Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. Jan 25, 2022; 11(1): 85-89
Published online Jan 25, 2022. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v11.i1.85
Role of vitamin D deficiency and comorbidities in COVID-19
Gabriela Gama Freire Alberca, Ricardo Wesley Alberca
Gabriela Gama Freire Alberca, Department of Microbiology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences-University of São Paulo, São Paulo 04307-100, Brazil
Ricardo Wesley Alberca, Laboratorio de Dermatologia e Imunodeficiencias (LIM-56), Departamento de Dermatologia, Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo 04307-100, Brazil
Author contributions: Alberca GGF and Alberca RW contributed equally to this work; Alberca GGF and Alberca RW designed, analyzed the data and wrote the study; all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported by RWA holds a fellowship from Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), No. 19/02679-7.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ricardo Wesley Alberca, PhD, Academic Research, Research Fellow, Laboratorio de Dermatologia e Imunodeficiencias (LIM-56), Departamento de Dermatologia, Faculdade de Medicina FMUSP, Universidade de São Paulo, 455-Cerqueira César, São Paulo 04307-100, Brazil. ricardowesley@gmail.com
Received: May 26, 2021
Peer-review started: May 26, 2021
First decision: July 31, 2021
Revised: August 1, 2021
Accepted: November 14, 2021
Article in press: November 24, 2021
Published online: January 25, 2022
Abstract

Recent manuscripts described the incidence of vitamin D hypovitaminosis in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Vitamin D deficiency is also common in patients with comorbidities that are associated with a poor COVID-19 prognosis. In this letter, we review the literature regarding the association of comorbidities, vitamin D deficiency, and COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Comorbidities, Vitamin D

Core Tip: Vitamin D deficiency is a worldwide problem, and investigations on the benefits of regulating vitamin D levels and the immune response should be performed. Nevertheless, the association between low levels of vitamin D and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) needs to be further explored, especially investigations on the immune response to COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines in patients with and without comorbidities.