Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the wordpress-seo domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /var/www/html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6260 CRN Assembles Evidence Linking Vitamin D and COVID-19 for Education Initiative - Nutraceuticals World

What are you searching for?

Sign in
Market Updates, Research

CRN Assembles Evidence Linking Vitamin D and COVID-19 for Education Initiative

In its consumer education campaign, 'Vitamin D and Me!,' the organization shares topline data from 13 meta-analyses.

Author Image

By: Mike Montemarano

Associate Editor, Nutraceuticals World

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a proliferation of human clinical trials aiming to evaluate the potential role that vitamin D concentrations have in the infection rates and overall outcomes in patients affected by the virus.
 
Via its consumer education initiative, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) has presented 13 meta-analyses on the vitamin D and COVID-19 front, via its “Vitamin D and Me!” consumer education campaign. The website shares research, expert video interviews, news, and education in a user-friendly format, with a particular focus on U.S. consumers aged 55 and up, and has already brought over 160,000 visitors.
 
Across these systematic reviews, vitamin D blood concentrations appear to have a direct correlation with lowered incidences and severity of COVID-19 in most but not all of the research reviews.
 
“Increasing evidence suggests a link between higher vitamin D levels and lower incidence of COVID-19,” Luke Huber, ND, MBA, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at CRN, said. “We have known for years that vitamin D plays an important role in immune health, and now there are multiple meta-analyses that appear to demonstrate the benefits of this nutrient in COVID-19.”
 
The 13 recent meta-analyses were generated from more than 100 clinical trials published since the onset of the pandemic, most of which examined blood concentrations of vitamin D while two exclusively examined vitamin D consumption in relation to the disease.
 
Most of the reviews found direct correlations between vitamin D and lowered incidence of COVID-19, and several but not all meta-analyses found that more severe cases of COVID-19 and mortality were linked with lower vitamin D levels. One meta-analysis found reduced mortality with vitamin D intervention following COVID-19 diagnosis, while a smaller meta-analysis did not find a statistically significant relationship, with the two key differences between these reviews being timing and dosages.
 
“Consumers need science-based evidence to make informed health decisions,” Brian Wommack, executive director of the CRN Foundation, said. “We hope consumers use these findings to better understand how nutrients like vitamin D support their goal of living a healthy lifestyle.”
 
“This growing body of research does not indicate that vitamin D is a substitute for vaccines, mask wearing, social distancing, or other behaviors to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus,” Huber said, “but the data does suggest that vitamin D levels may play a role, in combination with other therapies, in strengthening the immune system to resist the virus.”
 
The meta-analyses included:
 
– “Association of vitamin D deficiency with COVID-19 infection severity: Systemic review and meta-analysis,” (Wang Z et. al, Clin Endocrinol, 2021), a review of 17 observational studies with 2,756 eligible adult patients which linked vitamin D deficiency to greater severity of COVID-19 infection.
 
– “A systematic review and meta-analysis of effect of vitamin D levels on the incidence of COVID-19,” (Szarpak L et al., Cardiology, 2021), a review which connected vitamin D blood status and COVID-19 infection rates. The study found that mean vitamin D levels in COVID-19 negative pateints was 17.7 ± 6.9 ng/mL compared to positive patients who had 14.1  ± 8.2 ng/mL across a population of 14,485 participants.
 
– “The Impact of Vitamin D Level on COVID-19 Infection: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” (Teshome A et al., Frontiers in Public Health, 2021), a meta-analysis of 14 studies which found that, on average, people with deficiencies in vitamin D were 80% more likely to acquire COVID-19 than those who had normal levels of vitamin D. The data was sourced from 14 studies with a pool of 91,120 participants.
 
– “Vitamin D Deficiency aggravates COVID-19: systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Pereira M et al., Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr, 2021), a review which utilized 26 studies sourced from 8,176 COVID-19 patients with a mean age of 58 years, which reported a positive association between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 severity.
 
– “Association of Vitamin D Status with SARS-CoV-2 Infection or COVID-19 Severity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” (Kazemi A et al., Advances in Nutrition, 2021) a meta-analysis sourced from 39 studies which found significant associations between 25(OH)D blood concentrations and both risk of COVID-19 infection and severe outcomes including death.
 
– “Low Vitamin D Status is associated with coronavirus disease 2019 outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Liu N et al., International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2021), a meta-analysis which found that both low vitamin D status and obesity increased the risk of testing positive for COVID-19. The review comprised ten articles published, which sourced data from 361,934 participants who on average were more likely to become infected with COVID-19 if they had a lower vitamin D level.
 
– “Vitamin D supplementation and clinical outcomes in COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis” (Pal R et al. J Endocrinol Invest., 2021) which assessed clinical outcomes and mortality in 2,933 COVID-19 patients across 13 studies. The review included studies which covered vitamin D supplementation before the diagnosis of COVID-19, and showed that the use of vitamin D supplements (oral cholecalciferol or oral calcifediol) was linked with improved clinical outcomes, though the dosages used in the studies were highly variable.
 
– “The role of vitamin D in the age of COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Ghasemian R et al., Int J Clin Pract., 2021), which sourced data from 23 studies altogether including 11,901 participants, concluding that low vitamin D status may influence whether or not one becomes infected with COVID-19 and may impact outcomes. In the meta-analysis, 41% of COVID-19 patients were suffering from vitamin D deficiency, and in 42% of patients, vitamin D levels were lower than normal range. Only 19% of participants had normal vitamin D levels. The meta-analysis also included other comorbidities such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, respiratory diseases, dementia, and depression/anxiety.
 
– “Low Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (Vitamin D) Level Is Associated with Susceptibility to COVID-19, Severity, and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” (Akbar MR et al., Frontiers in Nutrition, 2021), which investigated 14 studies including 999,179 participants to conclude that low 25-OHD concentrations were associated with both higher infection rates and mortality in COVID-19 patients compared to a control group.
 
– “The link between COVID-19 and Vitamin D (VIVID): A systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Bassatne A et al., Metabolism, 2021), a review of 31 observational studies including over 8,209 patients between the ages of 42 and 81. The researchers found positive but not statistically significant trends between 25-OHD levels and COVID-19 mortality, ICU admission, invasive ventilation, non-invasive ventilation, or positivity, though the authors characterized the studies as “largely poor-quality.”
 
– “Influence of 25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol levels on SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Crafa A, EClinicalMedicine, 2021), an investigation of 29 studies including adult participants which found that blood concentrations of vitamin D were lower in patients with COVID-19 than negative ones, vitamin D levels were significantly lower in patients with severe disease and those who died, and patients with vitamin D deficiency had an increased risk of developing severe disease but not a fatal outcome.
 
– “Therapeutic and prognostic role of vitamin D for COVID-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 43 observational studies,” (Petrelli F et al., J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol., 2021) a systematic review sourcing data from 612,601 patients. A small portion of these studies investigated supplementation, reporting a therapeutic effect on severity and mortality rate.
 
– “Vitamin D supplementation and COVID-19 treatment: A systematic review and meta-analysis,” (Rawat D, et al., Diabetes Metab Syndr., 2021), A review of five studies including 467 patients which found that there was no difference achieved with vitamin D supplementation on major health outcomes in COVID-19.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Get the latest Nutraceuticals World news, insights and analysis in your Google Search and AI experiences.

Add Nutraceuticals World as a preferred source on Google (opens in a new tab)

Keep Up With Our Content. Subscribe To Nutraceuticals World Newsletters

Topics