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Those of you who are frequent readers here or who follow me on Twitter know one of my biggest pet peeves about the media’s and medical establishment’s response to COVID-19.
None have seemed particularly interested in elevating their constituents’ health or in truly empowering them to be proactive in their defense against COVID-19.
Next to no discussion about the impacts healthy living, vitamin supplementation, ideal weight maintenance, etc. could have on personal COVID-19 outcomes.
As I have mused on this site before, the establishment response to this virus has been based on a defensive mindset of scarcity, rather than from an offensive mindset of power.
Lock down this. Stay away from that.
All on the defense.
But what about offense?
Surely there are things we can do to take back power into our own hands (there always is) and better our odds of either not catching this virus or having a better outcome if we do.
The question on everyone’s minds is, can vitamin D give us that power?
More evidence indicates the answer could be yes.
I’ve written on a previous study out of Ireland that looked at broad vitamin D status and COVID-19 outcomes in many European countries.
The data looked good for vitamin D, but it was very early on in the pandemic and was yet incomplete. As far as research goes, it was a good start nonetheless.
But we would still need further evidence.
The following would qualify.
Researchers from the University of Chicago analyzed a cohort of 489 patients who had their vitamin D levels measured in the year before being tested for COVID-19.
They found that those who were deficient in vitamin D levels in the year prior were 1.77 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those who were not deficient.
That is a fairly eye-opening result for an inexpensive, easily-available vitamin supplement such as vitamin D.
Also of interest is the fact that they found an even greater relative risk of 2.54 times in those studied who were not white.
That is truly eye-opening.
It is of note as we know that those of darker skin complexion tend to not synthesize vitamin D through skin exposure to sunlight as those with lighter complexions do.
Is this the reason for the greater risk?
This particular study does not give us all the information we need to determine that answer but it is something to look into, among other potential factors.
It would be great to see if these results can be replicated among different populations (this was conducted on a local urban population at an academic medical center).
It would also be very useful to determine whether much of this impact was due most directly to vitamin D levels or if other factors that impact vitamin D levels, such as age and chronic illness, could have been mostly responsible for the observed differences in risk.
With all that said, in addition to what we have seen from other studies with positive results for vitamin D, these results are plenty to give us an indication of the potential power vitamin D might have to combat and prevent this disease that has brought much of the world to its knees.
Regardless of your world view on such things, it is vital that we determine this. The time for biases to be shoved to the side is long since past.
Hopefully we will continue to see more research done to replicate these results and, if possible, determine optimal supplement levels for those looking to protect themselves.
In the meantime, although vitamin D has a high tolerable limit, please talk to your doctor to determine what might be appropriate for you.
As always, thank you for being here and here’s to your health!
Reference: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770157
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