New study finds Vitamin D ‘safe and effective’ in preventing COVID-19

A randomized controlled trial study published last week found that Vitamin D can significantly reduce your chances of contracting COVID-19, without producing any serious side effects. 

The peer-reviewed study, which recruited 321 frontline healthcare workers, received follow-up from 94 participants from the group that was administered Vitamin D and 98 from the group that was not. Of those who had taken Vitamin D, 6.4% contracted COVID-19, while 24.5% of those who had not taken the vitamin were infected with the virus. 

The study also found that Vitamin D is effective against COVID-19 regardless of the Vitamin D levels in the blood. 

Pre-existing evidence was supportive of Vitamin D being used as a treatment for COVID-19, though less conclusive. 

Vitamin D deficiency was found to be high in COVID patients admitted to the hospital. Another study suggested that insufficient vitamin D could account for almost 9 out of 10 COVID deaths. More recently, a retrospective study found that pre-infection deficiency of vitamin D is associated with increased COVID severity and mortality. With that background, vitamin D treatment seemed like a good thing to try. Studies using vitamin D as early treatment for COVID found an overall 80% improvement, and over 30% when used as a prophylactic.

But this new study is the first randomized controlled trial showing conclusively that Vitamin D is safe and effective against COVID-19, with statistical significance.  

“To our knowledge, this is the first controlled study evaluating the role of [Vitamin D] supplementation as a prophylactic measure to prevent SARS-Cov-2 infection and therefore has profound clinical and public health implications,” the researchers wrote. 

Some of the world’s leading physicians have been recommending Vitamin D as part of a COVID-19 treatment protocol. 

In February 2021, 220 professionals – most of them doctors – from 33 countries signed a letter advocating for the use of vitamin D to treat COVID-19. 

“Many factors are known to predispose individuals to higher risk from exposure to SARS-CoV-2, such as age, being male, comorbidities, etc., but inadequate vitamin D is by far the most easily and quickly modifiable risk factor with abundant evidence to support a large effect," read the letter. "Vitamin D is inexpensive and has negligible risk compared to the considerable risk of COVID-19.” 

“Given its safety, we call for immediate widespread increased vitamin D intakes,” the letter added.

With the COVID-19 vaccine admittedly unable to prevent infections, it is unclear whether Vitamin D will now be mandated to stave off the virus.