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Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

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Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#121

Post by ellyagg »

ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

It's frustrating that when this comes up, this comment is always the top one, because it's not true.

We have dozens of RCTs suggesting that vitamin D supplementation prevents respiratory infections[1]. There is a very good chance people could mitigate C19 risk with supplementation.

And I personally trust the vast majority of people to use reasonable enough dosing that overdose is unlikely, especially with appropriate messaging.

Downplaying the risks of low vitamin D (way more prevalent than vitmain D toxicity) seems as dangerous as the early pandemic messaging in the US that masks are ineffective.

1. https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#122

Post by diydsp »

credit_guy wrote: post #51
LegitShady wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those dosages are far higher than anyone supplementing vitamin d are likely to take.

I found out on HN that the official daily recommended dose for vitamin D is flawed, it was based on an erroneous statistical analysis. [1] contains some details. The bottom line is the daily dose should be about 8000 IU rather than the official 400 IU. Obviously, 250000 IU or 500000 IU is much higher, but this is a one-shot, not a daily dose. If you take 8000 IU daily dose as correct, then those 2 megadoses correspon…

When that came out a few years ago [1], I began getting my vitamin D tested through my doctor and slowly ramped up my dosage. It went from 28 ng/mL (70nmol/L) [2] to 32-35 ng/mL (80-87.5 nmol.L). In my own physiology, this required 4,000 IU (100 mcg) daily, orally. 2,000 IU was not quite enough.

I'm going to add another 2,000 IU daily to see if I can reach the recommended 100 nmol/L from the OP. [3]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918

[2] converter here: https://www.azcalculator.com/calc/vitamin-d-ngml-nmolL-conve...

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#123

Post by FreelanceX »

Would it be reasonable to hypothesize that, through lack of sun exposure and ensuing vitamin D deficiencies, lockdowns kill more people than they save? (that is, the increase in mortality would more than overcome the decrease in cases)

We cannot know for sure of course, but is it unreasonable to even consider?

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#124

Post by noir_lord »

BurningCycles wrote: post #48
sharpneli wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland we put Vitamin D in milk that’s sold on normal shops. And taking a supplement is heavily recommended. Though this is mostly because for 6 months of a year one simply cannot get it the natural way (too cold and sun is too low). And thanks to this we don’t have much deficiency, long time ago we used to have. Not saying it means it would help with covid. But the supplements definitely help with deficiency in…

>In Finland we put Vitamin D in milk that’s sold on normal shops. I'd wager it's the same in all the Nordic countries, at least it's the same here in Sweden. A couple a months ago when I spoke to my dad, he told me he had a checkup because he had been unusually tired, turned out that the only thing the testing showed was that he had d-vitamin deficiency. What surprised me is that he was given prescription d-vitamins,…

UK government changed it's advice to recommend supplementation in the winter months (unsurprising given how far north the UK is).

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#125

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

jogundas wrote: post #58
et2o wrote: post #5

Vitamin D has been endlessly promoted as a treatment for many diseases due to evidence from observational studies, but hundreds of millions of dollars in randomized controlled trials have never demonstrated it to be effective for any disease except rickets. There was just a large trial published in JAMA [1] examining its effectiveness for depression given solid observational data. It was not at all effective. The rea…

The recent JAMA only says that Vitamin D does not help with depression. On the other hand, it seems to be useful in preventing respiratory infections, see the following for a review of randomized studies https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i6583 .

Depression is a tough thing to treat. The amount of treatments that show promise, but essentially don't make a meaningful difference in RCT's is very, very large.

(Perhaps not coincidentally, placebo effects in depression are known to be large).

