Letter to the editor: “Clinical significance of micronutrient supplements in patients with coronavirus disease 2019: A comprehensive systematic review and meta-Analysis”

The recent interesting article by Azizullah Beran and colleagues reviewed the clinical significance of the micronutrient supplements vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc as treatment options in coronavirus disease 2019, and performed meta-analyses. Based on these meta-analyses they concluded that the mentioned supplementations were not associated with a mortality benefit in COVID-19 [1].

The reported results of the meta-analyses by Beran et al. for supplementation with vitamin D and/or zinc were close to a significant advantage. However, we noted that an error was probably made in their Table 3 and Figure 3 with respect to the inclusion of the data of Cédric Annweiler et al. (2020), who compared a treatment group of 57 subjects with a control group of only 9 subjects. The reported mortality in these groups were 10 and 5 subjects, respectively [2]. That study showed a (significant) benefit for treatment with vitamin D, in contrast to the disadvantage that was report by Beran et al.

1. Conclusion

A mistake in the meta-analyses of Beran et al. influences the results and probably the outcome of the study. Therefore, updates of the meta-analyses on vitamin D in Figure 3A, B and 3D are needed, which might influence the results, outcome and conclusions of the study.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author contributions

Reindert Graaff: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, writing-original draft

Manfred eggersdorfer

Writing - Review and Editing and Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

There is no conflict of interest with respect to this work.