Association of Vitamin D Deficiency and Treatment with COVID-19 Incidence
David O Meltzer dmeltzer at medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu, Thomas J Best, Hui Zhang, Tamara Vokes, Vineet Arora, Julian Solway
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.08.20095893
''This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review.
It reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.''
Data for the chart comes from table 4
Overvational study of mainly health-care workers in Chicago
Vitamin D levels were tested sometime in the year before being tested for COVID-19
Those whom most-supplemented with vitamin D were far less likely to test positive
Suspect 6X less likely to test positive if taking 10,000 IU for >3 months
Suspect 15X less likely to test positive if take a single dose of vitamin D (cost 4 cents) a few weeks before
Update Sept 26: He is working to launch 3 vitamin D trials and new observational analyses with additional large data.
 Download the PDF from Vitamin D Life
Importance: Vitamin D treatment has been found to decrease incidence of viral respiratory tract infection, especially in vitamin D deficiency. It is unknown whether COVID-19 incidence is associated with vitamin D deficiency and treatment.
Objective: To examine whether vitamin D deficiency and treatment are associated with testing positive for COVID-19. Design: Retrospective cohort study Setting: University of Chicago Medicine Participants: Patients tested for COVID-19 from 3/3/2020-4/10/2020. Vitamin D deficiency was defined by the most recent 25-hydroxycholecalciferol <20ng/ml or 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol <18pg/ml within 1 year before COVID-19 testing. Treatment was defined by the most recent vitamin D type and dose, and treatment changes between the time of the most recent vitamin D level and time of COVID-19 testing. Vitamin D deficiency and treatment changes were combined to categorize vitamin D status at the time of COVID-19 testing as likely deficient(last-level-deficient/treatment-not-increased), likely sufficient(last-level-not-deficient/treatment-not-decreased), or uncertain deficiency(last-level-deficient/treatment-increased or last-level-not-deficient/treatment-decreased).
Main Outcomes and Measures: The main outcome was testing positive for COVID-19. Multivariable analysis tested whether the most recent vitamin D level and treatment changes after that level were associated with testing positive for COVID-19 controlling for demographic and comorbidity indicators. Bivariate analyses of associations of treatment with vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 were performed.
Results: Among 4,314 patients tested for COVID-19, 499 had a vitamin D level in the year before testing. Vitamin D status at the time of COVID-19 testing was categorized as likely deficient for 127(25%) patients, likely sufficient for 291(58%) patients, and uncertain for 81(16%) patients. In multivariate analysis, testing positive for COVID-19 was associated with increasing age (RR(age<50)=1.05, p<0.021; RR(age≥50)=1.02,p<0.064)), non-white race(RR=2.54,p<0.01) and being likely vitamin D deficient (deficient/treatment-not-increased: RR=1.77,p<0.02) as compared to likely vitamin D sufficient(not-deficient/treatment-not-decreased), with predicted COVID-19 rates in the vitamin D deficient group of 21.6%(95%CI[14.0%-29.2%] ) versus 12.2%(95%CI[8.9%-15.4%]) in the vitamin D sufficient group. Vitamin D deficiency declined with increasing vitamin D dose, especially of vitamin D3. Vitamin D dose was not significantly associated with testing positive for COVID-19.
Conclusions and Relevance: Vitamin D deficiency that is not sufficiently treated is associated with COVID-19 risk. Testing and treatment for vitamin D deficiency to address COVID-19 warrant aggressive pursuit and study.
COVID-19 treated by Vitamin D - studies, reports, videos
Contents as of Nov 13:
- 36 trials, 3 trial results, 30 observations, 11 recommendations, 35 associations, 75 speculations, 26 videos
Top Vitamin D and COVID-19 recent updates
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- Vitamin D fighting COVID-19 meets Bradford Hill Criteria - Nov 2020
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- 15 studies indicating that Vitamin D fights COVID-19 - Dr. Grimes Oct 9, 2020
- 32X more likely to have severe-critical COVID-19 in Turkish hospital if Vitamin D deficient – Oct 5, 2020
- Vitamin D Cuts SARS-CoV-2 Infection Rate by Half Mercola Sept 28
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- 58% lower risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 if > 30 ng vs < 30 ng
- 2X higher risk of hospitialization if <30 ng
- ICU patients got semi-activated Vitamin D - death rate dropped to 2% from 50%
- Virtually no COVID-19 cases in countries having more than 30 ng of Vitamin D - Sept 17, 2020
- Studies on Vitamin D and COVID-19 (11 categories) - Sept 20, 2020
- Rate of COVID-19 test positive is 40 pcnt lower if high vitamin D (192,000 people) - Holick Sept 2020
- 14.7 X more likely to die of COVID-19 if less than 12 ng of Vitamin D (185 Germans) – Sept 10, 2020
- Low D increases risk of infection. Dr. Fauci Sept 11
- "If you're deficient in vitamin D, that does have an impact on your susceptibility to infection. I would not mind recommending, and I do it myself, taking vitamin D supplements,..." 32 minutes into Instagram interview
- Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IU of Vitamin D daily – Sept 2020
Click on chart for details
- COVID-19 defeated by activated Vitamin D in Spain - pilot RCT Aug 29, 2020
- WHO – Severe COVID-19 mortality reduced by hormones (should consider hormone D too) - Sept 2020
- Vitamin D in Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 (16 reasons) – Sept 1, 2020
Search Google Scholar for COVID-19 Vitamin D 20,000 publications Oct 10, 2020