| Title: | The association between vitamin D status and COVID-19 in England: A cohort study using UK Biobank |
| Journal: | PLOS ONE |
| Published: | 6 Jun 2022 |
| Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35666716/ |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269064 |
| URL: | https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269064&type=printable |
Publication 14009
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Recent studies indicate that vitamin D supplementation may decrease respiratory tract infections, but the association between vitamin D and COVID-19 is still unclear.</p>
OBJECTIVE: To explore the association between vitamin D status and infections, hospitalisation, and mortality due to COVID-19.</p>
METHODS: We used UK Biobank, a nationwide cohort of 500,000 individuals aged between 40 and 69 years at recruitment between 2006 and 2010. We included people with at least one serum vitamin D test, living in England with linked primary care and inpatient records. The primary exposure was serum vitamin D status measured at recruitment, defined as deficiency at <25 nmol/L, insufficiency at 25-49 nmol/L and sufficiency at ≥ 50 nmol/L. Secondary exposures were self-reported or prescribed vitamin D supplements. The primary outcome was laboratory-confirmed or clinically diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections. The secondary outcomes included hospitalisation and mortality due to COVID-19. We used multivariable Cox regression models stratified by summertime months and non-summertime months, adjusting for demographic factors and underlying comorbidities.</p>
RESULTS: We included 307,512 participants (54.9% female, 55.9% over 70 years old) in our analysis. During summertime months, weak evidence existed that the vitamin D deficiency group had a lower hazard of being diagnosed with COVID-19 (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.86, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.77-0.95). During non-summertime, the vitamin D deficiency group had a higher hazard of COVID-19 compared with the vitamin D sufficient group (HR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.01-1.30). No evidence was found that vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency was associated with either hospitalisation or mortality due to COVID-19 in any time strata.</p>
CONCLUSION: We found no evidence of an association between historical vitamin D status and hospitalisation or mortality due to COVID-19, along with inconsistent results for any association between vitamin D and diagnosis of COVID-19. However, studies using more recent vitamin D measurements and systematic COVID-19 testing are needed.</p>
15 Keywords
- Adult
- Aged
- Biological Specimen Banks
- COVID-19
- COVID-19 Testing
- Cohort Studies
- England
- Female
- Humans
- Male
- Middle Aged
- SARS-CoV-2
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin D Deficiency
- Vitamins
6 Authors
- Liang-Yu Lin
- Amy Mulick
- Rohini Mathur
- Liam Smeeth
- Charlotte Warren-Gash
- Sinéad M. Langan
1 Application
| Application ID | Title |
|---|---|
| 51265 | Association between serum vitamin D deficiency and the risk of herpes zoster: a longitudinal UK Biobank study |
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