Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Dec 17:11:604579.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.604579. eCollection 2020.

COVID-19 Disease and Vitamin D: A Mini-Review

Mohamed Said Boulkrane  1 , Victoria Ilina  1 , Roman Melchakov  1 , Julia Fedotova  2   3 , Filippo Drago  4 , Lucia Gozzo  4 , Undurti Narasimha Das  5 , A M Abd El-Aty  6   7 , Denis Baranenko  1
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 Disease and Vitamin D: A Mini-Review

Mohamed Said Boulkrane et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, for which there is no effective treatment except employing prevention strategies, has already instituted significant number of deaths. In this review, we provide a scientific view on the potential role of vitamin D in SARS-CoV-2 virus/COVID-19 disease. Vitamin D is well-known to play a significant role in maintaining the immune health of an individual. Moreover, it induces antimicrobial peptide expression that can decrease viral replication and regulate the levels of pro-inflammatory/anti-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore, supplementation of vitamin D has the potential to reduce the incidence, severity and the risk of death from pneumonia resulting from the cytokine storm of many viral infections including COVID-19. We suggest that supplementation of subjects at high risk of COVID-19 with vitamin D (1.000 to 3.000 IU) to maintain its optimum serum concentrations may be of significant benefit for both in the prevention and treatment of the COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID 19; SARS-CoV-2; respiratory tract infection; vitamin D3; vitamin D3 receptor.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

UD was employed by the company UND Life Sciences LLC. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be constructed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

    1. Adams J. S., Ren S., Liu P. T., Chin R. F., Lagi Shetty V., Gombart A. F., et al. (2009). Vitamin d-directed rheostatic regulation of monocyte antibacterial responses. J. Immunol. 182, 4289–4295. 10.4049/jimmunol.0803736 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Adorini L., Penna G. (2009). Dendritic cell tolerogenicity: a key mechanism in immunomodulation by vitamin D receptor agonists, Hum. Immunol. 70 (5), 345–352. 10.1016/j.humimm.2009.01.016 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Agier J., Efenberger M., Brzezińska-Błaszczyk E. (2015). Cathelicidin impact on inflammatory cells. Cent. Eur. J. Immunol. 40, 225–235. 10.5114/ceji.2015.51359 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alipio M. M. (2020). Letter-preprint vitamin D supplementation could possibly improve clinical outcomes of patients infected with coronavirus-2019 (Covid-2019). Available at: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3571484 (Accessed 09 May, 2020).
    1. Amrein K., Scherkl M., Hoffmann M., Neuwersch-Sommeregger S., Köstenberger M., Berisha A. T., et al. (2020). Vitamin D deficiency 2.0: an update on the current status worldwide. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 20, 1–16. 10.1038/s41430-020-0558-y - DOI - PMC - PubMed