Vitamin D and COVID-19: mechanism and efficacy

WALTER MANUCHA

La Plata

Congreso; SAFIS + ALACF 2021 Joint Meeting; 2021

Asociación Latino Americana de Ciencias Fisiológicas (ALACF) y la Sociedad Argentina de Fisiología (SAFIS)

Numerous pharmaceutical drugs have been repurposed for use as treatments for COVID-19 disease. These drugs have not consistently demonstrated high efficacy in preventing or treating this serious condition and all have side effects to differing degrees. We encourage the continued consideration of the use of the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory agent, vitamin D, as a countermeasure to a SARS-CoV-2 infection. More than 100 scientific publications have identified vitamin D as a likely useful agent to treat this disease. Moreover, the publications cited provide the rationale for the use of vitamin D as a prophylactic agent against this condition. Vitamin D has pan-antiviral effects and it diminishes the severity of viral infections and reduces the death of animals infected with numerous different viruses, including three different coronaviruses. Network analyses, which compared drugs used to treat SARS-CoV-2 in humans, also predicted that vitamin D would be the most effective agent for preventing/treating COVID-19. Finally, when seriously-infected COVID-19 patients were treated with vitamin D, either alone or in combination with other medications, these treatments reduced the severity of infection, lowered the death rate and shortened the duration of hospitalization. Vitamin D?s ability to arrest SARS-CoV-2 infections may reduce health care exhaustion by limiting the need for hospitalization. Importantly, vitamin D has a high safety profile over a wide range of doses and lacks significant toxicity. Some molecular processes by which vitamin D resists a SARS-CoV-2 infection are summarized. The author believe that all available, potentially-beneficial drugs including vitamin D, that lack toxicity should be used in pandemics such as that caused by SARS-CoV-2.