Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent COVID-19 Infections and Deaths—Accumulating Evidence from Epidemiological and Intervention Studies Calls for Immediate Action
1
German Cancer Research Center, Division of Clinical Epidemiology and Aging Research, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
2
Network Aging Research, Heidelberg University, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany
Academic Editor: Spyridon Karras
Nutrients 2021, 13(2), 411; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020411
Received: 28 December 2020 / Revised: 23 January 2021 / Accepted: 24 January 2021 / Published: 28 January 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vitamin D in the New Decade: Facts, Controversies, and Future Perspectives for Daily Clinical Practice)
The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented threat to human health, health care systems, public life, and economy around the globe. The repertoire of effective therapies for severe courses of the disease has remained limited. A large proportion of the world population suffers from vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency, with prevalence being particularly high among the COVID-19 high-risk populations. Vitamin D supplementation has been suggested as a potential option to prevent COVID-19 infections, severe courses, and deaths from the disease, but is not widely practiced. This article provides an up-to-date summary of recent epidemiological and intervention studies on a possible role of vitamin D supplementation for preventing severe COVID-19 cases and deaths. Despite limitations and remaining uncertainties, accumulating evidence strongly supports widespread vitamin D supplementation, in particular of high-risk populations, as well as high-dose supplementation of those infected. Given the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefit–risk ratio of such supplementation calls for immediate action even before results of ongoing large-scale randomized trials become available.
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Keywords:
COVID-19; mortality; prevention; supplementation; vitamin D
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Brenner, H. Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent COVID-19 Infections and Deaths—Accumulating Evidence from Epidemiological and Intervention Studies Calls for Immediate Action. Nutrients 2021, 13, 411. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020411
AMA Style
Brenner H. Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent COVID-19 Infections and Deaths—Accumulating Evidence from Epidemiological and Intervention Studies Calls for Immediate Action. Nutrients. 2021; 13(2):411. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020411
Chicago/Turabian StyleBrenner, Hermann. 2021. "Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent COVID-19 Infections and Deaths—Accumulating Evidence from Epidemiological and Intervention Studies Calls for Immediate Action" Nutrients 13, no. 2: 411. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020411
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