Vitamin D: the best protection against attacks on the immune system

Vitamin D: your best and, until now, perhaps your only real defense against the new SARS-CO-2

Among all the options currently being tested to treat Covid-19, many doctors have opted to prescribe their patients a vitamin D supplement as a preventive measure. Learn here why and how you can include this vitamin-hormone in your routine to maintain an immune system resistant to the attacks it may be prone to.

In many cases of Covid-19 being treated in both New York and New Orleans, USA, it has been found that patients on ventilators are getting worse rather than better. So far, it is not really known whether it is because of the ventilator that the situation is getting worse or whether the condition in which the person arrives is so bad that putting them on the ventilator simply weakens them further.

In the Philippines, Indonesia and New Orleans, it has been found that deceased people had very low levels of vitamin D. In fact, in people with medium-high levels of vitamin D, the contagion was not so severe, and in people with adequate levels, the contagion was practically non-existent. Specifically in Indonesia, 98% of the deceased patients had vitamin D deficiency.

What is the mechanism that causes vitamin D deficiency?

In an interview with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a biochemist whose extensive research covers topics such as aging, cancer and nutrition, she indicates that 70% of the American population has vitamin D deficiency , which translated into numbers refers to less than 30 nanograms per milliliter of blood.

According to Patrick, it's a contradictory situation since the best way to get high levels of vitamin D naturally is by constantly exposing ourselves to sunlight. The problem is that we don't go outside anymore, especially now with all the isolation and quarantine instructions, so it's not surprising that levels are dropping even further. According to Patrick, 28% of the US population is deficient in vitamin D (less than 20 nanograms per ml of blood).

Vitamin D is absorbed from exposure to UVB radiation and is produced in the skin. For people living close to the hemispheres, this is a challenge because there are times during the year when UVB rays do not even touch the atmosphere, thus complicating the production of vitamin D.

If you have darker skin or come from areas near the equator, melanin protects you from sunburn because of increased and ongoing exposure to UVB rays. The thing is, melanin also obstructs your ability to produce vitamin D if you're not getting enough sun.

This is why people who live in places close to the hemispheres and have very white skin develop their own capacity to absorb more vitamin D. Meanwhile, a person from equatorial areas or India or Africa and who settles in a country like Sweden, the northern United States or Europe is highly vulnerable to vitamin D deficiency.

It is therefore suspected that many black people currently burdened with COVID-19 are so vulnerable due to their insufficient levels of vitamin D. Studies have shown that African Americans are 28 times more deficient in vitamin D than whites.

Studies in England and Wales have shown that black people are four times more likely to contract COVID-19 than white people living there. When further adjusting for factors such as socioeconomic standards and others, it turns out that they are twice as likely to contract the virus compared to other groups.

This is not about telling you that if you take vitamin D you will not get infected with COVID-19, and neither have sufficient and complete experiments been done to see if it can be used as a treatment. They are on the way, but they have not been finalized, so you have to take it as a preventive supplement, for the moment.

Apart from darker-skinned people, other population groups with vitamin D deficiency are the elderly, obese people (they can be up to 3 times more deficient in this vitamin compared to a person of normal weight who does not get enough sun or a supplement).

In the case of obese people in particular, the deficiency occurs because vitamin D is fat-soluble; after it is made in the skin, it is stored in the body's fat and released into the bloodstream to later become a HORMONE. Vitamin D transformed into a hormone regulates 5% or more of the protein encoded in the human genome. Imagine walking around without testosterone if you are a man or without estrogen if you are a woman; this is a steroid hormone, not a simple vitamin.

 

So what happens to people when their vitamin D level is insufficient?

First of all, there are vitamin D receptors on immune cells and the reason for this is that when the vitamin D hormone binds to a receptor it activates a number of genes and as we know genes act, for example, by regulating immune function.

There are people with variations in their genes that make them genetically deficient in vitamin D, which is called “random Mendelian analysis.” There, people are categorized not by their low vitamin D level but by their genetic disposition, making these people more susceptible to succumbing to respiratory infections, just by detecting that genetic disposition.

There have been nearly 25 studies in which vitamin D deficiency was given daily or weekly to people with vitamin D deficiency, and in more than half of the people treated, the risk of respiratory tract infection was reduced with vitamin supplementation alone. Even in people who had normal vitamin D levels, supplementation provided a protective effect, reducing the risk of infection by a further 10%.

There may be an overdose of vitamin D

The tolerable upper intake for humans has been estimated at 4,000 IU per day, but studies have shown that even people who have ingested 10,000 IU per day for years have not suffered from hypercalcemia or any problems related to this intake. However, too much vitamin D is said to be toxic.

Ideally, however, you should have a blood test that can measure your vitamin D levels. There is a tendency for people with levels greater than 60 nanograms per ml of blood to have a slight elevation of calcium without this being a cause for concern. However, there are meta-analyses of studies where vitamin K1 and/or K2 have been tested and found that both improved bone mineral density and protected against hypercalcemia.

When you take vitamin D, you absorb calcium better, as much as 40% more calcium from your diet. The problem is that calcium can easily form a precipitate in general, especially when there is phosphorus in the area, and vitamin D also increases the absorption of phosphorus in the body.

If you're wondering what the difference is between vitamin K1 and K2, the answer is that K1 goes to your liver and is involved in blood clotting, and when there is enough vitamin K1 circulating in the body, this vitamin dislodges calcium from the bloodstream and places it in places where it needs to work, whether it's the bones or the muscles.

Vitamin K2, on the other hand, stays in the periphery and does not go to the liver, but instead simply takes calcium out of the bloodstream and into the bones and muscles. So when taking a supplement, you can choose one or the other, or both a couple of times a week.

Vitamin K1 is found primarily in dark green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale, and it can be so easy to supplement if you include them in your weekly menu.

Vitamin K2 is not so easily found in the Western diet, it is found mainly in some fermented soy products, such as natto, for example.

Vitamin D and lung function

The reason why vitamin D is so important is because of its effect on lung function and what is more interesting is that the actual receptor to which the SARS-COV-2 virus attaches is called ACE-2 which is a stimulated interferon gene and plays a very important role in preventing lung damage and acute lung injury; as well as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

What has been demonstrated with SARS-COV-1, which also adheres to the ACE-2 receptor, is that it decreases the receptor and, by doing this, it enters the cell, weakening the organism while reducing ACE-2, which is a protector. Hypertension also causes a decrease in the ACE-2 receptor.

Providing vitamin D to the body increases ACE-2 receptors capable of protecting the respiratory system from lung damage.

In experiments with laboratory mice that were given vitamin D in a healthy state, it did not affect ACE-2 receptors at all, either in rats with lung damage or in hypertensive rats.

Drugs are designed to target a certain molecule and act on it in order to produce an increase or decrease result.

Many vitamins and hormones are designed to maintain homeostasis, if something goes wrong, they fix it, but without drastic measures like drugs. This should be clear because you should know that supplementing with vitamin D will not affect ACE-2 receptors.

Other studies have found that vitamin D did not increase ACE-2 levels in diabetic mice, but it did increase what is called soluble ACE-2, which is found in the periphery and could potentially adhere to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and prevent it from entering the cell through a sequestration mechanism. Because of this, vitamin D is currently being explored as a possible therapy.

It is important to know that the ACE-2 receptor plays a major role in inflammation. If ACE-2 is decreased, many things start to happen in the body. ACE-2 is important for the production of proinflammatory cytokines, since a lack of ACE-2 causes massive inflammation and acute lung injury, among other things.

Ideal level of vitamin D

As mentioned above, vitamin D is actually a steroid hormone that controls the expression of more than a thousand different genes in the human body. This means that vitamin D controls more than a thousand physiological processes in the body.

The primary source of vitamin D is UVB ultraviolet B rays. Our skin can make vitamin D when exposed to UVB radiation and it is not only us who have this ability: mushrooms that have been exposed to the sun can also make it. In this way, mushrooms that have been exposed to the sun can also be considered a source of vitamin D.

Factors that interfere with our ability to produce and use vitamin D:

1. Sunscreens

These products block UVB radiation

2. Skin pigmentation

Melanin is a natural sunscreen and therefore interferes with the production of vitamin D in the skin, so a person with dark skin may need to sunbathe more or, eventually, supplement with more vitamin D.

3. Age

As we age, our ability to produce vitamin D decreases to a quarter, meaning a 70-year-old person will produce ¼ of what they produced when they were 20 years old.

4. Body fat

Body fat affects the body's ability to use vitamin D by reducing its bioavailability because it is fat-soluble. That is, the more fat you have stored, the more vitamin D you have stored but the less vitamin D you have released into the bloodstream and bioavailable for the functions you need.

There is a sweet spot for you when it comes to vitamin D, as too much can be just as harmful as too little. Optimal levels of vitamin D in blood serum have been considered to be between 30-80 nanograms per milliliter of blood.

