Serum Levels of Vitamin C and Vitamin D in a Cohort of Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients of a North American Community Hospital Intensive Care Unit in May 2020: A Pilot Study.

Results of this pilot study support the need for further research to determine if vitamin C and vitamin D status should be assessed upon admission for COVID-19 and whether supplementation of either or both should be part of standard of care.

• Age appeared to be a predictor of mortality from COVID-19. Every 10-years’ increase in age increased risk of death 2.7-fold.
• Older age and low vitamin C level appeared as co-dependent risk factors for not surviving COVID-19, meaning age was not a predictor if one had adequate vitamin C status and vitamin C status was not a predicter without age.
• The majority of the patients had low vitamin D and vitamin C levels, elevated HbA1c was and obesity were common, but smoking was not.
• There were no differences detected in vitamin D or vitamin C status between survivors and non survivors.

21 critically ill patients (15 males, 6 females, age range 20-94 yrs) who tested positive for COVID-19 and where hospitalized in the ICU in a community hospital in Colorado in May 2020. Eleven survived.

The results of this small pilot study need to be interpreted with caution considering the very small group of patients and the fact that this is just a descriptive study. Additionally, many other parameters may have predicted the outcome that are not discussed here, such as other health conditions or previous medical history. It does support the need for further research.

These findings suggest the need to further explore whether caring for COVID-19 patients ought to routinely include measuring and correcting serum vitamin C and vitamin D levels, and whether treating critically ill COVID-19 warrants acute parenteral vitamin C and vitamin D replacement.

• This was a pilot study to measure vitamin C and vitamin D levels in a group of patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in a community hospital ICU.
• In addition, the study attempted to determine if there was any correlation between age, BMI, hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) (which is the average level of blood sugar levels over the previous 2-3 months), and whether patients smoked. Survivors also were compared to non survivors.

Arvinte C, Singh M, Marik PE. Serum Levels of Vitamin C and Vitamin D in a Cohort of Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients of a North American Community Hospital Intensive Care Unit in May 2020: A Pilot Study. Med Drug Discov. 2020 Dec;8:100064. doi: 10.1016/j.medidd.2020.100064. Epub 2020 Sep 18. PMID: 32964205; PMCID: PMC7499070.