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Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

sciencedirect.com

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Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#21

Post by nateburt »

nwah1 wrote: post #4
kevinskii wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a lot of things, vitamin D may have a slight effect on COVID mortality rates, but won't accomplish much by itself. Edit: The study linked below is pretty compelling. My comment appears to be incorrect.

The studies I saw, many of which were posted here, recorded dramatic impact on disease severity from Vitamin D alone. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...

Yes. The results of this pilot randomized controlled trial (the first for vitamin D and covid, as I understand it) from Spain were astounding. Patients were given vitamin D supplements during their hospital stays. Of those who received the supplements, only 1 of 50 (2%) required ICU care, while 13 of 26 (50%) of the patients who did not receive supplements required ICU care (and two died). 2% vs. 50%!

Vitamin D supplementation is a low-risk, low-cost, side-effect-free (hard to OD) intervention. I see no reason governments should not encourage vitamin D supplementation (or, better yet, actively enable it via distribution of supplements as in the UK...at least during hospital stays). If it turns out that subsequent RCTs disprove the effects (despite the mountain of retrospective studies that show correlations in vitamin D levels and covid case trajectories), what harm will have been done?

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#22

Post by erdewit »

> 82.5 % of participants in the Intervention group survived COVID-19, compared to only 44.4 % in the Comparator group

So the intervention with vitamin D3 slashes the death rate from 55.6% to 17.5%, that's by a factor of over 3, or simply put three times less dead people.

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#23

Post by scythe »

hannob wrote: post #8

The headline here (HN) is not the one of the source. It's also not what the study says.

The study says:

>Bolus vitamin D3 supplementation during or just before COVID-19 was associated with better survival rate in frail elderly.

That's rather close to the headline.

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#25

Post by scythe »

erdewit wrote: post #22

> 82.5 % of participants in the Intervention group survived COVID-19, compared to only 44.4 % in the Comparator group So the intervention with vitamin D3 slashes the death rate from 55.6% to 17.5%, that's by a factor of over 3, or simply put three times less dead people.

Estimating the odds ratio is basically impossible with these data. The control group has just nine participants; you can get statistical significance with that (and they did) but the 95% CI gives you an OR of anywhere from 0.03-0.48 which is pretty much useless.

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#26

Post by spion »

erdewit wrote: post #22

> 82.5 % of participants in the Intervention group survived COVID-19, compared to only 44.4 % in the Comparator group So the intervention with vitamin D3 slashes the death rate from 55.6% to 17.5%, that's by a factor of over 3, or simply put three times less dead people.

According to this small Spanish randomized controlled trial, it can be even better: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#27

Post by Angostura »

Hallucinaut wrote: post #15
13415 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitamin D can be bought without prescription and there is currently no shortage, so why should a country (government) distribute it? Anyone who wants some can buy some. Handing out free Vitamin D is like handing out free gym passes. It's not bad, but also not really a government's responsibility except for cases when people would benefit a lot but could not afford it at all.

Same reason governments filter the water or remove lead from paint; just because knowledge is available doesn't mean all citizens can and will act on it, and sometimes lowering the barrier is all that's needed. Moreover, I'd argue older generations in particular are more susceptible to believing what the doctor says. Just having the research available and the vitamins on the shelf isn't going to have nearly the same…

Vitamin D is the only supplement that the NHS suggests that most people should take as a matter of course. But the logistics of getting it out to everyone would be tough. Easier to recommend it and let people buy it.

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#28

Post by xamuel »

13415 wrote: post #14
pulse7 wrote: post #2

I am curious to know why countries didn't buy large quantities of vitamin D and distribute them to all people? Wouldn't that be cheaper and more effective than complete lockdowns, full hospitals, etc.?

Vitamin D can be bought without prescription and there is currently no shortage, so why should a country (government) distribute it? Anyone who wants some can buy some. Handing out free Vitamin D is like handing out free gym passes. It's not bad, but also not really a government's responsibility except for cases when people would benefit a lot but could not afford it at all.

I always find it odd that people take such a hands-off approach when it comes to things like Vitamin D usage, while at the same time cheerleading for governments to crack down hard on things like gyms, birthday parties, church services, elementary schools. Nothing is too extreme in the name of COVID, except that somehow distributing Vitamin D would be going overboard?

Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

#29

Post by scythe »

xivzgrev wrote: post #24

"All residents in the nursing-home receive chronic vitamin D supplementation with regular maintenance boluses (single oral dose of 80,000 IU vitamin D3 every 2–3 months)" Holy shit that's a lot of vitamin D

AFAICT the bolus supplements are meant to take months to absorb. This is probably easier and definitely cheaper than giving daily supplement pills. I'm not sure if there are serious downsides to bolus supplementation, but it's probably not worse than most nursing-home cost-cutting tactics.
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