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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

#161

Post by dassafina »

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…

I am curious, what does it take to innovate in vitamin level testing space? Being able to know vitamin level in your body at any given day just like you can measure your heart rate. Not via mailing in blood sample, but something simpler. is it too far fetched to think that we can have something like a watch to be able to measure our vitamin levels regularly?

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

#162

Post by myself248 »

dassafina wrote: post #161
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…

I am curious, what does it take to innovate in vitamin level testing space? Being able to know vitamin level in your body at any given day just like you can measure your heart rate. Not via mailing in blood sample, but something simpler. is it too far fetched to think that we can have something like a watch to be able to measure our vitamin levels regularly?

I'd picture something like a finger-prick blood sampler akin to a glucose meter.

Might not be something I'd do every day forever, but I could see doing daily samples for a week to get a feel for aboroption, then occasionally to check how my supplements and sun exposure are working.

If you could build a thing that can measure several different parameters depending on which test strips you load into it, I'd buy a pack of vitamin D strips, a pack of vitamin B, a pack of testosterone, and pack that looks for markers of inflammation. Heck yeah. My doctor would eat that data right up.

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

#163

Post by dominotw »

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…

I've been thinking about vitamin D all last week after listening to Dr. Rhona patrick on joe rogan podcast( dont' hate).

I haven't found and answer to this, if Vitamin D is such big factor then why aren't vitamin D deficient populations in the subcontinent ( india/pakistan ..) being hit hard.

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

#164

Post by _0ffh »

0-_-0 wrote: post #111

Interesting that being an ex-smoker increases the risk, but being a current smoker decreases it. Seems like there is some short term benefit to smoking that outweighs its long term negative health effects.

Take it with a shovel of salt, but I've read the following speculative claim: Nicotine docks to a kind of receptor that is also used by COVID-19, thereby denying opportunity to the Virus. But at the same time, habitual smokers tend to develop a higher density of these receptors. That would make smokers less susceptible while they can smoke regularly, but more susceptible upon smoking cessation.

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

#165

Post by koheripbal »

phogster wrote: post #68
tom_mellior wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thread is good, but a possible link with nicotine has been observed before. This might just be the unlikely case where smoking does indirectly confer some health benefit.

Maybe because it could cause you to go outside, increasing exposure to the sun.

That's pretty speculative given the amount of extra time a smoker might spend outside - combined with another speculative idea that small amounts of sun exposure has a meaningful impact on outcomes.

Seems more likely that nicotine itself might have a direct interaction, or that there is no benefit at all, and it's all just noise in the data.

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

#166

Post by ip26 »

excalibur wrote: post #51
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?

Sun exposure is far more likely to be the causal factor.

That, or perhaps a lack of sun exposure is linked to having preexisting conditions. Diabetics, COPD, asthmatics, etc as a group probably tend to spend less time outside.

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

#167

Post by AQuantized »

elorant wrote: post #157
drak0n1c wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's true that Vitamin D is such a large factor in reducing the lethality of respiratory disease -- perhaps it's better to loosen lockdown rules to ensure the wider population can get more sun before they inevitably catch the virus. It may explain why heavily indoors NYC had so many lethal cases, even as most infected were already keeping themselves indoors.

But what about Spain? A Mediterranean country with lots and lots of sunshine.

Sunnier countries can still have large vitamin D deficient populations. I read a study regarding the correlation between mental illness and vitamin D deficiency a few years ago, and Italian patients were still often very deficient. If people don't go out in the sun enough, or wear too much sun cream, it doesn't matter how sunny it is.

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

#168

Post by koheripbal »

lettergram wrote: post #19

I think one of the key takeaways is in the abstract: > People from Asian and black groups are at markedly increased risk of in-hospital death from COVID-19, and contrary to some prior speculation is only partially attributable to pre-existing clinical risk factors or deprivation

Important to note that in UK parlance, "asian" usually encompasses middle-eastern and (I think) Indian ethnicities, whereas in the US is doesn't.

This distinction might be important if there is some sort of vitamin-D/skin-melanin correlation to outcomes in northern latitudes.

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

#169

Post by eloff »

jdminhbg wrote: post #32
eloff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also flu deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Which explains how with a supposed 50k flu deaths in a year in the USA, it has never inundated hospitals like this.

85k coronavirus deaths haven't inundated hospitals in the US either, except in the absolute epicenter in NYC, and even then not to the point originally feared. It's very easy to imagine 50k flu deaths geographically spread evenly not overwhelming US hospitals, especially given that they'd be spread over something like 3x the current coronavirus epidemic timespan. I'm very skeptical of the sudden "oh those flu deaths…

Ok, bad word choice with inundated, although NYC got pretty bad.

You can be skeptical, but it does seem to be the case that flu deaths is actually a made up number.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-...

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

#170

Post by eloff »

dwaltrip wrote: post #37
eloff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also flu deaths have been greatly exaggerated. Which explains how with a supposed 50k flu deaths in a year in the USA, it has never inundated hospitals like this.

Why do you think that 50k annual US flu deaths would be overwhelming the hospitals? It would also be fantastic if you could provide a credible source for this surprising claim that US flu deaths are greatly overstated.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-...
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