Covid-19 and Vitamin D

I’ve been doing a bit of digging into why BME people seem more susceptible to Covid-19 – apparently 68% of medical staff who have died so far are from a BME background.

… and they I found this on Twitter this morning, Dr. Mark D’Arcy is an academic molecular biologist.

and then this Covid-19 / Vitamin D advice from the Scottish Government (link to full advice here)and this from Public Health England in 2016

so ….. this won’t do you any harm ….

Eggs, oily fish and cod liver oil are rich in Vitamin D.

And on a day like today get some rays …. spring and summer sunshine naturally raise the Vitamin D levels in our bodies.

We have also heard that asthma suffers are at an increased risk from Covid-19, a bit of googling produced this (one of many many papers on the topic)

Full reference here

We have also heard that obesity can cause Covid-19 complications for patients … and this on the NHS website (again one of many many papers on the topic)

Full reference here

Obviously Covid-19 can cause major lung damage and create breathing difficulties. What about smoking and Vitamin D? (one of many many papers on the topic)

and the paper’s conclusions are as follows

Full reference here

And … I received this reference from a fellow Twitter follower (thanks @tivjon).

Full reference here

I haven’t cherry picked papers to make this point, the academic literature is full of papers on these topics. Of course this isn’t my field and I don’t really know what to make of it or what the implications are either but I did think it interesting enough to share and if you choose to eat eggs, oily fish and spend more time in the sunshine it won’t do you any harm and you never know it might do you some good.

BUT it is complicated .. this study (and a number of others) suggests that inappropriate dosages of Vitamin D can make immunosuppressed patient more ill.