To D or not to D, during pandemic!

Vitamin D could have had been our winning mantra against the fear of CoVid19

Writing this quick blog post after a family member with low Vitamin D levels first got infected with CoVid19, while higher Vitamin D maintaining family members either didn’t catch an infection or were asymptomatic which indicates a better immune response, while this same family member had an emergency situation immediately post CoVid 19 recovery due to a vein rupture which is suspected on clotting/plaquing! A quick google search result indicates that ~80% of Urban Indians are Vitamin D deficient, which in a way explains the rural-urban divide of CoViD infections and related risks. Focussed epidemiological or random controlled studies will need to establish this causal linkage.

Photo by Jhorlind Rico Apal on Unsplash

Too much information and gimmicks around immunity boosters, minerals, vitamins, vaccines, and herbal tablets like Coro-nil/Shields have confused everyone. This has led to inaction by most of us even on essentials that keep us safe and healthy, Pandemic OR no Pandemic. Vitamin D has become one such victim of hyper information and Covid stay-at-home routine for so many families— which is otherwise naturally synthesized by being in the sunlight that converts Cholesterol present in our skin pores to our daily body requirement.

People with colored skin (Asians, Africans) need more sunlight than an average white-skinned Caucasian person to produce the daily needed quantity of Vitamin D (for an adult this is btw 5000–10000 IU) which is what it is due to millions of years of evolution. And add to that our modern lifestyles, we hardly get to venture out to naturally produce the daily required Vitamin D which is also a critical component and supply to our innate as well as adaptive immune system. Plus Vitamin D helps with the absorption of essential minerals like calcium & phosphorus from our daily diet. If we are deficient in Vitamin D, body starts breaking down its own internal calcium deposits from wherever possible and plaquing becomes another risk along with poor bone, neuroskeletal & tooth health. This risk gets heightened immediately post any major immune action in the body like post CoVid19, as replenishment of Immune Cells takes place.

Super Urgent Task- Assuming you and your family members live a lifestyle like mine which doesn’t give ample opportunity to produce enough Vitamin D naturally, please consult your family doctor on how much daily/weekly supplement does every family member need. And do you have a track of family’s Vitamin D, if not, does your family need to take blood tests to measure the same. After all with low Vitamin D- you have 77% more probability to catch CoVid19. (Do read the 1st reference research paper below)

Personal Disclaimer: Please don’t construe any of the above as medical advise, please consult your doctor and refer to research documents below to be better informed on the relationship btw VitD and CoVid/Immunity/Health. Vitamin D supplements are one of the cheapest, and one sachet of 60000 IU costs 35–50 INR which is good enough to be taken once a week/fortnight/month by an adult as per their own medical assessment.

World’s top immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci accepted on air, not so long ago of taking 6000 IU of Vitamin D3 supplement daily to sustain his daily Vit D requirement. I am assuming that his levels of Vitamin D shall anyways be >50 ng/mL.

References:

1. Relative risk of testing positive for COVID-19 was 1.77 times greater for patients with likely deficient vitamin D status compared with patients with likely sufficient vitamin D status, a difference that was statistically significant: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770157
2. Recent radio episode on NPR as to how we have missed this critical linkage btw Vitamin D & CoVid risks: https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/show-1240-the-link-between-vitamin-d-and-covid-19
3. An essential organic compound that has been shown to have a crucial effect on the immune responses. Altered levels of vitamin D3 have been associated, by recent observational studies, with a higher susceptibility of immune-mediated disorders and inflammatory diseases: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194221/
4. Exerts anticoagulant and antifibrotic activity, and modulates macrophage activity and cytokine generation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22314609/
5. Darker-skinned people may need anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours longer to get sufficient vitamin D, compared to lighter-skinned people. This is a major reason why darker-skinned people have a higher risk of deficiency: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124158535000133