Study 1
Study type:
Retrospective cohort study. This type of observational study in which a group of individuals with a common exposure are compared to another group of individuals using historical records.
Purpose:
To investigate whether Vitamin D treatment can reduce the associated risk of COVID-19 infection.
Subjects:
- 220,265 American veterans supplemented with vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol or calcifediol)
- 34,710 supplemented with vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol or doxercalciferol)
- 407,860 untreated patients (control)
Duration:
January 1st 2019 to December 12th 2020 (before and during the pandemic)
Doses:
Dosage options included 20 IU, 40 IU, 100 IU, 125 IU, 200 IU, 250 IU, 400 IU, 500 IU, 800 IU, 1000 IU, 2000 IU, 5000 IU, 8000 IU, and 50,000 IU.
Source of data:
Veterans Administration Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) electronic health records between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020
Results:
In US veterans, Vitamin D supplementation during the pandemic was associated with a significant 20% and 28% reduction in COVID-19 infection rates for vitamin D3 and vitamin D2, respectively.
Vitamin D3 was associated with a significant 33% decrease in mortality within 30-days of COVID-19 infection and 25% lower with Vitamin D2.
Veterans receiving higher cumulative doses and higher average daily doses of Vitamin D had a greater associated reduction in COVID-19 infection rates than veterans receiving lower doses. The 50,000 IU dosage may be especially beneficial.
Based on these results, there would have been approximately 4 million fewer COVID-19 cases and 116,000 deaths avoided in 2020. These values were calculated by applying the estimated 20% average reduction in infection and 33% reduction in death after infection to a total of 19,860,000 cases and 351,999 deaths through 2020.
The COVID-19 rates were 2.66% among participants treated with vitamin D3 and 3.30% among the untreated participants, The rates of COVID-19 infection followed by death within 30 days were 0.23% among participants treated with vitamin D3 and 0.35% among untreated participants.
Conclusion:
Vitamin D3 could be a helpful tool for reducing the spread of COVID-19 infection and related deaths, particularly as a large proportion of the UK and US population have suboptimal blood levels of vitamin D.
Year:
2022 (November 12th)
Link: