Vitamin D supplementation for the treatment of COVID-19: a living systematic review.

What It Covers

This systematic review looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

To assess bias in included studies, the researchers used the Cochrane risk of bias tool (ROB 2) for RCTs.

Why It Was Studied

The role of vitamin D supplementation as a treatment for COVID-19 has been a subject of considerable discussion.

The researchers followed standard Cochrane methodology.

Who the Included Studies Covered

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults.

How the Review Was Done

The researchers searched the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register, Web of Science and the WHO COVID-19 Global literature on coronavirus disease to identify completed and ongoing studies without language restrictions to 11 March 2021.

What Was Measured

The researchers included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating vitamin D supplementation for people with COVID-19, irrespective of disease severity, age, gender or ethnicity.

The researchers rated the certainty of evidence using the GRADE approach for the following prioritised outcome categories: individuals with moderate or severe COVID-19: all-cause mortality, clinical status, quality of life, adverse events, serious adverse events, and for individuals with asymptomatic or mild disease: all-cause mortality, development of severe clinical COVID-19 symptoms, quality of life, adverse events, serious adverse events.

The subject headings attached to it are 25-Hydroxyvitamin D 2, Adrenal Cortex Hormones, Azithromycin, Bias, COVID-19, Calcifediol and Cause of Death.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a systematic review of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Results are reported in around 29 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2021 (The Cochrane database of systematic reviews), a journal based in England.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.