Dr. Zorba Paster: Vitamin D deficiency connected to COVID-19 cases
Black Americans, especially African American women, are more likely to be infected by COVID-19 than whites. This has been known for some time, with questions centering around vitamin D levels.
We’ve known for years that vitamin D levels are lower in people of color. Researchers from Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center studied women from the Black Women’s Longitudinal Study started in 1995 and following nearly 60,000 women ages 21 through 69.
Participants periodically get questions about their health, their weight, whether they’ve developed hypertension, heart disease, cancer and, more recently, whether or not they got COVID.
They discovered that Black women who had deficient levels of vitamin D had a 70% greater risk of getting COVID. The outcome was strongest with those women who were overweight. That may explain why African American women seem to have more COVID than others.
We know other factors figure into getting COVID, such as how many live in your household, whether or not you completed high school and whether you live in a lower socioeconomic community. But that, along with other similar results for whites, shows that having enough vitamin D is important to protect you from COVID.
When you look at how vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis — with other controversial studies showing it may reduce heart disease and cancer — the only question is, why not take it?
https://madison.com/wsj/lifestyles/health-med-fit/advice/dr-zorba-paster-vitamin-d-deficiency-connected-to-covid-19-cases/article_b918c929-fe53-5f57-8dc8-521c5e841458.html
We’ve known for years that vitamin D levels are lower in people of color. Researchers from Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center studied women from the Black Women’s Longitudinal Study started in 1995 and following nearly 60,000 women ages 21 through 69.
Participants periodically get questions about their health, their weight, whether they’ve developed hypertension, heart disease, cancer and, more recently, whether or not they got COVID.
They discovered that Black women who had deficient levels of vitamin D had a 70% greater risk of getting COVID. The outcome was strongest with those women who were overweight. That may explain why African American women seem to have more COVID than others.
We know other factors figure into getting COVID, such as how many live in your household, whether or not you completed high school and whether you live in a lower socioeconomic community. But that, along with other similar results for whites, shows that having enough vitamin D is important to protect you from COVID.
When you look at how vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis — with other controversial studies showing it may reduce heart disease and cancer — the only question is, why not take it?
https://madison.com/wsj/lifestyles/health-med-fit/advice/dr-zorba-paster-vitamin-d-deficiency-connected-to-covid-19-cases/article_b918c929-fe53-5f57-8dc8-521c5e841458.html
