Live data from Hacker News

Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

medrxiv.org

261–270 of 304 posts

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

#261
post #235
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

TIP: have ONE brazil nut per day is enough selenium to get your rda dose and generally more enjoyable than popping a pill.

Or move to a country with selenium-rich soil. Iirc Finland started mandating selenium to be added to fertiliser in the 80s and suddenly people started getting better selenium levels.

I talked to a Finnish nutritionist a while ago and she said it was about as much a success for public health as when they started adding iodine to salt. We didn't talk about the situation today, so it might have changed. I just found it interesting.

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

#262
post #179

It seems that the authors misunderstood the Boston study they are citing: > In a Boston homeless shelter, 100% of 147 COVID-19 positive subjects were asymptomatic [3]. That study actually excluded N=15 symptomatic people: > The original cases (N=15) were identified sequentially over a 5-day period, and each was expeditiously removed from the shelter population at the time of symptom recognition. These individuals pre…

90% asymptomatic cases isn't surprising?

Yes it has been known for a while (a while in covid terms) that a larg number has no symptoms.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Trump suggesting sunlight as a treatment for COVID-19 may not have been so crazy? edit: that was a joke, not a very good one I guess.

> "I would like you to speak to the medical doctors to see if there's any way that you can apply light and heat to cure, you know, if you could. And maybe you can, maybe you can't." He was talking about 2 things * UV light kills viruses, so why don't you shine UV light into the body to treat the virus * Many viruses such as the flu don't transmit as well during the summer due to the weather conditions (heat + humidit…

FYI, there is an actual company working on a medical device to put UV light inside the body to light the lungs. It's unproven but in the works. It was subsequently censored by Youtube and Twitter after the President's comments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgiHfD_xtvw

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

#265

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…

Since you're taking Vitamin D, you might also want to see if you need Zinc. Both Vitamins account for the largest deficits in the population. You might want to consider taking a Magnesium supplement since taking Vitamin D which can lead to a deficiency in Magnesium. Vitamin C is worth taking a few times through out the day. The Trifecta is D,Zinc and C (with a magnesium supplement a few times a week).

I have read more than one study in the years past that consistent use of vitamin C supplements actually leads to a weaker immune system in the long term.

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

#267

Note that some doctors are clueless and diagnose a deficiency of vitamin D based on just one metabolite. Test for both, and don't damage yourself with excessive supplementation.

It seems difficult to reach excess vitamin D levels though. From [1]: "Taking 60,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity. This level is many times higher than the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for most adults of 600 IU of vitamin D a day."

5000-7000 IU per day is probably a safe amount, despite the official recommended daily intake being 600 IU.

[1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

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

#268
post #190
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight exposure is also bad for you; taking it orally is the way to go for most people. As pointed out upthread, most supplements are hilariously low-dose. I take 20k IU, 3 times per week. (most supplements are like 1000IU per pill, but 3000IU pills can be found)

I think a lot of other replies are missing the nuance. It depends on a lot of things. Time of year, time of day, skin colour, where you live, if you're under an Ozone hole, UV index, personal sensitivity/medications, etc. This is a good summary[0] for the situation in Australia, possibly the worst in the world when it comes to the sun being deadly. Their strongest statement about avoiding sun: "During summer in Austr…

Also, pollution.

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

#270
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, my doctor specifically said a few weeks ago: "During active COVID-19 infection symptoms (fever, cough), please AVOID these common supplements: Echinacea, Elderberry, Polysaccharide extracts from Medicinal Mushrooms and Vitamin D as these MAY theoretically exacerbate the cytokine inflammatory storm. It's OK to take them preventively (if you are already doing so) but please stop at the first sign of COVID-19 sympt…

> "During active COVID-19 infection symptoms [...], please AVOID[...]" > Hence I've been avoiding adding Vitamin D Do you have active symptoms? The concern is about a studied connection between Vitamin D supplementation and an increase in concentration of the IL-1b inflammation marker (see, e.g., [1]), which has been implicated in cytokine storms. The other supplements mentioned have similar effects. This correlation…

Well, vitamin D actually reduces the cytokin storm, so I don't really get why his/her doctor advised against it in the first place...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-inf...

Post reply on HN