Vitamins C & D Against COVID-19: 10 Facts Everyone Should Know
Will this pandemic ever end?
You’ve been doing everything you can to protect yourself from COVID-19 for months now, and you can’t wait to get vaccinated so that life can get back normal.
Unfortunately, though, even with the COVID-19 vaccines becoming available, life is never likely to return to ‘normal’ again.
That’s because coronavirus, which is a type of cold virus, mutates. So even with the first vaccines being rolled out, the COVID-19 threat, and that of its mutated strains, may persist longer than anyone has imagined.
So this is not the time to let our guards down and neglect the most important defense we have against the virus: our own bodies’ immune system.
There’s been a lot of talk and interest surrounding the role of vitamins C and D in boosting the immune system.
And a lot of misinformation.
This article will explain 10 accurate facts about vitamins C and D against COVID-19 which everyone should know.
1. Vitamins C and D may help your body kick some COVID-19 butt
Nutrition plays a large part in the immune system. You probably already knew that, right?
Vitamins C and D are among several nutrients that are especially critical for the immune system to function properly. Others are Zinc and Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as a host of other nutrients you’d normally find in multivitamin supplements, according to an article published in Nutrients.
Thus, if you can’t meet the US Recommended Daily Allowances (RDI) through a good diet alone, you should supplement daily with a good multivitamin formulation.
But the interesting thing is that the article also recommends vitamins C and D be taken in doses higher than the US RDI (but lower than the recommended maximum doses). They say this can help protect against upper respiratory tract infections, including COVID-19, especially in people who are deficient in these vitamins.
For vitamin C, this means taking at least 200 mg/day if you’re healthy, and 1 to 2 g/day if you’re sick. These doses are above the US RDI of about 100 mg/day and below the recommended maximum dose of 2 g/day for adults.
For vitamin D, this means taking at least 2000 IU/day, which is well above the US RDI of 400–800 IU/day depending on age.
2. Vitamin C may help with cold virus symptoms, including coronavirus
Coronavirus is actually one of many cold viruses that are ubiquitous in the environment. About 25% of cold viruses are coronaviruses.
COVID-19 is a new type of coronavirus that is much more virulent than regular coronaviruses. But some experts have been looking at the data we have on the effectiveness of vitamin C against regular coronaviruses for possible clues about whether it can help against COVID-19.
Vitamin C is well-known to be powerful antioxidant, and its effectiveness on the prevention of colds has been an area of controversy for decades.
In general, though, the scientific community seems to have settled on the conclusion that additional Vitamin C does not prevent healthy individuals from catching colds.
However, there does seem to be some evidence that vitamin C may shorten the duration and reduce symptoms of a cold once people have caught it.
These conclusions are based on data that pre-date the COVID-19 era, and higher-quality clinical trials are currently underway. Soon we’ll have a clearer picture regarding vitamin C and coronavirus infections, especially COVID-19.
3. High dose vitamin C may help with nasty COVID-19 symptoms
A group of experts recently reviewed more than 100 vitamin C trials. The review was published in Nutrients and concluded that high-dose vitamin C “has potential benefits in treating acute respiratory infections and mitigating inflammation in critical COVID-19 patients.”
In particular, the authors recommend that people in “high-risk groups for COVID-19 mortality, and at risk of vitamin C deficiency, should be encouraged to supplement with vitamin C daily to ensure vitamin C adequacy at all times, and to increase the dose when virally infected to up to 6–8 g/day.”
But knowing whether this will actually prevent people from entering that “critical phase” of a COVID-19 infection requires further data, so we’ll have to wait for research in this area to be completed.
4. International experts are pushing for vitamin C to against COVID-19
The above study is cited by a UK-led campaign called VitaminC4Covid, which is backed by an international consortium of “350 vitamin C researchers, doctors, healthcare professionals and nutritionists along with 5000+ signatories from about 60 countries.”
The consortium is a group of experts who advocate the use of high dose vitamin C, given intravenously or orally, to prevent severe COVID-19 symptoms.
They state that vitamin C may help to “suppress viral replication in the early stages,” as well as mitigate the inflammatory response of the body’s immune system that is believed to push a COVID-19 patient into the critical phase.
5. Certain seniors are often vitamin C deficient
Another interesting study is a recent epidemiological review, which found that vitamin C deficiency is a global phenomenon, affecting low- to middle-income countries and some sub-groups in high-income countries, which included the elderly in some settings, in particular.
Another review of available data published in July 2020, found age, sex and socioeconomic status to be among the factors that correlate with low vitamin C levels in seniors. So among the elderly, if they are overweight men, of lower socioeconomic status, and have concurrent medical conditions, there’s a good chance their vitamin C levels are low.
In fact, the VitaminC4Covid campaign focuses especially on raising awareness on the need to correct vitamin C deficiencies among seniors, because they are at higher risk for COVID-19 infections.
