Does Vitamin D help with coronavirus?
SCIENTISTS believe Vitamin D could be hugely important in the fight against coronavirus, with evidence suggesting there is a relationship between Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 death rates.
Health bosses are now looking into the effectiveness of using vitamin D to treat patients with coronavirus, as studies have found that patients with low levels of are more likely to die after contracting the bug.
More than 85,000 have died from coronavirus in the US.
Does Vitamin D play a role in COVID-19 mortality rates?
Researchers from Northwestern University found that infections and deaths were higher in countries .
That includes such countries as Italy and Spain, which have both been hit hard by .
Researcher Vadi Backman says Vitamin D makes the immune system stronger and keeps it from becoming dangerously overactive.
"Our analysis shows that it might be as high as cutting the mortality rate in half," Backman wrote.
"It will not prevent a patient from contracting the virus, but it may reduce complications and prevent death in those who are infected."
Backman added in the journal : "While I think it is important for people to know that vitamin D deficiency might play a role in mortality, we don't need to push vitamin D on everybody."
A study in the UK found similar results.
"Vitamin D has been shown to protect against acute respiratory infections, and older adults, the group most deficient in vitamin D, are also the ones most seriously affected by COVID-19," Lee Smith of Anglia Ruskin University .
Fresh air , according to another expert.
Latest evidence suggests that patients with low vitamin D have seen higher fatality rates from the virus.
Melanin, the pigment that makes a person's skin darker, lowers the skin's ability to produce vitamin D in response to sunlight exposure.
And the body's ability to produce the vitamin also diminishes as a person gets older.
What to know about the Vitamin D coronavirus studies
Taking Vitamin D is mostly safe and good for you, but it might not keep you from getting sick.
The Center for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford said earlier this month that it "found no clinical evidence on vitamin D in COVID-19."
"There was no evidence related to vitamin D deficiency predisposing to COVID-19, nor were there studies of supplementation for preventing or treating COVID-19.
"There is some evidence that daily vitamin D3 supplementation over weeks to months may prevent other acute respiratory infections, particularly in people with low or very low vitamin D status."
The CEBM urges "the whole population of the UK should take vitamin D supplements to prevent vitamin D deficiency.
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"This advice applies irrespective of any possible link with respiratory infection.
"Clinicians should treat patients with vitamin D deficiency irrespective of any link with respiratory infection."
The Oxford researchers also urge policymakers to "attend to public health measures" to make sure everyone has adequate vitamin D intake.