Doctors can’t seem to decide on vitamin D.
At the height of the global coronavirus outbreak, doctors began to notice a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and the severity of COVID-19 disease, with one study finding that 80% of patients who finally succumbed to the disease often also had a low content of nutrients, which we derive mainly from sunlight.
However, these reports have been contested by researchers who remain conservative when it comes to supplementation, requiring more research before consumers are encouraged to add vitamin D capsules to their diet.
Vitamin D deficiency has been increasing for a long time, as humans spend less time working and away from home and more time toiling in offices and online – and this is true now more than ever during the pandemic.
But a new report by Spanish researchers at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona added evidence to the pro-D field, particularly D3 or calcifediol, as a treatment for patients with coronavirus. Their study of 930 patients with COVID-19 found that those who received the supplement, instead of a placebo, observed a “reduction in mortality by more than 60%”, wrote the study authors. In addition, these patients were 80% less likely to need intensive care in the hospital.
Only 36 of the 551 patients who took calcifediol died of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the control group of 379 patients lost 57 to the disease. In addition, only 5% of the D3 cohort was admitted to the ICU.
“This supports the completion of a pilot trial in Córdoba [Spain] in which treatment with calcifediol leads to a reduction of more than 50% in ICU admission in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 ”, according to the full report.
The results were shared by the Social Sciences Research Network as pre-published material, awaiting review by medical research peers. This did not stop some political leaders from praising the unverified findings, such as British lawmaker David Davis, who called UK health authorities should pay attention to the results of the study.
“Your findings are incredibly clear,” MP Davis said on Sunday, in a tweet liked by 25,000 Twitter users. “An 80% reduction in the need for an ICU and a 60% reduction in deaths, simply by giving very cheap and very safe therapy.”
However, the researcher from Yale F. Perry Wilson called the new report “super sus” in a series of tweets fired on Sunday.
“Guys, we need to talk about this vitamin D trial. I have no bet on this game – take vitamin D if you want, but this pre-impression is super sus,” he wrote.
“If true, this would be one of the (if not the most) effective treatments for COVID. But there are problems. . ., ”Suggested Wilson, pointing out that the type of“ randomized ”trial performed by doctors at Hospital del Mar was inconsistent with the statistical model used to produce the results.
“This is a super basic thing – you don’t call your study a randomized trial when it is a randomized cluster trial,” he added. “And the peer reviewers would have 100% asked them to come back and redo the statistics.”