Pilot studies stir up debate about whether vitamin D analogs can help recovery in coronavirus patients

Cleveland, Ohio-A pilot study in Spain suggests that prescribing vitamin D analogs may benefit patients with coronavirus.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, a series of small studies have suggested that vitamin D can help prevent or treat COVID-19. There is no clear science to support such a claim, but armchair experts have been using the internet for the past few months to promote their potential interests.

The latest research to fuel the debate published in Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyWe conclude that calcifediol may reduce the severity of COVID-19 and keep patients away from the ICU. Calcifediol is not the same as over-the-counter vitamin D supplements. When a prescription is required and is commonly used in the treatment of chronic kidney disease, Mayo Clinic..

This study, like many of the earlier studies on coronavirus, is limited due to its small size. It included 76 coronavirus patients admitted to a Spanish hospital. Physicians provided calcifediol and standard treatment to 50 patients. The other 26 patients received only standard care.

Only one of the 50 patients treated with calcifediol needed to be admitted to the ICU and no one died. According to the study, 13 of the 26 patients in the standard treatment group needed to be admitted to the ICU and 2 died.

The authors of this study stated that the results were promising, but concluded that further studies were needed to clearly answer whether calcifediol would benefit patients with COVID-19.

“In conclusion, our pilot study showed that administration of calcifediol may improve the clinical outcome of subjects requiring hospitalization for COVID-19,” the authors wrote in the study. ing. “It is unclear whether it also applies to patients in the early stages of the disease, and whether baseline vitamin D status corrects these results.”

Indian doctors expressed concern about the study and ThePrint Some important details are omitted. Vitamin D levels in patients before receiving calcifediol are not measured. Also, the patient’s condition when the patient is admitted to the hospital is not recorded. He also told The Print that some patients in the standard treatment group have high blood pressure or diabetes and are at increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection.

This study is not the first to delineate the link between vitamin D levels and coronavirus. Just last week, a researcher at the University of Chicago Published a retrospective study It concludes that vitamin D deficiency can make people more susceptible to infections.

the study, Published in JAMA Network OpenWe examined 489 patients whose vitamin D levels were measured over the past year. We found that patients with a high probability of untreated vitamin D deficiency were 77% more likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those with a high probability of adequate vitamin D levels.

The authors said the findings seem to support an association between vitamin D levels and the risk of COVID-19 infection, but to say the least, randomized clinical trials are needed.

Ultimately, limited research on this topic divides healthcare professionals. In a post on June 16th at the Cleveland Clinic ConcultQD BlogHealth system researchers have called vitamin D “biologically plausible” that it may help prevent or treat COVID-19. However, they concluded that there was no solid study to support that hypothesis and that it should not be recommended to patients.

Clinic family medicine Dr. Donald Ford also warned drugstores to rush to buy vitamin D supplements Posted on May 18th, Clinic Health Blog.. If you take too much vitamin D Also creates health risks, A medical professional points out.

“You need to talk to your doctor because he needs to be careful before he does anything,” Ford said in a clinic blog post. “It may be worth investigating in this study.” However, based on the knowledge we have at this time, we cannot conclude that vitamin D intake helps prevent COVID-19. “