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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

#151

Post by adrianmonk »

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

I don't know about that. From where I'm sitting, lots of companies stand to gain if Vitamin D turns out to make a big difference. For example: American Airlines, Hilton, and McDonald's.

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

#152

Post by ska »

ashtonkem wrote: post #123
minkeymaniac wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Same compound. The definition of vitamin includes the inability of the organism to synthesize it itself, so vitamin D can’t be an actual vitamin

I suspect that is an idiosyncratic definition.

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

#153

Post by M5x7wI3CmbEem10 »

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’s your stack look like? I’ve got D3, Zinc, and Magnesium. Occasionally a multivitamin, melatonin, or calcium (for arthritis)

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

#154

Post by lawlessone »

mcsb4 wrote: post #33

Anecdotelly, in Europe the countries worst hit by the virus have the most strict confinement: Italy, Spain and France. Makes you wonder if there is a correlation to Vitamin D insufficiency due to lack of sun light.

The study mentions that Italy and Spain had high levels of deficiency before this hit.

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

#155

Post by lawlessone »

aardvark291 wrote: post #62
namdnay wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve got the causality the wrong way round

Yeah, and Italy, Spain, and France are some of the sunnier countries in Europe (compared to Germany, UK, Belgium, Scandinavia, etc). If anything I would expect vitamin D deficiency to be less common there.

Diet seems to be the issue.

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

#156

Post by qwerty456127 »

> In an Institutional Review Board approved study performed at a single, tertiary care academic medical center, the medical records of COVID-19 patients were retrospectively reviewed. Subjects were included for whom serum 25-hydroxycholecalcifoerol (25OHD) levels were determined. COVID-19-relevant data were compiled and analyzed. We determined the frequency of VDI among COVID-19 patients to evaluate the likelihood of a VDI-COVID-19 relationship. Results: Twenty COVID-19 patients with serum 25OHD levels were identified; 65.0% required ICU admission.The VDI prevalence in ICU patients was 84.6%, vs. 57.1% in floor patients. Strikingly, 100% of ICU patients less than 75 years old had VDI.

Does this mean they have checked 20 people, 13 (65%) of them were severe and all in the below-75 subset of these 13 people were deficient in vitamin D? Doesn't seem credible to me, I'd prefer some hundreds of people from completely different parts of the country.

By the way, isn't almost everybody deficient in vitamin D anyway? (see doi:10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838)

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

#157

Post by csdreamer7 »

hollander wrote: post #59
ashtonkem wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the absorption of it orally appears to be kind of finicky.

Vitamin D intake via supplements (vitamin pills) results in vitamin D storage in fat in you body. The storage decays over time, and it appears that intake via supplements decays twice as fast as intake via sun exposure.

Do you have a source?

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

#158

Post by ashtonkem »

ska wrote: post #152
ashtonkem wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same compound. The definition of vitamin includes the inability of the organism to synthesize it itself, so vitamin D can’t be an actual vitamin

I suspect that is an idiosyncratic definition.

“A vitamin is an organic molecule (or related set of molecules) that is an essential micronutrient which an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at all or not in sufficient quantities, and therefore must be obtained through the diet.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin

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

#159

Post by btrettel »

strken wrote: post #146
jrockway wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Zinc's neurotoxic, which is why it permanently damages your sense of smell and also why people are hesitant to take it to cure the common cold.

Interesting. The Zinc supplement that I started taking a couple times of week due to COVID-19 exceeds all upper limits listed on Wikipedia when taken at the recommended daily dose (50 mg).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc#Dietary_recommendations

> In the case of zinc the adult UL is 40 mg/day (lower for children).

> The EFSA reviewed the same safety question and set its UL at 25 mg/day, which is much lower than the U.S. value.

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

#160

Post by adrianmonk »

simonsarris wrote: post #2

I find this compelling: > Strikingly, 100% of ICU patients less than 75 years old had VDI [Vitamin D Insufficiency] Since mid-March I've been trying to keep track of Vitamin D/Sunlight suggestions and papers here: https://simonsarris.com/sunlight

Keep in mind:

* The total number of patients in the entire study was 20.

* The number of ICU patients was 13.

* The number of ICU patients younger than 75 years was 10.

It's interesting that 10 out of 10 patients in the ICU had low vitamin D, but it's not exactly a huge study.

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