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The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

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Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#331

Post by KerryJones »

dilippkumar wrote: post #140

Previously on HN, a physician shared some thoughts on treating Vitamin D as a medication and not as a dietary supplement: Part 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 Part 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261948 To summarize - popping in large doses of Vitamin D is not exactly safe.

That previous commentary on part 2 hasn't explored the larger statistical significant over time. Yes, it _can_ cause problems, but there is far more evidence to show deficiency, and far less evidence to show that even when taken at high levels there aren't many cases of problems, and those problems are not very severe.

Here's some studies regarding vitamin toxicity and specifically Vitamin D3 including death rates: https://www.medscape.com/answers/819426-102375/what-is-the-p...

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#332

Post by Dylan16807 »

scrollaway wrote: post #234
burfog wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is pretty reliable for math, old computer hardware, and other dry technical subjects. This is not one. This is a political subject. Wikipedia is a complete disaster for anything that even remotely touches upon modern politics. There are teams of people paid to impose an opinion on Wikipedia, relentlessly wearing down any neutral editor with 24x7 edits and every kind of bureaucratic fight. The people who edi…

Sometimes I feel like I have to remind americans that other countries exist. How incredibly self centered must it be to think that everything relates to you, your country, your awful president. Please.

The claim is that those people are among those editing the article, and there's some of the more motivated ones. It's not that everyone else doesn't matter, in fact the problem is exactly that the wider informed opinion of everyone that matters isn't automatically reflected in wikipedia pages.

Any sufficiently intense argument anywhere in the world risks corrupting a wikipedia page.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#333

Post by Dylan16807 »

zaroth wrote: post #277
Reelin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly overweight according to BMI while very fit, with low fat and high muscle Not knowing you personally, it seems statistically more likely to me that your idea of "fit, low fat, high muscle" is what's at fault here (as opposed to BMI). Sure, you could be an exception. But all things being equal, you probably aren't. (Also maybe I misunderstand - if you mean that BMI was saying you were at the high end of normal…

I understand the desire to be contrarian, but BMI is widely regarded as totally obsolete with cheap and accurate ways to actually measure body fat percentages. It’s well understood that BMI is totally wrong for athletes or anyone remotely muscular.

> totally obsolete with cheap and accurate ways to actually measure body fat percentages

What do you have in mind? With a bit of searching I haven't found much that's cheap. (Obviously you can take some tape or caliper measurements to improve your numbers but that's neither new nor particularly accurate.)

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#334

Post by sagebird »

It would be tragic if taking vitamin D supplements had a negative effect on Covid survivability.

I think that it is extremely unlikely, though possible unless a specific study has ruled this out.

EG: Perhaps vitamin D supplementation upon Covid-19 diagnoses is only effective if you have not been supplimenting.

Like: Maybe drinking alcohol at a party is helpful to court a new partner, unless you are an alcoholic already. Not the best analogy but I hope you'll take my point in good faith.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#335

Post by esyir »

zaroth wrote: post #277
Reelin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly overweight according to BMI while very fit, with low fat and high muscle Not knowing you personally, it seems statistically more likely to me that your idea of "fit, low fat, high muscle" is what's at fault here (as opposed to BMI). Sure, you could be an exception. But all things being equal, you probably aren't. (Also maybe I misunderstand - if you mean that BMI was saying you were at the high end of normal…

I understand the desire to be contrarian, but BMI is widely regarded as totally obsolete with cheap and accurate ways to actually measure body fat percentages. It’s well understood that BMI is totally wrong for athletes or anyone remotely muscular.

It isn't anywhere near obsolete, not as far as I've seen in both scientific and medical contexts. BMI remains heavily used in many nutritional and disease related studies and remains a common metric in healthcare and public heath.

It's imperfect, but generally correct. More importantly, it's easy to measure. Accurate except for outliers isn't as much of an issue as you think it is, especially as these are generally already accounted for by its users.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#336

Post by nradov »

gameswithgo wrote: post #239
graeme wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually pretty decent. It can make errors in the case of people with extreme muscle mass, or very low muscle mass for their size, or the very short, or the very tall. But for most people, if you’re over 25 bmi you probably could lose some weight. And at a population levels the errors above average out, even in a smaller group. People make a big deal over the exceptions to it while ignoring that it is broadly ac…

and high muscle mass causes some of the same heart stress that high fat does. its fun and useful but not "healthy" to be huge, fat or muscular.

Perhaps, but we don't have reliable data on that. The population of people with high muscle mass is small to begin with and thus hard to study. And the use of anabolic steroids and other PEDs is common in that group, which may be a larger factor in heart disease risk than muscle mass by itself.

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/chronic-anabolic-steroid-use...

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#337

Post by nradov »

enemywalker wrote: post #329
Reelin wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it would be interesting to see how those numbers interacted graphically. Are the "bad" areas (ie high muscle mass at reasonable fat percentage) associated with health problems according to experts? Or should people with significantly above average muscle mass be using a different scale instead?

I believe a different scale would be helpful for people with above average muscle mass. Check out this research paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890841/ The claim is that BMI does not differentiate between body lean mass and body fat mass. Things like hydrostatic testing are more accurate for determining body fat mass.

DXA scans are about as accurate as hydrostatic testing, and are much more widely available. In most urban areas you can get one for about $50.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#338

Post by nradov »

shajznnckfke wrote: post #257
Reelin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly overweight according to BMI while very fit, with low fat and high muscle Not knowing you personally, it seems statistically more likely to me that your idea of "fit, low fat, high muscle" is what's at fault here (as opposed to BMI). Sure, you could be an exception. But all things being equal, you probably aren't. (Also maybe I misunderstand - if you mean that BMI was saying you were at the high end of normal…

I can believe it. I’m curious what typical body types were like in the hunter/gather societies human evolved in, and whether those are ideal for longevity and quality of life in modern society.

Neolithic hunter gatherers were as strong as elite athletes today. Civilization and automation have made us weak and frail.

https://www.popsci.com/prehistoric-women-strong-rower/

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#339

Post by nradov »

bdamm wrote: post #2

Noteworthy that this is in combination with anti-viral drugs at hospital admission: hydroxychloroquine (400 mg every 12 hours on the first day, and 200 mg every 12 hours for the following 5 days), azithromycin (500 mg orally for 5 days). Regardless, I'm going to assume this means being outside and getting sun is good for me.

Besides vitamin D, sunlight exposure also stimulates production of nitric oxide and thus lowers blood pressure. We also know that high blood pressure is a risk factor for COVID-19 so it seems plausible that there could be a connection.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5593895/

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#340

Post by PhantomGremlin »

noodlesUK wrote: post #262
Reelin wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly overweight according to BMI while very fit, with low fat and high muscle Not knowing you personally, it seems statistically more likely to me that your idea of "fit, low fat, high muscle" is what's at fault here (as opposed to BMI). Sure, you could be an exception. But all things being equal, you probably aren't. (Also maybe I misunderstand - if you mean that BMI was saying you were at the high end of normal…

(Not OP) I’m not an athlete anymore, but I used to be. It would be physically impossible for me to maintain my muscle mass and have a BMI considered normal, whilst also having a body fat percentage >5%. I know many other (pretty much exclusively taller men) people in the same situation.

One classic example of this was Michael Jordan.

In his prime he was considered overweight. BMI is way too simplistic for taller athletes.

https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/how-accurate-body-mass-i...

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