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. 2021 Aug:44:372-378.
doi: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2021.05.011. Epub 2021 May 29.

Impact of vitamin D deficiency on COVID-19

Piumika Sooriyaarachchi  1 , Dhanushya T Jeyakumar  2 , Neil King  3 , Ranil Jayawardena  4
Affiliations

Impact of vitamin D deficiency on COVID-19

Piumika Sooriyaarachchi et al. Clin Nutr ESPEN. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Background & aims: COVID-19 has emerged as a global pandemic affecting millions of people. Vitamin D deficiency is one of the risk factors for increased susceptibility to COVID-19. This study aimed to examine the correlation between the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 infection and mortality rates among the adult population in European and Asian continents.

Methods: Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in each country was retrieved through literature searching on PubMed® database for the last ten years. As of December, 31st 2020, COVID-19 infections and mortalities per million population were extracted from the 'real time' statistics of the Worldometer website. The association between both vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 infections and mortalities were explored.

Results: Forty seven countries were included in the analysis. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency ranged from 6.9 to 81.8% in European countries and 2.0-87.5% in Asian countries. Significantly positive correlations were observed for both COVID-19 infection (r = 0.76; p < 0.001) and mortality rates (r = 0.75; p < 0.001) in the Asian continent. The correlation values for the infections and mortality rates in the European continent were (r = 0.37; p = 0.08) and (r = 0.43; p = 0.04) respectively. When both the continents were combined, the correlation results for both infection (r = 0.42; p = 0.003) and mortality (r = 0.35; p = 0.016) rates with vitamin D deficiency values remained significant.

Conclusion: Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with the mortality rate of COVID-19 in Europe and Asia. The association between the infection rate and prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was significant for Asia only. Both the associations were significant when the two continents were combined in the analysis. Therefore we suggest that vitamin D supplementation could play a key role in the prevention and/or treatment of the COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: Asia; COVID-19; Deficiency; Europe; Infections; Mortalities; Vitamin D.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scatter diagrams of the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency against COVID-19 infections and mortality rates.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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