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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another part of her point is that self-administering Vitamin D is far more dangerous than people, including many MDs, often think. In an era where people are apparently seriously contemplating megadoses of hydroxychloroquine or I.V. bleach for COVID-19 prophylaxis, the caution seems warranted---even if the study results are promising.

> Another part of her point is that self-administering Vitamin D is far more dangerous than people, including many MDs, often think. In absurdly high doses, sure. The Institute of Medicine certifies 4,000 IUs as the upper safe daily limit, although doctors will prescribe higher doses for people with a Vitamin D deficiency. The Mayo clinic did a study of Vitamin D levels in 20,308 people across 10 years. The result wa…

Thanks for the taking the trouble to make such a detailed response. Very good points.

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

#392

> Serum 25OHD concentrations at baseline or during treatment are not available. This is mind boggling. These 76 patients had extensive blood work done so why did the study design not include serum concentration testing before and after treatment?

Welcome to every Vitamin D study done ever. I follow some PHD/RD combination researchers on Twitter and they all get together each time one of these studies is done and bang their heads against a wall.

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worst case is actually vitamin d toxicity. You can take too much.

Drinking too much water will kill you too. The point I’m making is there is basically no drawback to giving people a normal, healthy, vitamin D supplement. Plus possible upsides.

Except the dosing in this study is a massive supra-physiological bolus that's something like 50x the daily RDV.

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

#394
post #30

Non-white skinned people: sunlight may not be enough to increase your vitamin D. https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+skin+vitamin+d+minutes

Non-white? I am white, was deficient and live in the tropics.

My doctor recommended me to follow a 400 UI/day regime for 3 months but I raised it to 5000 UI/day for a couple of days and started noticing an interesting change: The 20-year-old flat warts on my hands were gone a week after. Told my doctor but the idiot dismissed the relationship.

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

#395
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is strong. Worth noting the limitations though: > Randomization generated groups with comparable percentage of unfavorable risk factors as there was no significant difference in subjects with at least one risk factor, except for high blood pressure and diabetes mellitus, known risk factors for unfavorable disease progression [2], which were more frequent in patients not treated with calcifediol. These are H…

Is BMI a good indicator of obesity, though?

It's actually not bad, but it's even better if you couple it with a simple waist circumference measurement (adjusted for sex, and for ethnic background in some circumstances).

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

#396
post #382
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tides have been turning on avoiding all sun exposure. While you obviously want to avoid getting burnt, the benefits of adequate sun exposure seem to outweigh the harms. Rhee, H. J. van der, E. de Vries, and J. W. Coebergh. “Regular Sun Exposure Benefits Health.” Medical Hypotheses 97 (December 1, 2016): 34–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2016.10.011 . "Since it was discovered that UV radiation was the…

Thanks for taking the time write it all out, much appreciated. Do you know if the time of day makes a different? I avoid the Sun between 9am-3pm as that seems relatively easy to get sunburned during that time, but I wonder if the alleged benefits are tied to the same time window?

Yes, time of day actually matters greatly since it depends on UVB exposure. Here's some classic research from 1988 discussing the topic:

Webb, A. R., L. Kline, and M. F. Holick. “Influence of Season and Latitude on the Cutaneous Synthesis of Vitamin D3: Exposure to Winter Sunlight in Boston and Edmonton Will Not Promote Vitamin D3 Synthesis in Human Skin.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 67, no. 2 (August 1988): 373–78. https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem-67-2-373.

Also, here's a web calculator that can help you calculate UV exposure required to get a desired amount of Vitamin D (and to avoid a sunburn) based on location, time of year and day: https://fastrt.nilu.no/VitD_quartMEDandMED_v2.html

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

#397
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a doze that someone should take daily in winter when exposure to sun is minimal?

5 mcg / 200 iu is a recommended dose for a healthy adult.

Obviously no one should be taking health or nutritional advice from random sources on the internet, but where the hell did you pull that number out of? Current RDAs for most people is 600 IU: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...

Note, the Endocrine Society currently suggests a minimum 25(OH)D level of 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/liter) and suggests much higher levels of supplementation if you need to raise it: "to raise the blood level of 25(OH)D above 30 ng/ml may require at least 1500 –2000 IU/d of supplemental vitamin D."

Holick, Michael F., Neil C. Binkley, Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, Catherine M. Gordon, David A. Hanley, Robert P. Heaney, M. Hassan Murad, and Connie M. Weaver. “Evaluation, Treatment, and Prevention of Vitamin D Deficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 96, no. 7 (July 1, 2011): 1911–30. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2011-0385.

It's also worth noting that studies have shown that without sun exposure, people may require even higher levels of supplementation to maintain their 25(OH)D levels:

Heaney, Robert P., K. Michael Davies, Tai C. Chen, Michael F. Holick, and M. Janet Barger-Lux. “Human Serum 25-Hydroxycholecalciferol Response to Extended Oral Dosing with Cholecalciferol.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 77, no. 1 (January 2003): 204–10. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/77.1.204.

"CONCLUSIONS: Healthy men seem to use 3000-5000 IU cholecalciferol/d, apparently meeting > 80% of their winter cholecalciferol need with cutaneously synthesized accumulations from solar sources during the preceding summer months. Current recommended vitamin D inputs are inadequate to maintain serum 25-hydroxycholecalciferol concentration in the absence of substantial cutaneous production of vitamin D."

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

#398
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 mcg / 200 iu is a recommended dose for a healthy adult.

Obviously no one should be taking health or nutritional advice from random sources on the internet, but where the hell did you pull that number out of? Current RDAs for most people is 600 IU: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona... Note, the Endocrine Society currently suggests a minimum 25(OH)D level of 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/liter) and suggests much higher levels of supplementation if you need to…

I think there is definitely something here. I never get sick in summer, spring and rarely fall. I run and bike with exposed skin quite a bit. In winter I get sick all the time :(

I think this winter I will run an experiment on myself.

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

#399
post #127

Can anyone here help demystify how "oral calcifediol (0.532 mg)" maps to an equivalent amount of Vitamin D in the form you can buy in a drugstore?

calcifediol (0.266 mg; 15,960 IU calcifediol) https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016124724A1/en

so may be 32.000 IU ???

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ReflectedImage says >"There are other drugs now that both work and have a large effect (20%). Hydroxychloroquine possible 5% increase in survival rate pales in comparsion. Given it's also poisonous I don't see why you would want to use it." Please name the other drugs that "both work and have a large effect (20%)".

Probably referring to Remdesivir.

Does Remdesivir work?

"DESPITE THE HYPE, GILEAD’S REMDESIVIR WILL DO NOTHING TO END THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC"

https://theintercept.com/2020/05/26/coronavirus-gileand-remd...

FTFA:

>While some patients and their families have spent the past few weeks frantically trying to procure remdesivir, another Covid-19 treatment has been quietly been shown to be more effective. Although neither option appears to be the much-needed cure for Covid-19, a three-drug regimen offered a greater reduction in the time it took patients to recover than remdesivir did. People who took the combination of interferon beta-1b, lopinavir-ritonavir, and ribavirin got better in seven days as opposed to 12 days for those who didn’t take it. Critically, the treatment has another leg up on Gilead’s: It clearly reduced the amount of the coronavirus in patients who took it, according to a study published in The Lancet on May 8.<

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