Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 December 2020
596. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Health the details of the agreement between his Department and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland to commission the recent review by the authority of the national vitamin D guidelines; if a literature review was required as part of the report; if the review referred to the issue of Covid-19; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44477/20]
View answerIn response to a request from the Department of Health, the Scientific Committee of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) are developing Scientific Recommendations for Food-Based Dietary Guidelines for people aged 65 years and older. This report is expected to be completed at the end of 2020.
In view of media coverage over the spring months regarding vitamin D supplementation for this age group, the Department requested the FSAI to fast-track its advice on this issue to provide an evidence base to underpin public health policy for vitamin D supplementation for this age group.
The full report is available at: https://www.fsai.ie/VitaminD_DietaryGuidelines_OlderAdults_Ireland/.
While the request for advice on Vitamin D sought by the Department of Health was solely related to Vitamin D supplementation in older adults and how best to prevent vitamin D deficiency taking dietary sources and supplementation into consideration, during the course of their literature review, the FSAI reviewed the research evidence relating to COVID and Vitamin D. They assessed two recent rapid evidence reviews conducted in the UK which summarised the best available scientific evidence on vitamin D and risk of COVID-19 (NICE, 2020) and acute respiratory tract infections (SACN, 2020). After reviewing the acknowledged limited evidence base and lack of RCT data, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) concluded that there is no evidence to support taking vitamin D supplements to specifically prevent or treat COVID-19. The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) concluded that the evidence on vitamin D supplementation and acute respiratory tract infection risk was inconsistent and generally did not show a beneficial effect of vitamin D supplementation on infectious disease risk.
Regardless of whether vitamin D deficiency is a risk for poor outcome due to COVID-19, the practice of staying indoors is a risk factor for vitamin D deficiency because it curtails skin production of vitamin D by minimising exposure to natural sunlight. The new Department advice for all older adults 65 years and over to take a 15 microgram supplement of Vitamin D daily will help reduce vitamin D deficiency in this population.
The Department has prepared a fact sheet on vitamin D supplementation for older people which can be found at https://www.gov.ie/en/policy-information/706608-healthy-ireland-policies/#vitamin-d
