Immunity, Infections and Vitamins

The aim of this review is to explore the available scientific literature and elucidate whether infections, including COVID-19, can cause hypovitaminoses, and on the other hand, may hypovitaminoses be the risk factor for the weaker immune response to infection. Methods include literature search (PubMed, ScienceOpen). Conclusion: optimal nutritional status, especially of vitamins A, C, E and D, is important for the normal functioning of the immune system. It seems that infections can increase the expenditure of vitamins A and C, and vice versa, lower levels of vitamin A and C may be associated with an increased susceptibility for infections and increased risk for the development of severe forms of infection, including COVID-19. Immunomodulatory vitamins D and E are important for the optimization of the immune response to various infections, protecting thus the host from both severe forms of infection and hyperinflammatory immune response with the development of cytokine storm and/or autoimmune processes, which is especially important in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. It seems that vitamin K deficiency is an important modifiable risk factor for the development of severe forms of COVID-19 and that vitamin D and vitamin K deficiency are interrelated, and represent potentially a synergistic effect on the severity of COVID-19.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Title: ScienceOpen Preprints

Publisher: ScienceOpen

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 21 September 2022

Affiliations

[1 ] Clinical pharmacology and toxicology, University Hospital Center, Soltanska 1, 21000 Split, Croatia

Author notes

[* ]Email: domina.petric@ 123456gmail.com .

Author information

Domina Petric https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5609-1675

Article

DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-.PPJUWGJ.v1

SO-VID: 15b7be19-0b91-4d20-bd0a-6e5c88cb34f5

License:

This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

History

Date received : 21 September 2022

Funding

I have no funding. I have no grant number.

Data availability: Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

ScienceOpen disciplines: Medicine

Keywords: vitamins,immune system,infections,COVID-19

References

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Elkazzaz Mahmoud, Ahmed Amr Kamel Khalil, Shamkh Israa Mohamed, Abo El Magd Mohammed.F.. STRA6 (vitamin A receptor), as a Novel binding receptor of COVID-19. ScienceOpen. [Cross Ref]
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Semba Richard D.. The Discovery of the Vitamins. International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research. Vol. 82(5):310–315. 2012. Hogrefe Publishing Group. [Cross Ref]

[2] Calder Philip, Carr Anitra, Gombart Adrian, Eggersdorfer Manfred. Optimal Nutritional Status for a Well-Functioning Immune System Is an Important Factor to Protect against Viral Infections. Nutrients. Vol. 12(4)2020. MDPI AG. [Cross Ref]

[3] Stephensen Charles B. V<scp>ITAMIN</scp> A, I<scp>NFECTION</scp>, <scp>AND</scp> I<scp>MMUNE</scp> F<scp>UNCTION</scp>*. Annual Review of Nutrition. Vol. 21(1):167–192. 2001. Annual Reviews. [Cross Ref]

[4] Elkazzaz Mahmoud, Ahmed Amr Kamel Khalil, Shamkh Israa Mohamed, Abo El Magd Mohammed.F.. STRA6 (vitamin A receptor), as a Novel binding receptor of COVID-19. ScienceOpen. [Cross Ref]

[5] Li Rong, Wu Ka, Li Yu, Liang Xiao, Tse William Ka Fai, Yang Lu, Lai Keng Po. Revealing the targets and mechanisms of vitamin A in the treatment of COVID-19. Aging. Vol. 12(15):15784–15796. 2020. Impact Journals, LLC. [Cross Ref]