Consortium presses for policy change on vitamin D
A TILDA study had shown that 60 per cent of middle-aged and older adults in Ireland have insufficient vitamin D, the Oireachtas Health Committee heard last week, writes
Terence Cosgrave
Despite dozens of studies demonstrating the effectiveness of vitamin D in reducing intensive care (ICU) admission rates, ventilation and death from Covid-19, there has been no policy change to advance this extremely low-risk, cheap and potentially highly effective intervention to mitigate the pandemic crisis, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health was told by members of the Covit-D consortium last Tuesday (February 23).
Dr Daniel McCartney, Director of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, TU Dublin, said in his opening statement there was now an extensive body of international research showing the protective role of vitamin D against Covid-19, for example, large background studies pooling data from dozens of individual trials have described an approxi
Calls to include vitamin D as part of a national strategy to tackle COVID continues to gain momentum as health experts have pushed Ireland’s government to consider and act upon the latest evidence.
In an online meeting of the Joint Health Committee this week, Dr Daniel McCartney highlighted a lack of official action in the face of research suggesting a protective role of vitamin D against COVID-19.
“Despite the now dozens of positive studies including tens of thousands of participants, there has been no policy change in Ireland to advance what we believe to be an extremely low risk, readily implemented, cheap and potentially highly effective intervention to mitigate this public health crisis,” he said.
Vitamin D should be part of the government’s health measures to help prevent severe Covid-19 symptoms, experts have said.Professors and researchers say that explicit guidelines should be issued by
Health experts have called on the Government to introduce a vitamin D policy as a central element of its Living with Covid-19 strategy, the health committee has heard.