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
Meta-Analysis
. 2021 May 19;114(3):175-181.
doi: 10.1093/qjmed/hcab009.

Vitamin D supplementation, COVID-19 and disease severity: a meta-analysis

K Shah  1 , D Saxena  1 , D Mavalankar  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Vitamin D supplementation, COVID-19 and disease severity: a meta-analysis

K Shah et al. QJM. .

Abstract

Objective: Current meta-analysis aims to understand the effect of oral supplementation of vitamin D on intensive care unit (ICU) requirement and mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Methods: Databases PubMed, preprint servers, and google scholar were searched from December 2019 to December 2020. Authors searched for the articles assessing role of vitamin D supplementation on COVID-19. Cochrane RevMan tool was used for quantitative assessment of the data, where heterogeneity was assessed using I2 and Q statistics and data was expressed using odds ratio with 95% confidence interval.

Results: Final meta-analysis involved pooled data of 532 hospitalized patients (189 on vitamin D supplementation and 343 on usual care/placebo) of COVID-19 from three studies (Two randomized controlled trials, one retrospective case-control study). Statistically (p<0.0001) lower ICU requirement was observed in patients with vitamin D supplementation as compared to patients without supplementations (odds ratio: 0.36; 95% CI: 0.210-0.626). However, it suffered from significant heterogeneity, which reduced after sensitivity analysis. In case of mortality, vitamin D supplements has comparable findings with placebo treatment/usual care (odds ratio: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.413-2.113; p=0.87). The studies did not show any publication bias and had fair quality score. Subgroup analysis could not be performed due to limited number of studies and hence dose and duration dependent effect of vitamin D could not be evaluated.

Conclusions: Although the current meta-analysis findings indicate potential role of vitamin D in improving COVID-19 severity in hospitalized patients, more robust data from randomized controlled trials are needed to substantiate its effects on mortality.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
PRISMA.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Forest plot for vitamin D supplementation on ICU stay.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Forest plot for vitamin D supplementation on mortality.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Funnel plot for vitamin D supplementation on ICU stay.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Funnel plot for vitamin D supplementation on mortality.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Gruber-Bzura BM. Vitamin D and influenza-prevention or therapy? Int J Mol Sci 2018; 19:2419. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Martineau AR, Jolliffe DA, Hooper RL, Greenberg L, Aloia JF, Bergman P, et al. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections: systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data. BMJ 2017; 356:i6583. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Xiao L, Xing C, Yang Z, Xu S, Wang M, Du H, et al. Vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of childhood acute respiratory infections: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Br J Nutr 2015; 114:1026–34. - PubMed
    1. Zisi D, Challa A, Makis A. The association between vitamin D status and infectious diseases of the respiratory system in infancy and childhood. Hormones (Athens) 2019; 18:353–63. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jolliffe DA, Camargo CA, Sluyter JD, Aglipay M, Aloia JF, Ganmaa D, et al. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory infections: systematic review and meta-analysis of aggregate data from randomised controlled trials. MedRxiv 2020; doi: 10.1101/2020.07.14.20152728. - PubMed

Publication types