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Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

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Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#101

Post by jansan »

ip26 wrote: post #41
mindviews wrote: post #26

Here's a link to the paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.06.20092999v... This is interesting data. I want to see Vitamin D status included in a large population study like this because I've been following two smaller studies covering about a thousand cases total that shows Vitamin D deficiency has a risk ratio of 10 to 20 (more even than being age 80+ in the above study). The studies: [1] https://p…

The critical question remains though- is vitamin D the causal factor, or instead an indicator of something else?

Another critical question: Why hasn't this been properly researched, yet? There were indications before, that Vitamin D insufficiency increases risk of respiratory diseases.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#102

Post by trekrich »

jansan wrote: post #92
gridlockd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unsurprisingly there's no direct clinical evidence. "We searched for trials and didn't find any" Unsurprisingly, there haven't been any (completed) trials on this particular combination of novel disease and possible prevention/treatment yet. I'm concerned that people conflate "no evidence for efficacy" with "it doesn't work" instead of "we don't know if it works". You always start out with "no evidence". There are…

You would see tons of research going on if there was more money to be made with Vitamin D.

very true.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#103

Post by trekrich »

jansan wrote: post #101
ip26 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The critical question remains though- is vitamin D the causal factor, or instead an indicator of something else?

Another critical question: Why hasn't this been properly researched, yet? There were indications before, that Vitamin D insufficiency increases risk of respiratory diseases.

because big pharma wont get rich.... err richer from vitamin d.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#104

Post by pacificmint »

loeg wrote: post #34
forgot_again wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does deprivation mean here? Early in the outbreak I remember seeing some research that indicated people of Asian descent (East Asian) are genetically predisposed to more severe cases of this coronavirus, something to do with higher expression of the ACE-2 receptor.

It means poor. It's unclear to me (only skimmed the figures) if the various ethnic/racial hazard factors correct for poverty (deprivation) or not.

They took that into consideration:

> People from Asian and black groups are at markedly increased risk of in-hospital death from COVID-19, and contrary to some prior speculation this is only partially attributable to pre-existing clinical risk factors or deprivation;

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#105

Post by leto_ii »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #95
leto_ii wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old adage applies here: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

However, it is also the best predictor of "absence" the scientific method has to offer.

There are absences and then there are absences :D

Absence of evidence because you haven't tried much/ there's no data yet is not the meaningful kind.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#106

Post by slg »

gridlockd wrote: post #85
slg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, we need better evidence on all the vitamin D claims. Comparing rich white people in the suburbs who have lots of open land to get sun and use for exercise versus poorer darker skinned people in dense inner city apartments who spend most of their time inside introduces numerous confound factors that will be highly correlated with vitamin D.

> I agree, we need better evidence on all the vitamin D claims. Not really. We should be blasting "get your Vitamin D supplements" from the rooftops, because maybe that's a significant factor in COVID-19 and it's safe and people should get them anyway. There's no downside. If in a few years it then turns out that Vitamin D had nothing to do with it, it doesn't matter . If it turns out that Vitamin D really was a big…

You are right that vitamin D is relatively safe compared to other potential treatments that were bandied about like hydroxychloroquine. But while there are fewer health risks from taking it, there are still the same behavioral issues that were present with hydroxychloroquine. The first is causing a run on vitamin D that prevents other people from acquiring if for their proven treatments. However the main issue that I think we want to prevent is luring people into a false sense of security that causes them to decrease the proven preventive measures. We don't need large groups of people gathering on beaches because they think the sun will be a miracle cure and they don't have to worry about getting sick. So if you want to personally start taking it without changing your behavior, be my guest. But any advice to take it needs to be clear that the evidence it helps is still very suspect at this point.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#107

Post by champagneben »

econcon wrote: post #73
JPKab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deprivation equals poverty. Asian in Britain will primarily be Indian/Pakistani descent. I wonder if this is vitamin d related? Darker complexion of black and Asian could cause higher risks of vitamin d deficiency in UK.

But Indian/Pakistani aren't dying at much higher rate in their own country or are they? I've no data.

I would imagine that the sun is hotter and shows itself more often in India and Pakistan - hence the darker complexion.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#108

Post by xhedley »

supernova87a wrote: post #78
ckastner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I understand it, they are comparing the statistics of the 5,683 sample to the 17M in order to determine whether anything stands out. If Covid-19 deaths had no associated factors, then we shouldn't see much of a difference between the two. However, we are seeing differences, for example with diabetes.

Yes that's true, but the 17M figure isn't the interesting / groundbreaking thing. At least it shouldn't be made out to be as if that's the significant thing. 17M just provides the baseline of "normal". Tons more data isn't needed to get that right. 170M wouldn't make a difference. I bet 1.7M wouldn't make a big difference either. What we really need to know right now is how the Covid deaths behave. All that this offe…

The 17M is the data set from detailed primary care records linked to 5,683 of the deaths recorded in English hospitals in the time period. The data could be improved by linking to more primary care records - but the population of England is 56 million so they already captured almost a third.

Sadly there will be more data as there are more deaths, and this team will be able to pull more analytics out. However 5,683 is a big enough sample size to find some interesting information on hazard rates.

For the team doing the analysis, plugging data analytics into 17 million primary care records is definitely a significant achievement. Medical records are intended for use by doctors and letting researchers into them has confidentiality issues. The process they followed was covered in the paper and seemed thorough.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#109

Post by odrekf »

m463 wrote: post #74
martingoodson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you weren't aware, controlled trials have shown that vitamin d supplementation protects against respiratory disease [1]. This is evidence that the association you highlight is more than a spurious correlation. It's likely to be causal. [1] https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583

A friend of mine had cancer and they had him taking D3 immediately. also I was out shopping recently and they seemed to sell many varieties of D3, but I didn't see any other D vitamins offered for sale. Is D deficiency really D3 deficiency? or have the other D vitamins sold out?

As a vegan, I learned that there's D2 (comes from plants) and D3 (comes from animals), and they are the same as far as I know. Not sure about using them for treatments.

Re: Factors associated with Covid-19 deaths in records of 17M adult NHS patients

#110

Post by yosito »

user4682 wrote: post #45
melvinroest wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"98.9% of Vitamin D deficient cases died while only 1.1% of them were active cases. 87.8% of Vitamin D insufficient cases died while only 12.2% of them were active cases. Only 4.1% of cases with normal Vitamin D levels died while 95.9% of them were active cases." Wait, only 13.3% (1.1 + 12.2) of all the active cases in total were vitamin D insufficient or worse? I thought the majority of people had insufficient vitam…

That's not right. 87.8 + 12.2% = 100% of insufficient etc. Active case = not dead

Thank you, I was confused by the term "active cases".
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