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Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

medrxiv.org

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Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#111

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

BurningFrog wrote: post #97

PSA: The darker your skin is, the more Vitamin D you need, either from sunlight or food/supplements. Pale skin is an evolutionary adaptation to harvest more sunlight to convert to Vitamin D, from when humanity expanded to less sunny areas from Africa. I'm a little shocked that doctors don't seem to tell black people this. My "survey" is probably only 5 people, but still, people need to know.

In recent years there's been some question about whether there is a link between autism and Vitamin D deficiency in some African immigrants. Minnesota has a large population of Somali immigrants (ISTR the largest population outside Somalia itself) and in that community, autism has been nicknamed the "Minnesota disease" because of how prevalent it has become in children of immigrants.

https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/07/mysterious-...

It's an old article, but I haven't been able to find anything newer that isn't based on the same study in 2008.

A similar "outbreak" was noted in Sweden.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#112

Post by jrockway »

simonsarris wrote: post #29
the_jeremy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A psychiatrist I saw multiple years ago told me to start taking Vitamin D. I went more or less blindly with 5,000 IU after reading some internet articles. I got my blood checked last year and decided I should probably actually know if I'm doing too much or too little. I was within 5% of the middle of the healthy range for vitamin D levels. For reference, 5,000 IU is >800% the FDA daily recommended value. People with…

> For reference, 5,000 IU is >800% the FDA daily recommended value. Unfortunately the daily recommended value was established erroneously and should be much higher. Many research papers mention this. For example: > The Institute of Medicine recommendation for adults younger than 70 years of age is 600 IU of vitamin D daily. We are told that this would achieve a level of 50 nmol/L in greater than 97.5% of individuals.…

My mom did her PhD in micronutrients (sorry, I never really asked for details) and has always been nagging me to take 10000 IU of Vitamin D a day. I have been remiss in this over the years, and my physicals always come back with a note about being Vitamin D deficient. I have gotten better and my bloodwork comes back normal these days. (I have never noticed an effect. Coffee has a large effect on whether or not I feel awake, and getting exercise has a large effect on whether or not I feel good. But I'm sure not being deficient in Vitamin D is helping something.)

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#113

Post by news_hacker »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
lisper wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next paragraph is even more interesting: > A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-…

Nobody makes any money if it turns out to be a good treatment, so nobody will fund the research

Sorry you're getting downvoted for having a healthy sense of cynicism.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#114

Post by tudorw »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
lisper wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next paragraph is even more interesting: > A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-…

Nobody makes any money if it turns out to be a good treatment, so nobody will fund the research

could well be true, same can be said of sleep, the few good papers I've read often showed benefits and I don't recall any instances of harm so safe to try, but no money to pay for anything like the volume of research some rare illnesses get.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#115

Post by tinus_hn »

nicoburns wrote: post #64
o10449366 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely placebo. Vitamin D is extremely soluble in our bodies and takes months of consistent supplement dosage to have an effect on our baseline levels.

I had winter depression for years, and Vitamin D supplementation has all-but completely cured it. If I forget to take it for a few days (in the winter), then I really notice the difference, and taking the supplement (via drops) reliably helps within 2-3 hours of taking them. I don't see how this could be a placebo as 1. I wasn't really expecting them to work in the first place. 2. I've tried all sorts of things over…

The only way to be sure is to randomly take either the real preparation or some placebo that looks, tastes, smells etc. exactly the same so you can’t tell the difference. The placebo effect does not require you to believe in the cure.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#116

Post by JackMorgan »

axegon_ wrote: post #42
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

Well yes, Vitamin D is pretty hard to come around in the northern hemisphere so no surprise there. Mind you, it's far not the only thing - magnesium, zinc, selenium are just a few which most people are missing. I mean unless your diet consists entirely of tuna and salmon probably. Over the last few years, I've stressed significantly on my physical health(after being very overweight for the most of my adult life and n…

What is the one in particular?

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#117

Post by minkeymaniac »

ashtonkem wrote: post #21
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

Vitamin D isn’t even really a vitamin, if it were we wouldn’t be able to synthesize it. It’s actually a hormone. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to take my next call out on the porch.

It's both isn't? In pill form it's a vitamin... from the sun it's a hormone

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#118

Post by jrockway »

londons_explore wrote: post #99
lisper wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next paragraph is even more interesting: > A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-…

Nobody makes any money if it turns out to be a good treatment, so nobody will fund the research

This is actually very true. There are lots of potential treatments that use generic and non-patentable agents, and very few people are willing to look into it. Zinc is the classic example; some people think it maybe reduces the duration of the common cold. The common cold is one of the main causes of missed workdays. If there's a drug that could make you miss 4 days of work a year instead of 5 days of work a year, it would be worth billions. But nobody is funding studies on zinc, because nobody will be able to capture that saved revenue for themselves. (Zicam did try this; by patenting a nasal administration method and then doing controlled studies with that. If the results were good, then they'd say "it doesn't apply to oral zinc, it only applies to our applicator", and they could have their money. As it turned out, it caused people to permanently lose their sense of smell. I think it helped with their colds, though.)

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#119

Post by StavrosK »

mkolodny wrote: post #53
danenania wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know of a rule of thumb for how much time spent in direct sunlight is equivalent to a Vitamin D supplement? Is an hour per day (on average) sufficient?

It depends on your skin color [0]. For people with light skin, 13 minutes of direct midday sunlight three times a week may be enough. But for people with dark skin, you may need 30 minutes to 3 hours of direct sunlight (the article doesn't make it clear whether that is three times a week or once a day) to get enough vitamin D. [0] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-from-sun#skin...

That little? So my four hours of tennis a week in the hot Greek sun is much more than enough, even with sunscreen on.
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