Role of Vitamin D in the Prevention of COVID-19
Meta-Analysis Confirms Favorable Role Overlooked by Medical Orthodoxy
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
I wondered if the medical orthodoxy had caught up to the emerging positive literature on vitamin D and the prevention of COVID-19. As of January 26, 2023, infectious disease specialist Dr. Daniel C. DeSimone said this about vitamin D on the Mayo Clinic website:
His message is uncertain on vitamin D but he uses the opportunity to tell you to “get vaccinated” and then to further seduce the reader into the novel genetic mRNA injections by stating “Having enough vitamin D also may have people get the most out of their COVID-19 vaccination.”
Sartini et al performed a meta-analysis of 7 randomized trials and 12 observational studies on vitamin D supplementation BEFORE COVID-19 illness involving 1,262,235 patients. The findings according to the authors were:
“Our findings indicate that vitamin D supplementation has a protective effect against the incidence of COVID-19 in RCT studies (OR 0.403, 95% IC 0.218, 0.747), in the incidence of COVID-19 in analytical studies (OR = 0.592, 95% IC 0.476–0.736) and in ICU admission (OR 0.317, 95% IC 0.147–0.680). The only RCT evaluating vitamin D supplementation prior to COVID-19 infection and subsequent mortality was performed on 66 participants. People receiving vitamin D (in this case, a single bolus of 80,000 IU) had significantly lower mortality after adjustment for all potential confounders. No other covariables were associated with mortality (OR 0.163, 95% IC 0.0.32–0.832). Regarding the analytical studies, no association was found between vitamin D supplementations prior to COVID-19 infection and relative mortality (OR 0.882, 95% IC 0.667–1.165). Out of the ten studies included, only three demonstrated a protective action of vitamin D against mortality in multivariable analysis.”
In summary, vitamin D supplementation (~5000 IU daily) was associated with a 40-60% reduced risks of COVID-19 and a 69% reduced chance of ICU admission. There were mixed data on mortality. Instead of trying to twist patient information on vitamin D into a vaccine promotion, the Mayo clinic should just summarize the data so patients can do their own research on this simple and safe intervention.
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Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
President, McCullough Foundation
It is an egregious failure of the majority of medical professionals, immunologists, epidemiologists etc. that the whole world does not already know about the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation, without which most people have only a fraction of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D their immune system needs to function properly.
Please read the research articles on vitamin D and the immune system which are cited and discussed at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/.
0.125 milligrams (5000 IU) a day is a good amount to take, on average, for normal weight adults. Below is a link to recommendations based on body weight and obesity status which are appropriate for every person, from infants to the elderly.
There's very little vitamin D3 in food, fortified or not. It can be generated by UV-B exposure of ideally white skin, but this is not available to most people far from the equator except in the middle of cloud-free summer days, without glass or sunscreen - and this UV-B damages DNA and so increases the risk of skin cancer.
Vitamin D3 cholecalciferol is hydroxylated, primarily in the liver, over several days, to become 25-hydroxyvitamin D calcifediol (AKA "calcidiol"). The kidneys need this, and so to many types of immune cell. Neither of these compounds function as hormones.
The third compound - 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D calcitriol is produced by the kidneys, to go into circulation in the bloodstream at a very low level (ca. 0.1 ng/mL) to hormonally signal to multiple cell types which are involved in calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism. This is the sole hormonal function of the three compounds. Individual immune cells can also generate calcitriol within themselves, when triggered to do so by cell-type specific conditions are detected by that individual cell. This calcitriol functions as an intracrine agent in that cell's intracrine signaling system, which changes its behaviour and so makes the cell respond properly to the detected condition. In some cell-types, some of this calcitriol diffuses to nearby cells, usually of different types, and affects their behaviour too. This is paracrine signaling. Neither of these signaling systems are hormonal, and they do not affect, nor are they affected, by the very low level of circulating calcitriol maintained by the kidneys.
Without proper vitamin D3 supplementation - in excess of the tiny amounts recommended by governments and many doctors (such as 0.015 mg 600 IU/day) - many white people, living far from the equator, have 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels only half of what their immune system needs to function properly.
