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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

#81

Post by Havoc »

aantix wrote: post #72
Jabbles wrote: post #47

The important factors for Vitamin D are that it's cheap to manufacture and has well known (low) risks. We have reasons to believe that it might help fight Covid, especially in deficient individuals, even if we do not have controlled studies. Making it freely available and recommended for anyone who doesn't obviously get enough already is a reasonable strategy. It might not work - the correlation may not be causal. Bu…

Does this include the cheap Vitamin-D3 that's commonly sold at Walgreens and supermarkets? One of the tiny round capsules claims to have 2,000 IUs, which seems like a lot.

400 is recommended for dark winters, don't take more than 4000.

Source, UK NHS

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-...

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

#82

Post by ninja3925 »

scott_s wrote: post #38

The current discussion here seems to be about Vitamin D in general, and ignoring the study itself. In my reading, this study is weak evidence. This was not a randomized, controlled trial, but historical analyses of a natural experiment. In itself, that's not a problem: we can learn a lot from natural experiments. But I don't think this instance is much of an "experiment." As I understand it, all of the residents (96…

Honestly, I am not sure why this study is noteworthy. As you pointed you, the evidence is weak. Plus, we have the results of a good randomized controlled experiment. I don't think we need anything more to make up our mind (yes, vitamin D3 works very, very well): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...

Note: The study link is for treatment, not prevention.

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

#83

Post by AntiImperialist »

andreygrehov wrote: post #76
AntiImperialist wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is our bodies haven't evolved to process large amounts of ingested D3.

Ok, I see what you mean now. Interesting. Do you know how much time one would have to stay outside to get, say, 5,000 IU?

Depends. Sunlight just converts a precursor molecule (7-dehydrocholesterol) to D3. The precursor is a product of the cholesterol synthesis system.

I personally believe you don't need any exposure to direct sunlight to get required D3 as long as you eat food natural to humans, specially if the diet is close to that of indigenous groups living in similar environment for thousands of years. We store D3 in our fat and you can also get it when you eat animal fat.

However, if you really want to use sun exposure, I recommend an app called dminder which tells you, based on your location, if and when sun exposure will give you Vitamin-D.

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

#84

Post by sassyboy »

aantix wrote: post #72
Jabbles wrote: post #47

The important factors for Vitamin D are that it's cheap to manufacture and has well known (low) risks. We have reasons to believe that it might help fight Covid, especially in deficient individuals, even if we do not have controlled studies. Making it freely available and recommended for anyone who doesn't obviously get enough already is a reasonable strategy. It might not work - the correlation may not be causal. Bu…

Does this include the cheap Vitamin-D3 that's commonly sold at Walgreens and supermarkets? One of the tiny round capsules claims to have 2,000 IUs, which seems like a lot.

Dr. Fauci supposedly takes 6000 IU of Vitamin D daily.

https://vitamindwiki.com/Dr.+Fauci+takes+6%2C000+IU+of+Vitam...

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

#85

Post by scott_s »

ninja3925 wrote: post #82
scott_s wrote: post #38

The current discussion here seems to be about Vitamin D in general, and ignoring the study itself. In my reading, this study is weak evidence. This was not a randomized, controlled trial, but historical analyses of a natural experiment. In itself, that's not a problem: we can learn a lot from natural experiments. But I don't think this instance is much of an "experiment." As I understand it, all of the residents (96…

Honestly, I am not sure why this study is noteworthy. As you pointed you, the evidence is weak. Plus, we have the results of a good randomized controlled experiment. I don't think we need anything more to make up our mind (yes, vitamin D3 works very, very well): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602... Note: The study link is for treatment, not prevention.

I think we should be more measured in our conclusions. See https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid

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

#87

Post by IronRanger »

Jabbles wrote: post #47

The important factors for Vitamin D are that it's cheap to manufacture and has well known (low) risks. We have reasons to believe that it might help fight Covid, especially in deficient individuals, even if we do not have controlled studies. Making it freely available and recommended for anyone who doesn't obviously get enough already is a reasonable strategy. It might not work - the correlation may not be causal. Bu…

Instead of lockdown, why don't Governments issue free Vitamin D to all households and at all pharamcies, all winter? The cost would be a few million - against tens of billions for lockdown.

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

#88

Post by erdewit »

hosh wrote: post #46
chartpath wrote: post #45

Everyone on HN always says they are taking like 10x the RDA and it's the only thing that makes them survive the winter, blah blah blah. Intentionally hyperbolic, but not far off. Every time I try just 400 IU per day for a week it makes me dizzy and woozy. I eat plenty of meat and veggies with K2, and nuts and fish with magnesium. Vitamin-D containing foods like milk, eggs and fish are totally fine. I can bake all day…

Paul Stemets, a mycologists, had worked out a way to get button or shitake mushrooms to generate a lot of vitamin D. You simply expose them to sunlight for about a "day" (and no more). (Unfortunately, I wish there were more detailed study on this; how many hours of sunlight are we talking about? Is it latitude dependent?) My point is that there are ways to generate supplemental vitamin-d without having to go get synt…

The mushrooms produce vitamin D2 though, not D3.
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