Vitamin D and COVID-19 misinformation

At the end of June 2020, various news outlets reported that taking vitamin D has no benefit for COVID-19. To see this for yourself, do an internet search with the following phrase: no evidence to support vitamin D for COVID-19. You will see that multiple articles appear in America and in the UK. The information originated in the National Health Service in the UK from the National Institute for Health Care Excellence.

The study looked at vitamin D status and found no relationship to COVID-19 outcomes. Here is a link to the report.

https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/es28/evidence/evidence-review-pdf-8777674477

It was not a supplementation study, although it says the UK government recommends that people take 400 IU of vitamin D per day. This is 10 times less vitamin D than the 4000 IU that are considered to be a physiologic dose by vitamin D researchers. Here is the conclusion in the report itself:

“There is no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to specifically prevent or treat COVID-19.”

This is an odd conclusion to make considering the studies they reviewed to create the report did not involve vitamin D supplementation. The reviewed studies only looked at vitamin D status. Unfortunately, the news outlets coverage of this report would deter people from taking vitamin D supplements.

The DeFlame approach to vitamin D is to take supplements and/or get adequate sun to make sure that blood levels of vitamin D are above 40 ng/ml. No one knows for sure the optimal level, which might be 60-80 ng/ml.

At DeFlame.com, we do not view vitamin D or any other supplement as a treatment for specific conditions, rather the approach to is eat a diet that is free of refined foods, rich in vegetation, in addition to taking basic supplements for the purpose of getting multiple easily measurable markers of inflammation into the normal range. This allows people to achieve an anti-inflammatory state that is resilient to inflammatory stimuli.

In the case of vitamin D, the average person needs between 2000-10,000 IU to get above 40 ng/ml. Achieving optimal blood levels of vitamin D should be the recommendation. In contrast, the UK recommendation to take 400 IU, will insure that no one achieves normal levels.

I created a video based on what the news outlets reported before looking at the original report, so consider the information in this blog to be complementary to that which I described in the video.