The safest and most effective way to increase your vitamin D levels is to increase your dietary intake. The richest source of vitamin D is fish, and when it comes to supplements, the human body's tolerated intake level is 4,000 international units (IU) per day, or even 5,000 IU.

Because each person is different and so is their need for the proper supplement concentration, it's a good idea to have your blood vitamin D levels tested.

How Vitamin D Can Affect the Way We Age

One of the interesting findings about vitamin D is that it helps regulate the aging process. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes whose function is to protect their DNA from damage. You can think of telomeres as the tips of shoelaces that protect them from fraying.

Every year our telomere count gets shorter until they eventually wear out and our cells die or become obsolete (senescent state). In fact, loss in telomere length is a biomarker of aging. This is where vitamin D comes into play:

Two studies in twins found that individuals with low levels of vitamin D also had shorter telomeres, meaning that telomere shortening correlates with 5 years of biological aging. Vitamin D's anti-inflammatory properties are thought to be partly responsible for slowing telomere shortening.

Further evidence that vitamin D helps regulate the aging process comes from a study where individuals in the top quartile (between 40-60 nanograms per ml of blood) actually had an increased life span.

Symptoms and signs that you may have vitamin D deficiency

1. Dark skin

As mentioned above, people with darker skin may need up to 10 times more sun exposure than a person with very fair skin. Skin pigmentation acts as a natural sunscreen, so the more pigment you have, the more sun or vitamin D you need, since melanin, which does not absorb much UVB radiation, reduces the skin's ability to produce vitamin D.

2. Discouragement

According to the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, one of the signs of vitamin D deficiency is low morale. To test this theory, researchers studied 80 older adults and found that those who had the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more likely to be depressed, compared to those who had normal levels of the vitamin.

Several studies suggest that seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is caused by vitamin D imbalances in the body. Changing levels of vitamin D in the brain can affect serotonin levels, which in turn impact a person's mood. Low serotonin levels are linked to depression because serotonin is a chemical and neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood, sleep, social behavior, appetite, and more. If you start to notice yourself getting sad, particularly during the winter months or times when you don't get much sunlight where you live, it's possible that your body's vitamin D levels may be deficient.

3. Over 50 years old

The reason older people are at risk for vitamin D deficiency is because their ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight decreases. In addition, vitamin D is activated in the kidneys, whose function declines as a person ages.

Older adults tend to exercise less and spend less time outdoors doing activities. According to the International Society of Clinical Densitometry, in the United States alone, 95% of seniors are vitamin D deficient. Not only do they spend less time in the sun, but because as they age, their ability to produce vitamin D is reduced by 30% compared to a younger person who gets the same amount of sun.

According to science, humans should expose themselves to the sun for at least 30 minutes and at least 2-3 times a week.

4. Obese, overweight or high muscle mass people

Since vitamin D is fat-soluble, the body stores it in fat and does not allow it to be released into the bloodstream, so people who are overweight or obese will need more vitamin D than a person of normal weight.

5. Pain in the bones

Many patients who visit the doctor complaining of bone pain are misdiagnosed as having fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. A blood test that measures vitamin D levels is ideal to rule out this possibility.

6. Sweaty head

According to studies, a sweaty head is one of the first signs of vitamin D deficiency. Many doctors ask mothers if their newborn babies have sweaty heads. Excessive sweating in newborn babies is due to neuromuscular irritability and is described as an early symptom of vitamin D deficiency.

7. Digestive problems

Knowing that vitamin D is fat-soluble, if you are experiencing gastrointestinal discomfort that affects your body's ability to store fat, you may have a decreased ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K. This can lead to diseases such as Crohn's disease, celiac and non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and inflammatory bowel disease.

How to supplement with vitamin D

The ideal thing is to ask your doctor for a blood test to determine the level of vitamin D in your body.

Apart from that, it has been determined that supplementing with up to 5000 IUs of vitamin D is well tolerated by the body and carries no risk of overdose.

There is the possibility of supplementing with vitamin D2 (from plant sources) and D3 (from animal sources). Supplementing with vitamin D3 is considered to allow higher levels of 25D or 25-hydroxyvitamin D to be obtained from the liver.

Also, as mentioned above, adding vitamin K1 or K2 or both helps ensure that vitamin D is transported to where it is needed in the body. So, don't forget to eat your green leafy vegetables regularly. On the K2 side, the ideal source is natto, which is fermented soybeans, although it doesn't look very appealing. But it is also found in the yolks of organic eggs, as well as in dairy products from animals that have been fed grass.