Taking high daily doses of Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin, might reduce the risk of death from COVID-19 by up to 60%, according to a non-peer reviewed and contentious study from the University of Barcelona.
The study of COVID-19 patients admitted to a hospital in Barcelona found administering high doses of calcifediol early in treatment could cut deaths by up to 60%. Calcifediol is an intensive vitamin D3 analog usually used to treat secondary hyperparathyroidism in adult patients with stage 3 or 4 chronic kidney disease.
The parallel pilot randomized open label, double-masked clinical trial also showed patients with COVID-19 prescribed calcifediol were less likely to be admitted into intensive care. Given in large doses, calcifediol was shown to reduce by 80% the likelihood of severe COVID-19 outcomes as measured by intensive care unit admissions.
The study showed 36 of the 551 patients treated with calcifediol died from Covid-19 compared to 57 patients out of 379 in the control group.
The claim Vitamin D can improve COVID-19 outcomes is not new, however. Researchers from Northwestern University in Illinois previously found infections and deaths were higher in countries where people had lower vitamin D levels.
But the study has drawn its share of criticism. Naveed Sattar, professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, shows a huge dose of skepticism in the top line results because the study isn't a randomized controlled trial and no information on process of randomization. There's also the lack of placebo to contend with.
He said "this is not a useful study as it falls well short of a well conducted randomized trial. Whilst many wish to believe Vitamin D is the cure to COVID-19 or an exciting treatment, this 'trial' cannot allow any such inference. We must await robust randomized trials to form appropriate conclusions."
Vitamin D is called the Sunshine Vitamin because it's produced in human skin in response to sunlight. It assists in the absorption and utilization of calcium.
Vitamin D is different from other vitamins because it is a steroid hormone that controls over 100 different genes in the human body. It is called an essential vitamin because if people don't have it, they start experiencing health problems.
