A new study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, has linked having a vitamin D deficiency to the lethality of coronavirus.
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Coronavirus/Vitamin D
A new study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, has suggested that vitamin D deficiencies might be one of the explanations for why coronavirus is fatal in some patients and not in others.
The study looked at the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and coronavirus deaths, and it also analyzed the overall vitamin D levels for the citizens of countries hit hardest with coronavirus deaths. However, other findings from the study have also suggested that vitamin D might be able to reduce the complications of coronavirus.
How? Researchers say the answer might lie in how coronavirus kills those infected with it.
GettyThis scan shows how coronavirus blocks lung function; the white areas show blockages, while the black spaces show where air is able to circulate.
New Scientist confirmed that the body’s overreactive immune response is largely responsible for causing the phenomenon which makes diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza fatal: cytokine storms.
Cytokines are small proteins involved in cell communication and inflammation. In an interview with Heavy, Washington State University Regents Professor James Krueger explained how coronavirus kills.
Krueger said there are more than 100 cytokines in the human body, most of which are anti-inflammatory, but contracting an infection is what typically triggers pro-inflammatory cytokines. New Scientist notes that this cytokine response is associated with MERS, multiple sclerosis, pancreatitis and SARS coronaviruses, such as COVID-19.
One of the reasons this can become problematic, Krueger said, is because of how many ways cytokines can be produced. For example, macrophages and immunocytes, which consume bacteria and viruses, are primed to produce more cytokines as products of their activity. Krueger also said the viral replication process can also kick-off cytokine production.
“The immune response causes a high production of cytokines,” Krueger said. “As the disease progresses, the cytokines go up.”
Krueger studied mice to find out how cytokine production affected the hypothalamus, a part of the brain which regulates body temperature, appetite, sleep, heart rate and other important functions. In his research, he found that the presence of cytokine clusters in the hypothalamus produced many of the same symptoms humans associate with being ill: the sweats and the chills, having a decreased appetite and feeling fatigued.
But the production of too many cytokines can cause a cytokine storm — a large collection of pro-inflammatory cytokines that cause blockages. Depending on where those are blockages are, they can affect things like breathing. For example, they can damage the alveoli of the lungs, which are responsible for helping exchange gas and air and they can also damage the bronchial tubes where air comes into the lungs.
GettyThis scan shows an advanced coronavirus infection in the lungs.
Krueger said that in most patients, a high production of cytokines in the lungs, nasal passages, respiratory system and hypothalamus produces a lot of the symptoms associated with sickness: feeling tightness in your chest, fatigue and anosmia (loss of smell).
“Almost everyone will get increases in the production of cytokines,” he said.