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#126

Post by arkitaip »

ellyagg wrote: post #121
ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

It's frustrating that when this comes up, this comment is always the top one, because it's not true. We have dozens of RCTs suggesting that vitamin D supplementation prevents respiratory infections[1]. There is a very good chance people could mitigate C19 risk with supplementation. And I personally trust the vast majority of people to use reasonable enough dosing that overdose is unlikely, especially with appropriate…

Dr. Rhonda Patrick on "Vitamin D may reduce susceptibility to COVID-19-associated lung injury": https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/vitamin-d-covid-19

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#127

Post by pkaye »

nicoburns wrote: post #97
pkaye wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get larger doses of vitamin D in one pill as a prescription. Like 20000 IU once every week or two instead of daily. Also there is vitamin D2 and D3. The normal stuff you take is called D2. The D3 is made by the kidneys from converting D2. But those with certain diseases, the kidneys don't do the conversion so they provide vitamin D3 in the form called calcitriol. Its something I need to take due to my kidney…

At least in the UK, it's pretty easy to get D3 over the counter too. I've been buying D3 drops off of Amazon.

Looks like I misunderstood it. Calcitriol is different from D3. Normally your body converts D3 to calcitriol but those with certain diseases will not get it converted.

Calcitriol is actually the most confusing of my medications to manage since the dosage needs to be adjusted based on monthly blood tests. Things like amount of sun exposure can swing my numbers around. And it interacts with so many blood test numbers like PTH, phosphorus and calcium levels.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#128

Post by Florin_Andrei »

credit_guy wrote: post #51
LegitShady wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those dosages are far higher than anyone supplementing vitamin d are likely to take.

I found out on HN that the official daily recommended dose for vitamin D is flawed, it was based on an erroneous statistical analysis. [1] contains some details. The bottom line is the daily dose should be about 8000 IU rather than the official 400 IU. Obviously, 250000 IU or 500000 IU is much higher, but this is a one-shot, not a daily dose. If you take 8000 IU daily dose as correct, then those 2 megadoses correspon…

A few things.

Whenever your conclusion is that the "official recommendations are flawed", and those were in place for a while now, scrutinize your process. Reading a post on social media is rarely paradigm-changing - and when it is, it's overwhelmingly in the wrong direction.

Secondly, the 8k dose doesn't seem realistic historically. Is there any diet that does not include the products of modern tech, that gets anywhere near those levels consistently? Doesn't seem likely.

Megadoses of anything are not without issues. There will be side-effects with vit D, esp. related to calcium, etc.

The data on the possible connection between vit D and respiratory illness is still way more sketchy than most people assume. There is no solid research yet.

---

That being said:

Vit D deficiency is pervasive in a lot of places. Most people would benefit from taking some supplementation.

1000 UI capsules are cheap and readily available. That dose is not far from the various "official" recommendations (which are all over the range of the hundreds, depending on country). There are no known side-effects at that level.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#129

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

James_Henry wrote: post #60
aplummer wrote: post #29

> The rapid increase of vitamin D levels in covid-19 infected patients with vitamin D deficiency ( Research paper warning alarm sounding here.

I don't know if this should really be considered a "research paper" even.

This is a pretty poor article on an interesting topic.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#130

Post by Florin_Andrei »

diydsp wrote: post #122
credit_guy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found out on HN that the official daily recommended dose for vitamin D is flawed, it was based on an erroneous statistical analysis. [1] contains some details. The bottom line is the daily dose should be about 8000 IU rather than the official 400 IU. Obviously, 250000 IU or 500000 IU is much higher, but this is a one-shot, not a daily dose. If you take 8000 IU daily dose as correct, then those 2 megadoses correspon…

When that came out a few years ago [1], I began getting my vitamin D tested through my doctor and slowly ramped up my dosage. It went from 28 ng/mL (70nmol/L) [2] to 32-35 ng/mL (80-87.5 nmol.L). In my own physiology, this required 4,000 IU (100 mcg) daily, orally. 2,000 IU was not quite enough. I'm going to add another 2,000 IU daily to see if I can reach the recommended 100 nmol/L from the OP. [3] [1] https://news.…

Now, there is a difference between "ramping up" levels and maintenance levels, right?

It's generally been found that larger doses are required to move the blood levels up, but it doesn't seem like people need to remain at those dosages to maintain those levels.

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