Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients

Post by scott_s » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

tinus_hn wrote: post #110

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…

Meanwhile, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25133165 Which one is it?

My point was that the submitted article was weak evidence. That is not the same from saying their conclusions are wrong. It very well may be the case that Vitamin D supplementation is effective against COIVD-19. But the submitted article is not strong evidence for that.

As I pointed out elsewhere, a measured take: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid

Post by scott_s » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 8:45 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #109

scott_s wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless they were also testing these other interventions, that critique does not apply. How do we know they weren't? Since this is not a RTC, but rather an analysis of historical data, we don't know how much they divided up this historical data looking for correlations.

The general problem with this line of argument is that it's meant to be a critique of a statistical fishing expedition (sharpshooter fallacy). This study is clearly not a fishing expedition because vitamin D has been a topic of interest in coronavirus disease for months now with multiple studies conducted.

> This study is clearly not a fishing expedition because vitamin D has been a topic of interest in coronavirus disease for months now with multiple studies conducted.

That others have studied something does not preclude these researchers from "fishing" their data looking for a correlation. Since we don't know what process they used, we can't say. When considering the other weaknesses (such as the small number of "comparators"), it furthers my consideration of this study being weak evidence.

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

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