Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients • Hacker News Board

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#31

Post by snikeris » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

axegon_ wrote: post #4

ageitgey wrote: post #2

N=43 (17 given vitamins vs 26 not) Highlights: "Significantly fewer DMB patients than controls required initiation of oxygen therapy subsequently throughout their hospitalization (17.6% vs 61.5%, P=0.006)." "DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supp…

Despite my somewhat limited knowledge in biology, my intuition was telling me that the number of patients seems way too small to come to definitive conclusions. Mind you, if Vitamin-D, magnesium and B12 play a role, that's good news for me: I've been very strict about those 3 in the past 2 years(and coincidentally loaded up my magnesium stash yesterday).

Magnesium is something I've recently been interested in as well. Surprisingly, you don't find it in many multivitamins, or if you do, it's in small quantities. My guess is that it would make the multivitamin too large if it were included.

Leafy green vegetables are a good source of Mg, but most people don't eat enough of those.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#32

Post by VMisTheWay » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

mikece wrote: post #16

I wonder, when I see stories about studies about treating patients with basic nutrients and vitamins, if a root-cause to consider is that our standard diets are so deprived of essential vitamins and minerals that "treating" someone with what they have been missing causes the body to simply function the way it's supposed to. I haven't read the full study but if it takes into account what someone's diet was prior to th…

>It just seems the more we learn in this field the more it shows us what we don't know.

I think the root issue is that Medical treatment existed before the scientific method. This creates a huge industrial debt of "doing things the old way" and relying on authority/tradition.

I can only imagine deregulation is the solution. At least in the United States, medical is run by various cartels/factions. It would be nice to have input from scientists rather than authority.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#33

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #8

Was this known early on about COVID? Early on in the lockdown I noticed that these vitamins were among the kind of weird items completely cleared out of stores. People were very selective... initially all FHD laptops and Chromebooks were gone, along with power strips, ibuprofen, hair clippers, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#34

Post by saiya-jin » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

Foivos wrote: post #3

ageitgey wrote: post #2

N=43 (17 given vitamins vs 26 not) Highlights: "Significantly fewer DMB patients than controls required initiation of oxygen therapy subsequently throughout their hospitalization (17.6% vs 61.5%, P=0.006)." "DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supp…

> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway.... Could you elaborate on that? I thought that taking vitamin supplements without a recommendation from a doctor is just a way to have very expensive piss. Most of the things that get in, are removed from the body without being absorbed.

> very expensive piss

What I do after working out (say 4x/week) or after hard day in the mountains during weekends is to take 1/2 a tablet of multivitamin after big meal. So around 5-7x/week. That tablet has 100% of all the vitamins and 30% of the minerals.

So I get 50% of vitamins, 15% of the minerals with a lot of fluids and fats, after proper effort on the body. This mix should be helping the body regenerate all the damage done by the workout. I can't get any overdose or even come close to it, unless I would be eating some very specific food like some seafood (and then overdose would come from it anyway, regardless of multivitamins).

The multivitamins I buy (cheap Swiss ones) are cca 3.5$ per 20 tablets, giving the price per dosage/piss somewhere around 8 cents. I certainly have much more expensive pissing activities even from cheapest beers, sodas (which I don't generally drink) or basically any liquid apart from tap water.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#35

Post by Nursie » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

Foivos wrote: post #3

ageitgey wrote: post #2

N=43 (17 given vitamins vs 26 not) Highlights: "Significantly fewer DMB patients than controls required initiation of oxygen therapy subsequently throughout their hospitalization (17.6% vs 61.5%, P=0.006)." "DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supp…

> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway.... Could you elaborate on that? I thought that taking vitamin supplements without a recommendation from a doctor is just a way to have very expensive piss. Most of the things that get in, are removed from the body without being absorbed.

Americans have the most expensive piss in the world.

Yes, unless you have good reason to think you have a deficiency, supplements are a waste of time and money. And even if you do have reason to think you might have a deficiency there are often better (usually dietary) ways to address it.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#36

Post by Femur » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

RL_Quine wrote: post #26

arghzzz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, taking 3 vitamins is almost entirely harmless.

Many are toxic (vitamin D included) in unsuitable amounts, that’s probably too strong of a statement.

What amount of vitamin D is toxic?

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#37

Post by pbhjpbhj » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #19

mikece wrote: post #16

I wonder, when I see stories about studies about treating patients with basic nutrients and vitamins, if a root-cause to consider is that our standard diets are so deprived of essential vitamins and minerals that "treating" someone with what they have been missing causes the body to simply function the way it's supposed to. I haven't read the full study but if it takes into account what someone's diet was prior to th…

You are right and it is no secret: - 40% of US Americans are B12 deficient https://www.livekindly.co/b12-deficiency-genetic-makeup/#:~:... . - 42% are Vitamin D deficient: https://www.cantonmercy.org/healthchat/42-percent-of-america... . - up to 50% are Magnesium deficient: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180226122548.h... - 10 - 20% of women are iron deficient: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2007/0301/p671.h…

Presumably it's relatively easy for a lab to run a panel of tests on me and say "you're deficient in X, Y, Z; try eating more A B C; spend 30mins extra a week outside; drink less alcohol".

How easy is it too get such tests (in UK), I'm surprised we don't seem to have anything like this as part of our health system. I've had blood pressure and height/weight taken a couple of times (I'm middle aged). But that's about all wrt biological metrics, seems lackadaisical?

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#38

Post by cj » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

RL_Quine wrote: post #26

arghzzz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, taking 3 vitamins is almost entirely harmless.

Many are toxic (vitamin D included) in unsuitable amounts, that’s probably too strong of a statement.

The study mentions 1,000 IU D3 dosage. A quick google turns up a rough figure of 60,000 IU "daily for multiple months" can become toxic.

You're probably right, most things taken at 100x the normal dose for long period of time are toxic. (Water included)

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#39

Post by pen2l » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

RL_Quine wrote: post #26

arghzzz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, taking 3 vitamins is almost entirely harmless.

Many are toxic (vitamin D included) in unsuitable amounts, that’s probably too strong of a statement.

Yeah but come on, most everyone don't take it in unsuitable amounts just like they don't drink 6 gallons of water every day.

Taking vitamin D for the average American will surely help in keeping good immunity, bone health, etc.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#40

Post by hannob » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

barbegal wrote: post #15

The methodology mentions nothing about randomization so its unclear if there was any selection bias here. If you look a table 2, the control group was on average 6 years older and had more co-morbidities. This suggests that there was some selection bias and that other undocumented factors could have greatly affected this experiment. Doing multi-variate analysis with such a small sample size gives rise to huge uncerta…

It's an observational study, which by definition is not randomized.

It's pure association, it may very well be pure confounding. In favor of the authors: The only thing they really claim is that an RCT should be done. Which I guess is an okay'ish conclusion from such a study.