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Meta-Analysis
. 2024 Feb 28;16(5):679.
doi: 10.3390/nu16050679.

Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marina Sartini  1   2 , Filippo Del Puente  3 , Martino Oliva  1 , Alessio Carbone  1 , Nicoletta Bobbio  3 , Elisa Schinca  1   2 , Luana Giribone  1 , Maria Luisa Cristina  1   2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marina Sartini et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Over the past few decades, vitamin D has been found to play a crucial role in bone homeostasis, muscle function, oncogenesis, immune response and metabolism. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous researchers have tried to determine the role vitamin D might play in the immune response to the virus. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to demonstrate that preventive vitamin D supplementation can play a protective role in the incidence of COVID-19, mortality and admission to intensive care units (ICUs). A comprehensive search on the PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Cochrane and Google Scholar databases was performed on 15 May 2023, and two of the authors independently screened the literature. As effect measures, we calculated the Odds Ratios with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (ICs). The assessment of potential bias and the evaluation of study quality will be conducted independently by two researchers. Sixteen publications were selected for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Our findings indicate that vitamin D supplementation has a protective effect against the incidence of COVID-19 in RCT studies (OR 0.403, 95% IC 0.218, 0.747), in the incidence of COVID-19 in analytical studies (OR = 0.592, 95% IC 0.476-0.736) and in ICU admission (OR 0.317, 95% IC 0.147-0.680). Subsequent analyses were conducted by type of subject treated (patient/healthcare workers) and type of supplementation (vitamin D vs. placebo/no treatment or high dose vs. low dose). Our meta-analysis suggests a definitive and significant association between the protective role of vitamin D and COVID-19 incidence and ICU admission.

Keywords: COVID-19; prevention; vitamin D.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA 2020 flow diagram of study selection, inclusion and synthesis [18].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plot of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted separately on healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients, as well as collectively [23,25,28,29,35,36].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plot of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing vitamin D supplementation to no supplementation [23,28,29,36].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Forest plot demonstrating ability of vitamin D supplementation to reduce ICU admission [22,27,31].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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