An LSU Health New Orleans study shows significant promise with ultraviolent light therapy in hospitalized COVID patients. Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery Dr. Frank Lau said while studies show vitamin D is effective in treating COVID, taking it in pill form is not beneficial, however, increasing one’s vitamin D levels with specialized light (NB-UVB phototherapy) therapy does.
“So, when we treated 30 patients with the ultraviolent light, we saw a reduction in the mortality rates here in New Orleans from about 33% to 13%,” said Lau.
Lau said they are seeing positive results within two to four days of treatment.
Specialized ultraviolent light therapy helps stabilize the immune system in other diseases also including psoriasis, some types of skin cancer, and even transplant patients. Lau said the pilot study at LSU Health New Orleans is part of a much larger 500-patient study.
‘It’s exciting stuff. We’ve got a second part of this study coming out, looking at markers in the bloodstream and I don’t want to give anything away but it’s looking very promising right now,” said Lau.
And while one might assume spending more time in the sun to increase their vitamin D level will keep them from catching COVID, Lau said depending on one’s skin type you only need to spend 10 to 20 minutes in the sun daily.
“So, it’s not a huge amount of sun exposure, and this is certainly not carte blanche to go out and just sun tan for hours,” said Lau.
Reduced mortality was observed in both unvaccinated and fully or partially vaccinated patients.
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