In the absence of proper vitamin D3 supplementation, people with dark skin who live far from the equator have even lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than the white skinned people who live there. This is probably the biggest preventable cause of the well known health disparities which afflict dark skinned and/or sun-avoidant people who live far from the equator.
To attain a healthy level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D circulating in the bloodstream without the need for blood tests or medical monitoring, without excessive UV-B skin exposure, it is necessary to take an average daily amount of supplemental vitamin D3 which is calculated as a ratio of body weight, with higher ratios for those suffering from obesity.
Please see such recommendations, from New Jersey based Professor of Medicine, at https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/how-much-vitamin-d3-to-take. These are his slight simplification, announced in an FLCCC podcast, of the recommendations in his 2022 article in Nutrition: "Rapidly Increasing Serum 25(OH)D Boosts the Immune System, against Infections - Sepsis and COVID-19": https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997.
For 70 kg (154 lb) body weight, without obesity, 0.125 milligrams (1/8000th of a gram = 5000 IU) vitamin D3 a day, on average, will attain a healthy 25-hydroxyvitamin D level: 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L in the UK, Australia etc.) which is 1 part in 20,000,000 by mass. This is what is measured in "vitamin D" blood tests.
This level is higher than what most doctors think is necessary, because they are only aiming to attain what is needed for proper kidney function regarding regulating calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism: 20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L).
The scarily high sounding "5000 IUs" per day is a gram every 22 years - and pharma grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram.
If everyone supplemented vitamin D3 sufficiently to attain at least the 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L) circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D the immune system needs to work properly, then there would be numerous benefits, including:
1 - Little or no pandemic spread of COVID-19, including current more infectious variants, even in a population which had no immunity to SARS-CoV-2 due to prior infection or vaccination. Handwashing and not breathing, sneezing or coughing into most other people's faces are always good ideas, but there would be no need for masks, social distancing, lockdowns, real vaccines (Novavax) or the quasi-vaccine gene-therapy injections (Pfizer and Moderna mRNA - and AstraZeneca and J&J adenovirus vector).
There would be many fewer infected people, primarily due to each infected person having a less severe disease and so shedding fewer viruses. R0 would be below the pandemic level of 1.0 in almost all circumstances - the possible exceptions being people in confined spaces such as hospitals or submarines. Those infected would much more rarely need hospitalisation or die, assuming that inexpensive, generally safe, effective, treatments such as ivermectin were used in hospitals, or for outpatients with, or at significant risk of developing, serious symptoms.
2 - Likewise influenza and other infectious diseases.
3 - Greatly reduced rates of sepsis, which killed about 11 million people worldwide in 2017.
4 - Reduced risk of in-utero, peri-natal and neurodevelopmental problems including low birth weight, pre-eclampsia, autism, intellectual disability schizophrenia and ADHD: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.2.
5 - *Greatly* reduced risk of neurodegenerative disease: Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, multiple system atrophy, Alzheimer's disease etc.: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3.
6 - Reduced risk and severity of numerous auto-immune diseases.
For clinical emergencies, such as sepsis, COVID-19, ARDS, Kawasaki disease and MIS-C, ordinary daily healthy vitamin D3 intakes make little difference, because it takes months to raise typical low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, such as 10 to 20 ng/mL, safely above 50 ng/mL.
For average weight adults, a single bolus dose of 10 milligrams (400,000 IU) vitamin D3 will raise 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels safely over 50 ng/mL after several days, due to time it takes to hydroxylate it in the liver. (Actually, only about 1/4 of ingested vitamin D3 goes into circulation as 25-hydroxyvitamin D). This would save many lives, but the best treatment, which almost every sufferer of these diseases desperately needs, is, for 70 kg 154 lb body weight, to give a single oral dose of about 1 milligram of calcifediol. This *is* 25-hydroxyvitamin D. It does not need to be processed in the liver, so it raises 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels safely over 50 ng/mL in 4 hours or less.
The details of this 0.014 mg / kg body weight calcifediol protocol are in Prof. Wimalawansa's article, and at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#4.7.
I am still grappling with the reality that many doctors do not care about their patients.