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

Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

borsche.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 269 posts

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#51

Post by credit_guy »

LegitShady wrote: post #40
graeme wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this section of the pdf? From a 2016 study on patients with other respiratory diseases. —————- High dose vitamin D administration in ventilated intensive care unit patients: A pilot double blind randomized controlled trial In the study, patients with vitamin D deficiency ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462371... —————— Ah, the pdf has a second such study. Mortality almost half less…

Those dosages are far higher than anyone supplementing vitamin d are likely to take.

I found out on HN that the official daily recommended dose for vitamin D is flawed, it was based on an erroneous statistical analysis. [1] contains some details. The bottom line is the daily dose should be about 8000 IU rather than the official 400 IU.

Obviously, 250000 IU or 500000 IU is much higher, but this is a one-shot, not a daily dose. If you take 8000 IU daily dose as correct, then those 2 megadoses correspond to a one month or two month intake. Very high indeed, but not absurd

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#52

Post by nathwill »

the problem with vitamin D is there's a lot of confounders that D is a proxy for, particularly met-syn and old age, so until there's actual mechanistic descriptions for how D inhibits covid severity, i'm remaining cautiously-optimistic-bordering-on-skeptical about its curative powers.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#53

Post by [deleted] »

et2o wrote: post #5

Vitamin D has been endlessly promoted as a treatment for many diseases due to evidence from observational studies, but hundreds of millions of dollars in randomized controlled trials have never demonstrated it to be effective for any disease except rickets. There was just a large trial published in JAMA [1] examining its effectiveness for depression given solid observational data. It was not at all effective. The rea…

[deleted]

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#54

Post by James_Henry »

Jeriko wrote: post #44
James_Henry wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitamin D tests aren't usually too expensive (as far as medical tests go), so it might be worth just getting tested rather than trying to see what difference it is making (which can be tricky if you are someone sensitive to the placebo effect or if the effect of vitamin D supplementation isn't immediate or what not).

If you are trying to use it to treat mild depression specifically, a placebo effect is great! Placebo effects get a bad rap. If something improves your subjective quality of life that should be considered a win, especially for depression. Honestly the best thing vitamin D has going for it is being super inexpensive and safe. Because of that you can supplement vitamin D for almost any reason and expect to see at worst…

Placebo effects can be great; they can mask underlying issues though. Also, if you actually have a vitamin D deficiency (or some other health issue), it could be good to know why. Perhaps your kidneys are having issues, for instance.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#55

Post by BurningFrog »

newsbinator wrote: post #30
zzz61831 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that safe, not like vitamin C safe. Especially not in doses sold in pills in pharmacies around the world.

I still can't figure out the safe + effective dosage of Vitamin D. I was taking 1,000mg a day and that didn't seem to move the needle on my Vitamin D blood work. In recent weeks I've been taking 4,000mg/day (with K2), which is 4x what I've had pharmacists recommend. I plan to keep that up for a couple more weeks while I'm under quarantine (recently flew from a high-risk country to a less high-risk country). After tha…

Quick Google results:

- Mayo Clinic says "Taking 60,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity."

- news-medical.net says "To prevent toxicity, tolerable upper intake levels have been fixed for vitamin D as..." 4000 for adults.

- healthline.com says "A daily vitamin D intake of 1000–4000 IU (25–100 micrograms) should be enough to ensure optimal blood levels for most people."

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

https://www.news-medical.net/health/Vitamin-D-Overdose.aspx

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-vitamin-d-is-t...

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#56

Post by mrfusion »

ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

> When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well

Any further reading on that? On the other hand worth supplementation you don’t get the harmful uv rays.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#57

Post by James_Henry »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #46
dirtyid wrote: post #7

Everyone should try a Vitamin D cycle if only to see if makes a big difference in daily life, especially if you live in area with sad winters. It's one of the few supplements that dramatically improves mood for those deficient or sensitive to large doses.

After having several kitesurfing vacations ruined by sunburns, I decided to just go to a tanning salon in the winter. It had a profound mood effect and respiratory effect almost immediately. Now I go a few times per month in winter regardless if I am going to the tropics. The UV does is completely metered. It may be a risky, but given that people that work outside have half the risk of melanoma as people who work ind…

One concern that I would have is that I've heard that the light from a tanning salon doesn't match the light output by the sun. Supposedly the sun has more UVB or something and there are reasons to believe it may be healthier. Do you, or anyone else, have any knowledge on this?

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#58

Post by jogundas »

et2o wrote: post #5

Vitamin D has been endlessly promoted as a treatment for many diseases due to evidence from observational studies, but hundreds of millions of dollars in randomized controlled trials have never demonstrated it to be effective for any disease except rickets. There was just a large trial published in JAMA [1] examining its effectiveness for depression given solid observational data. It was not at all effective. The rea…

The recent JAMA only says that Vitamin D does not help with depression. On the other hand, it seems to be useful in preventing respiratory infections, see the following for a review of randomized studies https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i6583 .

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#59

Post by mrfusion »

graeme wrote: post #9
ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

What about this section of the pdf? From a 2016 study on patients with other respiratory diseases. —————- High dose vitamin D administration in ventilated intensive care unit patients: A pilot double blind randomized controlled trial In the study, patients with vitamin D deficiency ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462371... —————— Ah, the pdf has a second such study. Mortality almost half less…

Wow that could be a game changer. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about that.
Post reply on HN