%0 Journal Article %A Susan A Lanham-New %A Ann R Webb %A Kevin D Cashman %A Judy L Buttriss %A Joanne L Fallowfield %A Tash Masud %A Martin Hewison %A John C Mathers %A Mairead Kiely %A Ailsa A Welch %A Kate A Ward %A Pamela Magee %A Andrea L Darling %A Tom R Hill %A Carolyn Greig %A Colin P Smith %A Richard Murphy %A Sarah Leyland %A Roger Bouillon %A Sumantra Ray %A Martin Kohlmeier %T Vitamin D and SARS-CoV-2 virus/COVID-19 disease %D 2020 %R 10.1136/bmjnph-2020-000089 %J BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health %P bmjnph-2020-000089 %X Editor’s note The article by Lanham-New et al. constitutes a consensus of experts from the UK and other countries. They all agree that avoiding low vitamin D status is important for many health reasons, and possibly also because of the potentially, but not proven lower risk of infection and death from Covid-19, as more studies are needed. They agree that avoiding deficiency can usually be achieved within current national guidelines, highlighting vitamin D-rich foods and moderately dosed vitamin D supplements.Because the infection is still new, there is much that needs to be learned and many investigators are making great strides in understanding the role of specific nutrition factors for resisting infection and for the most effective treatment of ongoing disease.This Journal strives to apply rigorous scientific standards to all its content. Categorical general statements about the lack of benefit from vitamin D are not supported by any evidence at this time, not least because a growing number of observations and study results that point to an important role. They can even be contradictive as many as many people, especially in northern latitudes have poor vitamin D status, which is one of the overarching messages of the article.In the end, it is good to emphasize that the authors all agree, that preventing vitamin D deficiency is important for many health reasons, but for the prevention of deficiency the use of supplements with more than 4000 IU vitamin D is rarely necessary or justified and is strongly cautioned against. %U https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/bmjnph/early/2020/06/09/bmjnph-2020-000089.full.pdf