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Vi vet sedan tidigare att D-vitamin kan skydda mot förkylning och influensa.

Nu finns även flera studier som pekar på att det också kan ge skydd mot covid-19.

– Det finns tydliga indicier och därför tycker jag att man ska förorda ett extra intag av D-vitamin, säger Mats Humble, forskare och tidigare överläkare vid universitetssjukhuset i Örebro.

Redan tidigt i våras uppmärksammade Mats Humble och några av hans kolleger, att det verkade finnas en koppling mellan låga D-vitaminnivåer och svårt covidsjuka patienter.

– När man började beskriva riskgrupperna för att drabbas svårt av covid-19 var det äldre, överviktiga, de med diabetes typ 2 och personer med mörk hy. Vi vet från tidigare forskning att det här är grupper som konsekvent ligger lägre i D-vitamin än andra grupper, säger Mats Humble som är psykiater, medicine doktor och forskare vid Örebro Universitet.

It is a well-known fact that vitamin D performs several important functions, from boosting immune health to regulating blood pressure. Over the past decade, multiple studies have also provided evidence that taking vitamin D could reduce the odds of developing infections like the common cold and the flu.

Given these precedents and the ongoing pandemic, scientists are now eager to determine if vitamin D could also help protect against COVID-19, the disease caused by the Wuhan coronavirus. In a recent study, researchers from Ireland and the U.K. looked at the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in European countries with varying severity of COVID-19 infection and found a significant correlation between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 risk and death rates.

Type 2 diabetes is becoming increasingly common worldwide, and not all patients can be successfully treated with the existing drugs. Axelsson et al. analyzed the pattern of gene expression associated with type 2 diabetes and compared it to the gene signatures for thousands of drug candidates to find compounds that could counteract the effects of diabetes. The leading candidate from this analysis was sulforaphane, a natural compound found in broccoli and other vegetables. The authors showed that sulforaphane inhibits glucose production in cultured cells and improves glucose tolerance in rodents on high-fat or high-fructose diets. Moreover, in a clinical trial, sulforaphane-containing broccoli sprout extract was well tolerated and improved fasting glucose in human patients with obesity and dysregulated type 2 diabetes.

There is so much we simply do not understand about the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19. We can test people, try to isolate those who are sick, and attempt to treat the various symptoms of patients as they arise, but to date, there is no pharmaceutical treatment or cure for the disease.

One of the issues that has baffled healthcare professionals is the question of why some COVID-19 patients experience only very mild symptoms, while others quickly develop life-threatening conditions, with some ultimately dying from the disease.

Scientists believe that in at least some cases, the patients’ own immune systems are going into overdrive, creating more damage than the virus itself.

This phenomenon, known as a cytokine storm, is not unique to the novel coronavirus, however. It is a well-recognized feature of autoimmune diseases like juvenile arthritis, and researchers have been looking for treatments to prevent these storms for some time.

One treatment which has a proven track record at reducing the effects of cytokine storms is intravenous vitamin C.

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