ArticlePloS one2022
The association between vitamin D status and COVID-19 in England: A cohort study using UK Biobank.
Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- The bounds of meta-analytics and an alternative method.Epidemiology and health · 2024Pooled it
- The association between COVID-19 and incident gestational diabetes (GDM): A population-based case-control study of the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan.Journal of diabetes investigation · 2026Article
- Association between vitamin D and COVID-19 infection and mortality in Taiwanese patients.Journal of the Chinese Medical Association : JCMA · 2025Article
- Article
- Vitamin D Status in the Adult Population of Romania-Results of the European Health Examination Survey.Nutrients · 2024Article
- A systematic review: The relationship of COVID-19 to iron, zinc, and vitamin D.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2023Article
- Vitamin D, Menopausal Health and COVID-19: Critical Appraisal of Current Data.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Review
- Article
- Association between Vitamin D Status and Secondary Infections in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Admitted in the Intensive Care Unit of a Tertiary-Level Hospital in Turkey.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Association between 25-OH Vitamin D Deficiency and COVID-19 Severity in Pregnant Women.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- COVID-19 pandemic and vitamin D: rising trends in status and in daily amounts of vitamin D provided by supplements.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Clinical and Prognostic Significance of Baseline Serum Vitamin D Levels in Hospitalized Egyptian Covid-19 Patients.International journal of general medicine · 2022Article
- Adipokines, and not vitamin D, associate with antibody immune responses following dual BNT162b2 vaccination within individuals younger than 60 years.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecent studies indicate that vitamin D supplementation may decrease respiratory tract infections, but the association between vitamin D and COVID-19 is still unclear.
objectiveTo explore the association between vitamin D status and infections, hospitalisation, and mortality due to COVID-19.
methodsWe used UK Biobank, a nationwide cohort of 500,000 individuals aged between 40 and 69 years at recruitment between 2006 and 2010. We included people with at least one serum vitamin D test, living in England with linked primary care and inpatient records. The primary exposure was serum vitamin D status measured at recruitment, defined as deficiency at <25 nmol/L, insufficiency at 25-49 nmol/L and sufficiency at ≥ 50 nmol/L. Secondary exposures were self-reported or prescribed vitamin D supplements. The primary outcome was laboratory-confirmed or clinically diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections. The secondary outcomes included hospitalisation and mortality due to COVID-19. We used multivariable Cox regression models stratified by summertime months and non-summertime months, adjusting for demographic factors and underlying comorbidities.
resultsWe included 307,512 participants (54.9% female, 55.9% over 70 years old) in our analysis. During summertime months, weak evidence existed that the vitamin D deficiency group had a lower hazard of being diagnosed with COVID-19 (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.86, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.77-0.95). During non-summertime, the vitamin D deficiency group had a higher hazard of COVID-19 compared with the vitamin D sufficient group (HR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.01-1.30). No evidence was found that vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency was associated with either hospitalisation or mortality due to COVID-19 in any time strata.
conclusionWe found no evidence of an association between historical vitamin D status and hospitalisation or mortality due to COVID-19, along with inconsistent results for any association between vitamin D and diagnosis of COVID-19. However, studies using more recent vitamin D measurements and systematic COVID-19 testing are needed.
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