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Older people should take daily vitamin D supplements for their bone and muscle health, the Department of Health advised.
In a new board, the department says adults aged 65 and over should take a 15 microgram vitamin D supplement every day to maintain good bone and muscle health.
Some doctors believe that vitamin D, by strengthening the immune system, can help prevent or treat Covid-19. But the department says a commissioned study of this issue found no evidence to support the claim.
The study by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland cited two UK reviews which concluded that there was no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to specifically prevent or treat disease and that the evidence for vitamin D supplementation and acute respiratory tract infection risks were inconsistent and generally did not show a beneficial effect.
However, as these reviews have been completed, the UK government last month requested the National Institute of Clinical Excellence and Public Health England to produce vitamin D recommendations for the prevention and treatment of Covid.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly stressed the strong link between frailty among older people and low vitamin D levels.
“This link can actually lead to a cycle that sees people frail due to the low vitamin D level which prevents them from moving around and going outdoors and thus in turn this further contributes to poor vitamin D intake.”
He said the new guide “will help prevent that cycle” and help older people leave “happy and full lives”.
Vitamin D supplement can be taken as part of a multivitamin supplement, alongside calcium or on its own. Vitamin D is naturally available from the sun, but natural intake varies seasonally and is also lower among people with high melanin, so people of color are at greater risk of deficiency.
Blue fish and cheese
Concerns have been expressed that as people spend more time indoors during the pandemic, their vitamin D levels may be even lower than usual.
Almost half of the Irish population is deficient in the vitamin which is also available in foods such as oily fish and cheese.
Trinity College gerontologist Professor Rose Anne Kenny said people have “nothing to lose” and much to gain by taking vitamin D supplements as protection during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The evidence linking vitamin D deficiency with the severity of Covid-19 disease is “circumstantial but considerable,” he says.
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