Vitamin D Deficit Increases the Risk of Death from COVID-19 in Brazil

Introduction: The disease caused by the new Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was called COVID-19 and has currently been a public and emergency health concern in Brazil and other countries.

Aim: This article aims to describe the statistical associations of a group of patients who progressed to death with COVID-19 and who had a low level of Vitamin D in the blood.

Methods: This is an observational, case-control and clinical study involving 103 patients with COVID-19 and with severe symptoms that progressed to death.

Results: A total of 92 patients (89.3%) infected with COVID-19 died and had serum vitamin D levels significantly lower than 30 ng/ml. However, a total of 80 (77.6%) patients had a Vitamin D level of less than 20 ng/ml. Compared with the control group, all-cell levels of inflammatory markers were significantly higher in blood serum when level with Vitamin D from COVID-19 patients in the treatment group (n ≤ 30 ng/ml).

Conclusion: This study showed that patients with serum Vitamin D deficiency are more susceptible to the worsening of COVID-19 and it is generally associated with the release of cytokines as cellular markers mainly in the increase in pro-inflammatory cytokines.