracting the novel coronavirus remain social distancing, avoiding indoor gatherings, wearing a mask when in public and washing hands regularly.  Eating a healthy diet and making sure that the body is getting the daily recommendations of nutrients can help boost immunity and keep the body strong no matter what type of illness or infection.  

Coronavirus VS The Flu: Symptoms, Severity, Spread

The new coronavirus outbreak has made headlines in recent weeks, but there’s another viral epidemic hitting countries around the world: flu season.

The new coronavirus outbreak has made headlines in recent weeks, but there’s another viral epidemic hitting countries around the world: flu season. But how do these viruses compare, and which one is really more worrisome?

New Coronavirus VS The Flu

So far, the new coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, has led to more than 75,000 illnesses and 2,000 deaths, primarily in mainland China. But that’s nothing compared with the flu, also called influenza. In the U.S. alone, the flu has already caused an estimated 26 million illnesses, 250,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

That said, scientists have studied seasonal flu for decades. So, despite the danger of it, we know a lot about flu viruses and what to expect each season. In contrast, very little is known about COVID-19 because it’s so new. This means COVID-19 is something of a wild card in terms of how far it will spread and how many deaths it will cause. 

Scientists are racing to find out more about COVID-19, and our understanding of the virus that causes it and the threat it poses may change as new information becomes available. Based on what is known so far, here’s how it compares with the flu.

Symptoms And Severity

Both seasonal flu viruses (which include influenza A and influenza B viruses) and COVID-19 are contagious viruses that cause respiratory illness. 

Typical flu symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headaches, runny or stuffy nose, fatigue and, sometimes, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC. Flu symptoms often come on suddenly. Most people who get the flu will recover in less than two weeks. But in some people, the flu causes complications, including pneumonia. So far this flu season, about 1% of people in the United States have developed symptoms severe enough to be hospitalized, which is similar to the rate last season, according to data from the CDC.

With COVID-19, doctors are still trying to understand the full picture of disease symptoms and severity. In a small study of about 100 people with the virus, published Jan. 30 in the journal, The Lancet, the most common symptoms were fever, cough and shortness of breath. Only about 5% of patients in that study reported sore throat and runny nose, and only 1-2% reported diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. 

In a more recent study, considered the largest on COVID-19 cases to date, researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Protection, analyzed 44,672 confirmed cases in China between Dec. 31, 09 and Feb. 11, 2020. Of those cases, 80.9% (or 36,160 cases) were considered mild, 13.8% (6,168 cases) severe and 4.7% (2,087) critical. “Critical cases were those that exhibited respiratory failure, septic shock, and/or multiple organ dysfunction/failure,” the researchers wrote in the paper published in China CDC Weekly.

It’s important to note that, because respiratory viruses cause similar symptoms, it can be difficult to distinguish different respiratory viruses based on symptoms alone, according to WHO.

Virus Transmission

The measure scientists use to determine how easily a virus spreads is known as the “basic reproduction number,” or R0 (pronounced R-nought). This is an estimate of the average number of people who catch the virus from a single infected person, Live science previously reported. The flu has an R0 value of about 1.3, according to The New York Times.

Researchers are still working to determine the R0 for COVID-19. A study published Jan. 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) estimated an R0 value for the new coronavirus to be 2.2, meaning each infected person has been spreading the virus to an average of 2.2 people.

It’s important to note that R0 is not necessarily a constant number. Estimates can vary by location, depending on such factors as how often people come into contact with each other and the efforts taken to reduce viral spread, Live Science previously reported.

Source: Live Science