Media alert: Clinical study finds vitamin D significantly reduces need for ICU treatment for Covid patients
A new, clinical study has found that high doses of vitamin D supplementation significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment for Covid-19 patients.
The Spanish study – a pilot randomised, open label, double-masked clinical trial – investigated the effect of vitamin D supplementation on ICU admissions and mortality rates.
Among 76 patients hospitalised for Covid-19, it found that high doses of vitamin D “significantly reduced the need for ICU treatment of patients requiring hospitalization due to proven COVID-19.”
“Calcifediol [a pre-hormone produced in the liver used to assess a patient’s vitamin D status] seems to be able to reduce severity of the disease, but larger trials with groups properly matched will be required to show a definitive answer,” researchers noted.
The study found that:
- Of the patients who did not receive vitamin D, 50% became so ill that they needed to go to intensive care. Two patients died.
- Of the patients who received vitamin D, only one patient was sent to intensive care.
The patients received about 4 500iu of vitamin D per day for a week and then 1 500iu daily thereafter.
Health expert Vanessa Ascencao said this was the first clinical study of its kind. “It was a double blind study meaning that the patients and doctors didn’t know if they were administering vitamin D or a placebo – the gold standard. It’s small but very credible.”
“Vitamin D has increasingly been recognised through studies as playing a powerful role in helping boost immunity, the body’s first line of defence against infection and disease, to cut flu risk by up to 42% and to cut the risk of respiratory infections by half. But, absorption may be a problem which is why oral sprays are such an effective delivery mechanism. Studies show that BetterYou DLux vitamin D oral sprays have up to 228% higher blood reading compared to tablets and is formulated to provide optimum nutritional delivery to help elevate vitamin D levels.”
“I advocate a holistic approach to good health, including eating an abundance of nourishing foods such as fruit and vegetables, fatty fish, flaxseeds, olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds; exercise, getting enough restorative sleep, managing stress and taking high quality supplements with increased absorption like BetterYou DLux vitamin D oral spray,” said Ascencao.