Vitamin D and COVID-19 – what is the link?
24 June 2020
Acuity digital
Does vitamin D play a role in reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection, and what does this mean to the UK’s BAME communities? Mike Bowen, Director of Research at the College of Optometrists, considers the evidence.
The upcoming editorial in OPO by Professors Lawrenson and Buckley provides an excellent summary of the current state of the evidence in relation to eye health and COVID-19. It is the result of much work, as well as an elegant new artificial intelligence algorithm being used by Cochrane Eye and Vision (CEV) to rapidly identify new research relevant to eyes and vision across a wide range of topics.
Although these aspects of the emerging COVID-19-related evidence are clearly of particular relevance to optometrists, there is a wealth of other material being produced rapidly. The difficulty is that it can be hard to tell which elements of the fast-growing evidence base may be – or might become – important to UK eye health and optometric practice. Building on the excellent foundation provided by John and Roger, this article aims to pull out some of the key research, and also to highlight some of the areas about which we lack adequate evidence.
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