Does vitamin D protect against Covid after all?

Israeli study finds patients who are deficient are up to 14 TIMES more likely to fall severely ill.

Vitamin D may help fight off coronavirus after all, a study suggests.

The jury has been out on the 'sunshine vitamin' since early in the pandemic, with conflicting findings muddying the waters.

Papers that did find a link were deemed not rigorous enough and not definitive. But a new study — this time in Israel — claims to have the most conclusive evidence yet.

Previous research has been criticised for only looking at vitamin D levels when the Covid patient was already in hospital.

Being ill is known to make levels of the vitamin drop, which may have skewed findings, according to critics.

To overcome this limitation, in their latest study, researchers from Bar Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center looked at patient records up to two years before they were diagnosed with Covid.

They found people who were consistently deficient in the vitamin were up to 14 times more likely to suffer severe disease, even after adjusting for age and other underlying health woes.

The patients were in hospital before Israel's vaccine rollout was widespread and scientists said its findings should be seen as a green light for anti-vaxxers to turn to supplements instead.

People are still strongly encourage to get jabbed, with extra vitamin D only offering a helping hand alongside more steadfast protection against the virus.

The researchers measured vitamin D levels in 253 adult Covid patients from April 2020 to February 2021.

Those with vitamin D deficiencies were found to be significantly more likely to develop severe Covid than patients with high levels of the vitamin.

They said the association was so strong they could predict Covid patient outcomes just by their age and vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D is vital in helping the immune system respond properly to the virus, they said. But they could not prove higher vitamin D levels were the only factor behind better disease outcomes in Covid patients.

Dr Amiel Dror, a physician at RMC and one of the researchers behind the study, said the results were also as important for Omicron as the previous variants patients in the paper had.

It comes on the back of a host of studies suggesting the 'sunshine vitamin' — usually sourced from sunlight — can help protect against the virus.

But the research was not deemed strong enough by the UK Department of Health to warrant continuing A previous scheme of giving out 3p Vitamin D pills to the clinically vulnerable in winter.

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