What could more topical than Vitamin D and covid?
There have plenty of headlines recently about the various vaccination options assessing the speed of development, risk and public accessibility. It’s hard to miss the media’s interest in vaccines whether you’re in favour, anti or just plain confused.
While all this has been going Vit D has emerged as a contender for a safe, inexpensive readily available protective therapeutic “protocol” which. even in recent weeks, has been offered to care home residents. By the way, Vit D3 should not really be considered a treatment.
Most people will think of Vitamin D as the sunshine vitamin and it is true that, in simple terms, the chemical reaction reaction resulting from exposure to ultra violet B sunlight will produce vitamin D. But, and its a big but, this is dependent on a number of factors, including the season, your location, climate, skin pigmentation, use of sunburn preventative creams and lotions and even how much skin is exposed to the sun.
In short, even in Summer the further one lives away from the equator, the more prolonged cloudy days there are and how much time one spends out of doors are all significant factors in limiting the levels of vitamin D.
In the UK levels of vitamin D are likely to be low as they would be in most northern European countries and many of regions in the northeast and northwest of North America due the factors outlined above.
Even before the current level of interest, research scientists, microbiologists and immunologists have identified the place of vitamin D and vitamin D3 in particular, in providing an edge to elite athletes and keeping our bodies in a healthy balance. So its not surprising that this has, eventually, lead many medical experts to discuss the way our immune system works to defend itself in the times if significant crisis and whether nutrition has a place in the defence arsenal.
See the Vitamin D Society website for more detailed information.
Meanwhile, its worth reviewing what Vit D is and its importance in supporting the immune system – but that is for another post.