6. Vitamin C doesn’t protect everyone equally against COVID-19
For vitamin C to work it needs to enter the cells of the body with the help of a special transporter.
As interest in vitamin C research as been increasing, scientists have recently discovered that individuals can differ in the levels of this transporter that they have in their body, and those with lower levels of the transporter can’t put their vitamin C to work as efficiently as those with higher levels.
This may be one reason, actually, why we’ve had so much conflicting research results on vitamin C in the past.
7. Do you have enough vitamin D on board?
Moving on to vitamin D now, we already know that vitamin D deficiency is quite common, with rates being reported from 25–40% in Western countries. That means, there may be a 1 in 3 chance, on average, that you are vitamin D deficient.
Vitamin D deficiency is also more common in Hispanic and Black people, and it may be no coincidence that these groups of people are at higher risk than other groups to catch COVID-19 infections and suffer more severe symptoms.
Vitamin D levels are measured in terms of blood levels of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D in nanograms per milliliter. But while an adequate level in healthy individuals is 20–50 ng/mL, vitamin D deficiency is actually not diagnosed until levels fall below 12.5 ng/mL.
Vitamin D is less easy to come by in a normal diet, especially if you tend to avoid the sun. So it may be worthwhile for you to get your vitamin D level checked, to see that you are not vitamin D deficient.
Why? Keep reading.
8. COVID-19 loves people with low vitamin D levels
People with low vitamin D levels are more likely to test positive for COVID-19 infections.
For example, one study found that more than 80% of the 200 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Spain had vitamin D levels <20 ng/mL (the average level was 13.8 ng/mL).
What’s interesting about these results is that this average level is a little higher than that at which you’re diagnosed as vitamin D deficient (< 12.5 ng/mL).
That means, you may necessarily not have to be formally diagnosed as vitamin D deficient to be at a higher risk of getting COVID-19. If your level is not within the normal range (20–50 ng/mL), you may be more attractive to COVID-19 than those with levels within the normal range.
9. COVID-19 kills more people with low vitamin D levels
One study looked back at the data for 42 patients who had suffered the worst and most deadly complication of a COVID-19 infection — acute respiratory failure — which is basically a condition where your lungs fill up with so much fluid that they can no longer function properly to supply oxygen for your body.
What they found was that, after 10 days of hospitalization, patients with very low vitamin D levels (< 10 ng/mL) had a 50% chance of dying, while those with vitamin D levels ≥ 10 ng/mL had only a 5% chance of dying. That’s a huge difference!
And despite the relatively small number of subjects in the study, this difference was statistically significant, which means there’s little chance that the difference is not a true difference because it can happen by chance alone.
So it would seem that COVID-19 finds it easier to kill people with very low vitamin D levels.
10. The CDC and WHO don’t advocate vitamins C & D for COVID-19
Most of the authorities, including the CDC and WHO, do not recommend vitamins C or D supplementation, and generally any other nutritional supplementation, for COVID-19 prevention or treatment.
Their official position is that such nutrients are important to maintain a healthy immune system, which can fight infections of any kind. And that the best source of these nutrients is through diet. This may be true.
NIH’s position is a bit more circumspect, stating that there’s simply not enough data to advocate for or against vitamin C or D supplementation in patients who are healthy or sick.
So it looks like the decision is entirely up to you, the individual.
Certainly, if you may be deficient in these vitamins, it will be important for you to increase your intake either through diet or supplementation, as there is no question about the fact that these nutrients are important for maintaining a healthy immune system.
But if you’re eating a well-balanced diet and are not likely to be vitamin C or D deficient, then the bottom line is we simply don’t have the rock-solid information to say for sure that taking additional vitamin C and D increase your protection against COVID-19.
But as stated earlier, there are some experts who do recommend that you increase your intake above the US RDI’s of these vitamins, even if we might not have all the information quite yet, because the possible benefits of doing so outweigh the costs.
Finally, vitamin supplementation is but one of the ‘tools’ in a toolbox of measures we may take to support the immune system, including, but not limited to: sleep, exercise, and hydration.
There are other ‘tools’ that go beyond the immune system to protect again COVID-19, as well.
For more comprehensive approach to protecting yourself against COVID-19, check out, Want to Defeat COVID-19? Here’s 10 Ways to Prepare.
The Fight Isn’t Over…
After months of social distancing, isolation, and other measures to protect against COVID-19, it’s easy to think that the fight is almost over with the first vaccines finally being rolled out.
But this is no time to become complacent.
The best last line of defense against this virus is your own immune system.
You now have the facts to make an informed decision about whether there is a role for vitamins C and D in your own fight against COVID-19.
By taking care of your immune system, you give your body a better chance of finishing off infectious invaders before they mount a large-scale attack, as well as minimizing the attack.
You give your body the strength to beat the COVID-19 juggernaut.
The fight is still on.
But you can see to it so that your body crushes it.
