An international team of researchers believes this is the first analysis of vitamin D prevalence with COVID-19 infections and mortalities across Asia, which includes 24 countries from the Middle East to Southeast Asia and vitamin D deficiency with a higher Linking COVID-19 Infection and Mortality Asian Countries.
Vitamin D supplementation has been called for by researchers in Ireland to help reduce the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. Studies in France have shown that older people who have previously taken vitamin D3 supplements are more likely to survive / get better results. A team of researchers from America, Europe and the UK has one open letter To the governments of the world calling for immediate increased daily intake of vitamin D for healthy adults to reduce COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and mortality.
Individual countries in Asia, including China, report links between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 infection and mortality, with serum vitamin D concentrations being significantly lower in COVID-19 patients. Now a team of international researchers from Australia, India and Sri Lanka has carried out an analysis of the prevalence of vitamin D with infections and mortalities across Asia in 24 countries, including assessing the effects of confounding factors such as obesity and diabetes, known as additional risk factors are for infection and mortality.
For this study, published in the journal Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews, data on COVID-19 infections and mortalities were collected on the Worldometer website. These data included the records derived directly from official government reports of individual countries and / or indirectly through reliable local resources. The WHO country profile database for non-communicable diseases was used to extract information on confounders, obesity and diabetes prevalence. Obesity was defined as BMI ≥ 30 and diabetes as fasting glucose concentration ≥ 7.0 mmol / l. In addition, information on the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in each country was collected from PubMed and Google Scholar literature searches. A serum concentration of less than 20 ng / ml (25 (OH) D) was defined as a deficiency.
All West Asian countries, including Kuwait, Qatar and Lebanon, reported higher levels of COVID-19 infections and mortalities than Southeast Asian countries like Brunei, Vietnam and Singapore. Infections were lowest in Vietnam, at 15 infections per million people, and highest in Bahrain, at 53,679 infections per million people. Vietnam reported the lowest death rate at 0.4 deaths per million people, while Iran recorded the highest death rate at 655 deaths per million people.
This study found that more than 50% of the adult population were vitamin D deficient in 18 of the 24 countries, with the lowest vitamin D deficiency in Vietnam being just 2%, while the highest in Oman at 87.5% was deficient in vitamin D. The results were outstanding despite the endless supply of sunlight to the Gulf region, possibly due to cultural and social habits that limit exposure to the sun. The prevalence of diabetes was roughly the same in 10 countries at 10% of the population, and the prevalence of obesity was highest in Bahrain at 35%, while it was lowest in Vietnam at just 2%.
In this study, vitamin D deficiency was significantly associated with COVID-19 infections and mortality in all 24 countries, and they were also more significant in patients with obesity and diabetes.
Restoring and maintaining immune imbalance is important as COVID-19 is believed to be caused by immune system dysregulation that causes a hyperinflammatory cytokine storm to fight the virus. This study suggests that vitamin D has a protective effect in reducing infectivity and mortality from COVID-19.
“People who are vitamin D deficient may receive daily or weekly supplements as this is being studied to protect against acute respiratory infections. The population at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency during this global pandemic should consider taking vitamin D supplements to maintain circulating 25 (OH) D in optimal amounts (75-125 nmol / L) hold. “ write the authors.
The researchers suspect that it could have been more precise to collect data for each country individually, as the BMI value can vary by region and the data extracted from the WHO databases may be out of date.
“Obesity limits may differ from this database if they focus on Asia as the limit would be lower due to differences in body composition.”
