Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 Feb 28;16(5):679.
doi: 10.3390/nu16050679.

Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marina Sartini  1   2 , Filippo Del Puente  3 , Martino Oliva  1 , Alessio Carbone  1 , Nicoletta Bobbio  3 , Elisa Schinca  1   2 , Luana Giribone  1 , Maria Luisa Cristina  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Preventive Vitamin D Supplementation and Risk for COVID-19 Infection: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Marina Sartini et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Over the past few decades, vitamin D has been found to play a crucial role in bone homeostasis, muscle function, oncogenesis, immune response and metabolism. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous researchers have tried to determine the role vitamin D might play in the immune response to the virus. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to demonstrate that preventive vitamin D supplementation can play a protective role in the incidence of COVID-19, mortality and admission to intensive care units (ICUs). A comprehensive search on the PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Cochrane and Google Scholar databases was performed on 15 May 2023, and two of the authors independently screened the literature. As effect measures, we calculated the Odds Ratios with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (ICs). The assessment of potential bias and the evaluation of study quality will be conducted independently by two researchers. Sixteen publications were selected for inclusion in the meta-analysis. 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). Subsequent analyses were conducted by type of subject treated (patient/healthcare workers) and type of supplementation (vitamin D vs. placebo/no treatment or high dose vs. low dose). Our meta-analysis suggests a definitive and significant association between the protective role of vitamin D and COVID-19 incidence and ICU admission.

Keywords: COVID-19; prevention; vitamin D.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA 2020 flow diagram of study selection, inclusion and synthesis [18].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plot of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted separately on healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients, as well as collectively [23,25,28,29,35,36].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plot of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing vitamin D supplementation to no supplementation [23,28,29,36].
Figure 4
Figure 4
Forest plot demonstrating ability of vitamin D supplementation to reduce ICU admission [22,27,31].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Bikle D.D. Vitamin D: Newer Concepts of Its Metabolism and Function at the Basic and Clinical Level. J. Endocr. Soc. 2020;4:bvz038. doi: 10.1210/jendso/bvz038. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Holick M.F. Vitamin D Deficiency. N. Engl. J. Med. 2007;357:266–281. doi: 10.1056/NEJMra070553. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Institute of Medicine (IOM) Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D. The National Academies Press; Washington, DC, USA: 2011. - PubMed
    1. Jones G. Vitamin D. In: Ross A.C., Caballero B., Cousins R.J., Tucker K.L., Ziegler T.R., editors. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease. 11th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Philadelphia, PA, USA: 2014.
    1. Brown L.L., Cohen B., Tabor D., Zappalà G., Maruvada P., Coates P.M. The vitamin D paradox in Black Americans: A systems-based approach to investigating clinical practice, research, and public health—Expert panel meeting report. BMC Proc. 2018;12((Suppl. S6)):6. doi: 10.1186/s12919-018-0102-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.