Vitamin D and Covid-19, is there a correlation?

Until a few months ago, for the Ministry of Health there was no scientific evidence of the protective role that Vitamin D can play in Coronavirus infection, so much so that the news was classified as a misinformation hoax.

In recent months, however, several scientific studies have confirmed that maintaining normal plasma levels of vitamin D may not only play a role in reducing the risk of acute respiratory tract infections, but could also be important in the treatment of Coronavirus. In particular, the beneficial effects of Vitamin D could be found in the treatment of two typical symptoms of the disease, anosmia, or loss of smell, and ageusia, or loss of taste.

Vitamin D is, in fact, a group of fat-soluble steroid prohormones. The two most important forms are constituted by vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol, of vegetable origin, and by vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol, synthesized in animal organisms starting from cholesterol. Vitamin D derived from sun exposure or from the diet, on the other hand, is in a biologically inactive form and must undergo two chemical reactions to be transformed into the biologically active form, calcitriol [1,25- (OH) 2-D].

The best known function of Vitamin D is to promote the reabsorption of calcium in the kidney, the intestinal absorption of phosphorus and calcium and the processes of bone mineralization. In fact, vitamin D also performs numerous extra-skeletal functions, thus influencing various physiological processes and intervening against inflammation and the immune system.

Beyond the numerous schools of thought regarding the use of vitamin D for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19, the connection between the two has been deepened in numerous studies (over 200 according to Publimed).

The ISS also shared the hypotheses of the scholars of the National Center for Global Health of the ISS, according to which adequate levels of vitamin D at the time of infection with Sars-CoV-2 could favor the protective action of the interferon of type I – one of the most powerful mediators of the body’s antiviral response – and strengthen innate antiviral immunity.

According to the study “Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of flu and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths”, vitamin D can reduce the risk of respiratory tract infections through several mechanisms:

– the induction of cathelicidins and defensins which can lower viral replication rates;

– reduction in the concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines that produce inflammation that damages the lining of the lungs, leading to pneumonia;

– by increasing the concentrations of anti-inflammatory cytokines.

It therefore seems clear that the now certain advantages of vitamin D for humans in relation to seasonal flu or other related ailments, may also play a new positive role in the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gesan Production manufactures the Vitamin D kit and its calibrator and control.