Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

berthub.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 156 posts

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#11

Post by chl »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #2

Welp. I don't think it's gonna make the difference if I get COVID-19, but I did order some Vitamin D supplements. I live in a low-sunlight area, work indoors, and don't drink a lot of milk. 75% of people in my region are Vitamin D deficient. I can put two and two together.

My guess: It might not make _the_ difference whether you _get_ it, but it's not at all unlikely (given all the evidence that has accumulated so far & extrapolation from experience w/ other viral respiratory infections) that it will influence disease severity significantly.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#12

Post by sarchertech »

rafaelturk wrote: post #9

For me this is a perfect example of wishful thinking. It's really hard for average person to accept reality: This virus, like all others, will last for a long time. We won't have, in a foreseeable future, a treatment neither a cure. Cancer, HIV or even seasonal flue are good examples examples of diseases that were discovered decades ago for which science still don't have a cure, there are a few treatments or easing m…

We have multiple vaccine candidates that based on early human trials, and animal trials are very likely to work. Sure it's possible all of them could fail, but I wouldn't set my bet on that.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#13

Post by softwarejosh »

rafaelturk wrote: post #9

For me this is a perfect example of wishful thinking. It's really hard for average person to accept reality: This virus, like all others, will last for a long time. We won't have, in a foreseeable future, a treatment neither a cure. Cancer, HIV or even seasonal flue are good examples examples of diseases that were discovered decades ago for which science still don't have a cure, there are a few treatments or easing m…

Counterpoint, the numbers are very hopeful in reference to vitamin D, and we are discovering more things about covid than we have about flus in a long time. You have all eyes on this epidemic, our infrastructure cannot handle life right now. To view this as just another bug here to stay is to drastically underestimate the extremes people will go to.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#14

Post by spuz »

antishatter wrote: post #10

I feel like Vitamin D deficiency correlates with every disease. A large % of everyone has a vitamin D deficiency so there is always a high correlation.

The percentage of the population that is vitamin D deficient can't affect its correlation with disease. It's perfectly possible that after this, vitamin D is added to tap water such that very few people are deficient but the correlation with deficiency and disease would be unchanged.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#16

Post by goda90 »

"Adipose tissue (“belly fat”) appears to absorb but not release vitamin D. If we want to do some armchair hypothesizing, perhaps people historically used to lose weight in winter, which definitely would release the stored vitamin D just when it was needed."

This is an interesting idea. It's believed our bodies get fat to ensure we have energy when food is scarce. It makes sense that we'd also want to have vitamins available too.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#17

Post by raverbashing »

andreygrehov wrote: post #8

I'm surprised the article barely mentions Vitamin K, which is needed along with Vitamin D - D to mobilize the calcium and K2 to put it into the right place. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5613455/

There are some interesting discussions about Vit K and Covid, basically Vit K promotes coagulation but it seems that its deficiency is associated with the coagulation issues seen in Covid patients. And it might as well be that the correlation is inverted (that is, the development of coagulation troubles might cause low Vit K)

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#18

Post by nickles »

spuz wrote: post #14
antishatter wrote: post #10

I feel like Vitamin D deficiency correlates with every disease. A large % of everyone has a vitamin D deficiency so there is always a high correlation.

The percentage of the population that is vitamin D deficient can't affect its correlation with disease. It's perfectly possible that after this, vitamin D is added to tap water such that very few people are deficient but the correlation with deficiency and disease would be unchanged.

> It's perfectly possible that after this, vitamin D is added to tap water

Vitamin D is fat soluble, not water soluble.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#19

Post by antishatter »

OJFord wrote: post #7
api wrote: post #3

One difficulty in determining if vitamin D actually helps with COVID is determining if vitamin D levels are directly affecting outcomes or whether they are a proxy for something else. For example: are low levels a proxy for people who don't go outside much and therefore don't exercise? That's a huge problem in medical studies generally.

In other words: establishing causation (or lack of it) is more useful than merely correlation. Yes. But hardly breaking news, or even specific to medicine.

I mean yes, but OP's comment is especially notable with Vit D because it's deficiency is very common and often a marker for other common age related diseases.

It is highly likely that Vitamin D isn't saving these people's lives, it's that the folks without vitamin D are older and/or have disease.

Re: Vitamin D: the New Covid-19 Chloroquine?

#20

Post by watertom »

Since I was a child I’ve been a walking respiratory illness machine. Bronchitis, sinusitis, flu, pneumonia, common cold, etc.

During “flu” season I was usually sick for the entire season with a rotating assortment of viral respiratory issues, this lasted until about 7 years ago.

8 years ago in September I started taking 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 and 180mg of K2 daily.

I haven’t had a deputies illness since. My children were getting sick at their normal clip, my wife the same, but not me. I went from being sick all the time to not getting sick ever. I made one change in my life, adding the D3 and K2.

After 2 years of not getting sick my wife and children started supplementing with D3 and K2, everyone stopped getting sick. My son went off to college and stopped taking the D3 and K2 and during the winter semester he got sick twice, he had me sent him the D3 and K2, he hasn’t been sick since.

It’s a small sample size, but even at 10,000 IU daily D3 is not dangerous or expensive, the only caveat seems to be that you need to supplement with K2 or you can cause gardening if the arteries due to calcification.

My doctor thinks it’s a lot of nonsense, but then again he wants every patient on blood pressure and cholesterol medication “just in case”.

Post reply on HN