Vitamin D deficiency linked to severity, deaths among hospitalised COVID-19 patients: Study

Patients with vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/mL) were 14 times more likely to have the severe or critical case of COVID than those with more than 40 ng/mL.

Washington: A new study has found that vitamin D deficiency is associated with severe cases of COVID-19 as well as mortality. The research has been published in the ‘PLOS ONE Journal’. In a study, researchers from the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University in Safed, Israel and the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, Israel showed a correlation between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 severity and mortality.

The study is among the first to analyze vitamin D levels prior to infection, which facilitates a more accurate assessment than during hospitalization, when levels may be lower secondary to the viral illness. The findings reported build upon results initially published on MedRxiv.

The records of 1,176 patients admitted between April 2020 and February 2021 to the Galilee Medical Center (GMC) with positive PCR tests were searched for vitamin D levels measured two weeks to two years prior to infection.