The body needs adequate amounts of Vitamin D to maintain and support the immune system against COVID-19. And low levels of this critical vitamin can increase the severity of the infection in patients, said experts.
Vitamin D is required to boost the immune system and studies have shown that deficiencies of this vitamin can lower the efficacy of COVID vaccines, said Dr Amitav Banerjee, professor and head of Community Medicines at D Y Patil Medical College Pune. He also added that low levels of Vitamin D can and also make the COVID infection in individuals more severe.
Dr Banerjee was speaking on the importance of lifestyle in the prevention of diseases during Health4All Episode, a programme run by a social advocacy group, Heal Foundation.
It is not just necessary to maintain a diet and exercise but a person needs to step outdoors for getting their mandatory dose of Vitamin D. It is also an important component of a healthy lifestyle, he added.
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Doctors have found that young adults are about four times more likely to have Vitamin D deficiencies, as compared to older adults due to the cultural and social changes that has happened over in the past few decades.
Vitamin D deficiency happens when your skin is not exposed to the sun. Banerjee said that even the traffic police suffer from Vitamin D deficiency despite being exposed to the sunlight most of the time. “They spend reasonably good time in the sunlight but their skin and face are covered and not exposed to the sunlight,” added Dr Banerjee.
Also, people who are not vaccinated and suffer from co-morbidities are more likely to succumb to COVID, said experts. According to the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), 64 per cent deaths in Delhi occurred because of this reason.
On Sunday, though COVID cases seemed to be on the decline as India reported below 50,000 COVID cases after a gap of 40 days, the death toll among people with comorbidities continued to rise in the country.