===
Read Full Pdf HERE
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- The COVID-19 pandemic could be resolved in 30 days for about $2 per person, simply by taking affirmative action to raise vitamin D levels among the general public
- Optimizing your vitamin D could reduce your risk of severe COVID-19 by 90% and your risk of dying from it by 96%
- Data from 20 European countries found the probability of developing and dying from COVID-19 is negatively correlated with mean population vitamin D status; both probabilities reach zero at vitamin D levels above 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L)
- Warnings about "excessive vitamin D intakes" being dangerous are misleading and unwarranted, as toxicity has not been demonstrated until you hit blood levels above 200 ng/mL (500 nmol/L)
- Quercetin and zinc may further lower your risk of COVID-19, as well as time-restricted eating and a cyclical ketogenic diet as they both decrease insulin resistance
- Ketone esters and molecular hydrogen can be useful acutely. The MATH+ Protocol appears to also be effective for those with serious disease, especially implemented early in the hyperinflammatory phase of the disease
In a June 22, 2020, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service press release,1 Damien Downing, president of the British Society for Ecological Medicine, outlines how we could resolve the COVID-19 pandemic in 30 days for about $2 per person, simply by taking affirmative action to raise vitamin D levels. The downside or risk of doing this is basically nil, while the potential gain could be avoiding another COVID-19 spike altogether.
"If we could arrange to give everyone vitamin D, and it failed to protect them, so what? The risk from not acting is much greater than the risk from acting," Downing says, adding: "If you caught the COVID19 virus right now, having a good vitamin D status (from already having taken a supplement) would:
- Reduce your risk of the disease becoming severe by 90%
- Reduce your risk of dying by 96%
This is not 'proven' or 'evidence-based' until we have done controlled trials comparing it to placebo … But the data, already strong, has been pouring in since the start of the pandemic."
Although the required prospective randomized controlled trials using vitamin D have not yet been completed, they are indeed underway and results from many will be in before year's end. You can visit the clinical trials registry to review the current state of these trials.2 As of June 2020, there were over 20 studies in progress on the use of vitamin D in COVID-19.
Vitamin D and COVID-19
Downing goes on to cite research and supporting data. Among them is a study from the Philippines, which found that for each standard deviation increase in serum vitamin D, the odds of experiencing only mild disease rather than severe illness was 7.94 times greater, and the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a critical outcome was 19.61 times greater. According to the author:
"The results suggest that an increase in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could either improve clinical outcomes or mitigate worst (severe to critical) outcomes, while a decrease in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could worsen clinical outcomes of COVID-2019 patients."
Another study3 from Indonesia, which looked at data from 780 COVID-19 patients, found those with a vitamin D level between 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L) and 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L) had a sevenfold higher risk of death than those with a level above 30 ng/mL. Having a level below 20 ng/mL was associated with a 12 times higher risk of death. As noted by Downing:4
"With a deficient vitamin D status (<50nmol/L) the mortality rate from COVID-19 was 98.8% against 4.1% with adequate vitamin D (>75nmol/L). The Hazard Ratio is 24.1 … A Hazard Ratio of 4 means that in one condition, for instance vitamin D deficiency, you are 4 times more likely to suffer the 'hazard' than in another condition, say vitamin D adequacy."
A third paper,5 which provides data from 20 European countries, also found that "the probability of developing COVID-19, and of dying from it, is negatively correlated with mean population vitamin D status, with both probabilities reaching zero above about 75 nmol/L," (30 ng/mL) Downing notes.6
In their preprint submission of this paper,7 the authors concluded, "We believe that we can advise vitamin D supplementation to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection." Downing created the following graph8 to illustrate the data in that paper.