WORLD:
Professor Martineau, you and your colleagues have just started a study to check whether vitamin D is effective against the coronavirus - with a total of 6200 patients: What makes you optimistic that the effort could be worthwhile?
Adrian Martineau:
There is some evidence to suggest that such hopes are justified. On the one hand there are the laboratory results. They suggest that vitamin D can strengthen the immune system - at least that applies to respiratory infections in general. Vitamin D also seems to be able to slow down inflammatory reactions. With Covid-19, they play a fatal role, especially in the advanced stages.