Vitamin D Levels Are Reduced at the Time of Hospital Admission in Sicilian SARS-CoV-2-Positive Patients
Open Access
- 27 March 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by MDPI AG in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
- Vol. 18 (7), 3491
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18073491
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a worldwide healthcare challenge that needs an efficient response. Unfortunately, to date there is no highly effective treatment, so a deep understanding of COVID-19 risk factors could be an important step in treating the disease. Vitamin D affects the immune system in many different ways, and other authors already found that COVID-19 patients have low levels of vitamin D. In our retrospective study, we evaluated the vitamin D status at the time of hospital admission in 50 COVID-19 patients in Sicily, which is the southernmost region of Italy, and compared them with 100 control subjects matched for age and sex. Our data showed markedly low levels of vitamin D in patients with a positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but no association was found with inflammation markers or clinical severity. Vitamin D levels were reduced at the time of hospital admission in Sicilian SARS-CoV-2-positive patients, but it is not clear whether this condition has an impact on the clinical course of COVID-19.Keywords
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