Vitamin D deficiency in patients with diabetes and COVID- 19 infection

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Data show that vitamin D deficiency may play a role in patients with diabetes mellitus and COVID-19 infection. In this article, we review evidence of vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 infection in context of diabetes mellitus. METHODS: A literature search was carried out by using the key term ‘COVID 19’ combined with ‘Diabetes’, ‘Vitamin D’, ‘Extra skeletal effects’, ‘immunity’, ‘infection’, ‘India’ from Pub Med (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD and Google Scholar from December 2019 to May 2020. A manual search of the references was also carried out. RESULTS: Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to increased morbidity and mortality in COVID -19 infections but convincing data on diabetic subgroup of patients in particular is still awaited. CONCLUSION: Robust studies are required to ascertain if Vitamin D supplementation could be beneficial in patients with diabetes and COVID-19.