Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Aug 27, 2026 37 minutes ago
Study Examines Children with Previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection
A new study involving 260 hospitalized children with evidence of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection has revealed notable differences in vitamin D levels, body weight, inflammation, blood markers, and lifestyle habits.
Children with previous COVID-19 showed substantial differences in vitamin D, body weight, inflammation, and other
nutritional and biological characteristics.
The children ranged from infancy to 17 years. Importantly, the study was not investigating long COVID. Instead, all participants had antibodies indicating previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and were later hospitalized for various medical or surgical conditions.
The research institutions involved were the Research Center in the Medico-Pharmaceutical Field at Dunarea de Jos University of Galati; Sf. Ioan Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children in Galati; Maria Sklodowska Curie Emergency Clinical Hospital for Children in Bucharest; and the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Oradea, Romania.
Low Vitamin D and Excess Weight Were Common
One of the most striking findings was the high proportion of children with suboptimal vitamin D levels. Overall, 55.8% had blood concentrations below 30 ng/mL. Meanwhile, 43.5% of the children were either overweight or obese.
Low vitamin D was especially common among children aged 6 to under 11 years, affecting 72.5%. Among adolescents aged 11 to 17 years, 61.6% had levels below 30 ng/mL.
Lifestyle information was available for 213 participants. This
Thailand Medical News report notes that increasing daily electronic device use was associated with progressively lower vitamin D levels. Median vitamin D fell from 33 ng/mL among children using devices for less than one hour daily to just 24 ng/mL among those reporting more than four hours daily.
Children reporting rare sun exposure also had significantly lower vitamin D than those exposed to sunlight three to five times weekly or almost every day.
Inflammation Reveals a More Complex Picture
The researchers found that several inflammatory markers moved closely together. C-reactive protein, commonly called CRP, was strongly associated with fibrinogen and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, while two blood-cell ratios reflecting inflammation were also strongly connected.
However, vitamin D did not show significant correlations with the inflammatory markers examined. This suggests vitamin D should be considered one part of a much broader nutritional and biological picture rather than a simple marker of inflammation.
Advanced statistical analysis identified three major biological dimensions that together explained 55% of the variation observed. Further analysis separated children into three exploratory patterns: a younger group with lower BMI, hemoglobin, and inflammatory markers; a group with the highest BMI and hemoglobin; and a group displaying the highest inflammatory marker levels.
Importantly, these groups did not differ signi
ficantly in clinical severity or length of hospitalization.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that children with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection can display widely different combinations of nutritional, inflammatory, metabolic, blood, and lifestyle characteristics. However, the study cannot establish that previous COVID-19 caused these patterns, and larger prospective multicenter investigations are needed before these exploratory groupings can have clinical applications.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: Nutrients.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/18/17/2793
Read Also:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/long-covid
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