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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

#181

Post by loeg »

m463 wrote: post #76
loeg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems pretty remarkable that men have a hazard factor 2x that of women as well.

Men also might have other factors compared to women. As an example 2x as many men vs women die in auto accidents.

I was surprised to hear that figure! I did my own research and it appears to be correct (in fact, it's greater than 2x in recent years). However, that ratio ignores vehicle miles driven. Once you account for that, the comparative ratio is slightly lower:

https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/gende...

> The number of driver fatal crash involvements per 100 million miles driven in 2017 was 62 percent higher for males (2.1 per 100 million miles traveled) than for females (1.3 per 100 million miles traveled). Rates were substantially higher for males than for females ages 16-29, but were only slightly higher for ages 30 and older. The gender difference was largest among drivers ages 20-29.

So in some sense the real figure is 1.62x for men as women per mile driven, although (1) men driving more miles is still a real thing and as a result more men die, and (2) I don't know to what extent super-distance drivers (like commercial truck drivers, who skew heavily male) are putting their finger on the scale.

If you ignore teenagers, that difference comes out to 1.59x; and leaving out persons <30, 1.46x. Still much higher than 1.0.

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

#182

Post by easytiger »

xhedley wrote: post #43
TuringNYC wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> is only partially attributable to pre-existing clinical risk factors or deprivation I'd expect more it is attributable to less access to premium healthcare (remember, in the UK everyone gets healthcare, but not everyone gets privately-sponsored add-on healthcare)

UK privately-sponsored healthcare specialises in things that you cannot get free from the National Health Service or things where the wait time is long - for example knee surgery. People don’t use private healthcare for emergencies or intensive care. For example the prime minister was in intensive care in April - in an NHS hospital.

The quirk of the UK system is that private insurance companies have no legal or moral obligation to cover anything as you will always be able to fall back to the NHS. So getting cover than includes preexisting conditions or severe long term illness (e.g. MS) is very expensive and rarely negotiated by employers except in firms who can afford to do it.

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

#184

Post by DanBC »

lrpublic wrote: post #130
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

Updated NHS advice on vitamin D from [1] “ Coronavirus update Consider taking 10 micrograms of vitamin D a day to keep your bones and muscles healthy. This is because you may not be getting enough vitamin D from sunlight if you’re indoors most of the day. There have been some news reports about vitamin D reducing the risk of coronavirus. However, there is no evidence that this is the case.” [1] https://www.nhs.uk/con…

See also this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212...

> COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affects black and minority ethnic individuals. The underlying mechanism is unknown.

> One potential mediator could be their higher prevalence of apparent vitamin D deficiency.

> We explored whether blood 25 hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration was associated with COVID-19 risk.

> We found no evidence that (25(OH)D) explains susceptibility to COVID-19 infection, either overall or between ethnic groups.

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

#185

Post by joemazerino »

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.

Vitamin D deficiency can still occur in sunny countries. To get the adequate amount of Sun from Vitamin D takes a day out in the sun entirely as opposed to basic supplementation.

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

#186

Post by ejanus »

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.

But it has slower transmission in Africa and low mortality.. This is getting hard to factor...

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

#187

Post by glofish »

z3t4 wrote: post #177
jansan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then do not overdose. Tell people to take 1000IE per day, not more. This will have no negative impact on the health or economy, but if we are lucky, it will help reduce the impact of COVID-19. Shutting down the economy is clearly dangerous, yet enough people do not seem to have a problem with that.

Vitamin D pills is just a quick fix. Moderate exercise and fresh air would probably save more lives. Healthy vitamin levels are good, but its many little things which affects health.

exactly this,

one cause of vitamin D deficiency is the overuse of sunscreen

sunscreen should be used as protection against sunburn, but not put on all the time in every instance

be outside, stop lathering yourself with sunscreen and get natural, low continuous levels of vitamin D.

supplements may be better than nothing but they far from providing you with the same dose and availability of vitamin D

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

#188

Post by eloff »

eloff wrote: post #27
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.

Very likely it explains at least part of the difference.

Because obviously people with darker skins produce less vitamin D naturally and are more vitamin D deficient and all indications are that vitamin D deficiency is a big factor in Covid19 morality.

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

#189

Post by dehrmann »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #142
McP wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I've never got that impression as an English person. I consider it to be non-specific. However, if you're in a place like Southall or Bradford then the "Asian" people around you are indeed more likely to be south Asian.

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

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160106185816/ht...

> Asian/Asian British

> 9. Indian

> 10. Pakistani

> 11. Bangladeshi

> 12. Chinese

> 13. Any other Asian background, please describe

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

#190

Post by martingoodson »

DanBC wrote: post #184
lrpublic wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updated NHS advice on vitamin D from [1] “ Coronavirus update Consider taking 10 micrograms of vitamin D a day to keep your bones and muscles healthy. This is because you may not be getting enough vitamin D from sunlight if you’re indoors most of the day. There have been some news reports about vitamin D reducing the risk of coronavirus. However, there is no evidence that this is the case.” [1] https://www.nhs.uk/con…

See also this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212... > COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affects black and minority ethnic individuals. The underlying mechanism is unknown. > One potential mediator could be their higher prevalence of apparent vitamin D deficiency. > We explored whether blood 25 hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration was associated with COVID-19 risk. > We found no evi…

It's worth noting that this study only looked at risk of infection, not the severity of infection. The grandparent comment was about severity/death.
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