(ORDO NEWS) — Researchers at the University of Toledo, Spain analyzed 26 published papers on the effects of vitamins on hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
The findings suggest that supplementation with vitamin D, vitamin C, and zinc does not affect mortality in severe cases of disease progression.
Throughout the pandemic, many theories have been put forward about the benefits of vitamins against coronavirus. Alas, not all of them are the same.
The new study focused on understanding whether there is clinical benefit from taking certain vitamin supplements in people who are very sick with COVID-19.
The study did not address the question of whether a pre-existing vitamin deficiency increases the severity of COVID-19 or whether supplementation can prevent the infection itself.
As part of the work, 10 studies in which controlled clinical trials were conducted and 16 observational studies were considered. The final analysis included data from 5633 hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
“Many people today believe that taking zinc, vitamin D, or vitamin C can help the clinical outcome of COVID-19,” said Azizullah Beran, lead author of the study. “It hasn’t been proven.”
So vitamins do not affect the outcome of COVID-19?
Looking more closely at the data, the researchers found that vitamin C and zinc supplements did not provide any benefit to hospitalized COVID-19 patients compared to those who did not take supplements.
However, there were small signals indicating that vitamin D supplementation may reduce a patient’s risk of intubation and shorten their overall hospital stay.
The researchers note with caution that there are discrepancies between studies on the benefits of vitamin D for the treatment of severe COVID-19.
Some studies failed to show any benefit from the intake, while others showed little benefit. Now, Beran and his colleagues are calling for a larger, more targeted clinical trial to confirm the impact of vitamin D on severe COVID-19 outcomes.
While this new study has focused on vitamin supplementation as a treatment for those suffering from severe COVID-19, research is ongoing to investigate whether a pre-existing vitamin deficiency may be contributing to disease severity.
So far, results on this are mixed, with some studies finding an association between pre-exposure vitamin D deficiency and increased disease severity and mortality, while others found no association.
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