{"id":88400,"date":"2020-09-18T11:47:44","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T15:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm\/?p=88400"},"modified":"2020-09-18T11:47:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-18T15:47:44","slug":"low-levels-of-25-hydoxyitamin-d-linked-to-covid-19-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2020\/09\/18\/low-levels-of-25-hydoxyitamin-d-linked-to-covid-19-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Low Levels of 25-Hydoxyitamin D Linked to COVID-19 Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What makes a person more likely to contract COVID-19? A lack of Vitamin D that was determined by the measurement of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood, according to a new study of more than 190,000 people led by Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor of Medicine, Physiology and Biophysics and Molecular Medicine at Boston University Medical Campus<\/p>\n<p>Vitamin D is known to affect both the innate and adaptive immune systems and may have a role in protecting against respiratory infections. Previous small studies have suggested a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and risk of infections and mortality from COVID-19, but the studies were mostly based on geographic trends in vitamin D status and COVID-19 infection rates rather than individual patients.<\/p>\n<p>This new retrospective study, which was published in<span>\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0239252\"><em>PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a><em>,<span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>showed a strong correlation between higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood levels and lower SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates especially in patients who lived in predominantly African-Americans and Hispanic zip codes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe evaluated more than 190,000 blood samples from patients of all ethnicities and ages infected with COVID in all 50 states.\u00a0 We observed that the higher that the patient&#8217;s blood level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D was, up to 55 ng\/mL lower was their risk of being infected with the coronavirus. \u00a0People of color have been particularly affected by COVID 19,\u201d said Dr. Holick.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that patients living in predominantly African-American and Hispanic zip codes were more likely to be vitamin D deficient and have a higher risk of acquiring the infection.\u00a0We found those patients who were vitamin D deficient (blood level 25-hydroxyvitamin D less than 20 ng\/mL) had a 54% higher positivity rate compared to those who were vitamin D sufficient (blood level 25-hydroxyvitamin D of at least 30 ng\/mL).\u00a0To achieve a blood level of 25 hydroxyvitamin D of at least 30 ng\/mL, the Endocrine Society Guidelines recommends infants, children and adults receive 400-1000 IUs, 600-1000 IUs and 1000-1500 IUs of vitamin D daily respectively.\u00a0Obese adults require 2-3 times more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis simple and inexpensive intervention of taking vitamin D can significantly help reduce risk of infection by this deadly virus,\u201d Dr. Holick concluded.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The retrospective study showed a strong correlation between higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood levels and lower SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates especially in patients who lived in predominantly African-Americans and Hispanic zip codes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[254,91,90,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88481,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88400\/revisions\/88481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}