| It's not too weird if you think about it. Vitamin D boosts calcium serum levels in the blood. There are other factors, like adequate vitamin K, that prevent that calcium from precipitating on artery walls as plaque. So if someone's calcium metabolism is leading to calcification, vitamin D alone could accelerate that. But incidentally, that's one of several reasons vitamin D is thought to protect from bad covid outcomes: in studies, people with higher blood calcium levels were also shown to do better. Other electrolytes were also positively correlated with better covid outcomes as well. Aside from raising calcium serum levels vitamin D also directly modulates genes involved in the regulating angiotensin-renin system, including ACE-2. The third thing, vitamin D is involved in circadian rhythm signaling. Good sleep is important for overall well-being! Especially if you're sick. There are lots of papers and books about this stuff yet for some reason people still doubt that adequate vitamin D is important. The real atrocity of it is that some people with more melanin in their skin store less vitamin D, since more melanin means their skin can make it quicker in the presence of sunlight. But in regions where there's less sunlight, these people aren't keeping around as much vitamin D. I'm convinced this is one reason for disparity in COVID outcomes and it really bothers me that the early studies and theory papers about the vitamin D / calcium / COVID connection got so ignored in the face of blatant racial disparities in COVID outcomes. Vitamin D3 + K2 had huge potential to save lives, and people who knew what they were talking about advocated for this early on. I'm still frustrated that it took so long to catch on. |