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Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

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Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#141

Post by [deleted] »

bad_user wrote: post #130
goda90 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is evidence of how deficiencies in these vitamins cause other problems unrelated to coronavirus. If it takes a pandemic to get people to worry about their nutrition, so be it.

> But there is evidence of how deficiencies in these vitamins cause other problems unrelated to coronavirus. To play the devil's advocate, no, that's not true. What we have are just associations which could be spurious. It is often said the general population is deficient in this or that vitamin, but in the west at least we are no longer in danger of developing scurvy or rickets and beyond that there's actually not m…

[deleted]

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#142

Post by LinuxBender »

cj wrote: post #38
RL_Quine wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many are toxic (vitamin D included) in unsuitable amounts, that’s probably too strong of a statement.

The study mentions 1,000 IU D3 dosage. A quick google turns up a rough figure of 60,000 IU "daily for multiple months" can become toxic. You're probably right, most things taken at 100x the normal dose for long period of time are toxic. (Water included)

Just anecdotal observation, I have been taking 40,000 IU D3, 800mcg K2, 400mg Magnesium among other things, daily for 3+ years, no issue. I had to work my way up to that. I've been reversing calcium buildup in my vascular system to lower my CaC score. I know of many people doing the same thing, some longer than I have been. We are all doing good. I also stay well hydrated.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#143

Post by gridlockd »

valarauko wrote: post #128
andy_ppp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are also from recommended amounts which we have no idea what optimal is. Has there been studies to say what the blood levels of vitamin d etc. should actually be?

The scientific consensus tends to suggest a serum level of Vit D ~ 30 ng/mL as optimal. Bone abnormalities are expected with levels healthy individuals show most people at <20 ng/mL. My take on the reports is that you want supplementation if it's below 10 ng/mL, with diminishing returns past that. The supplementation required to achieve 30 ng, or even 20 ng/mL for most people probably isn't worth it, and with uninten…

> The supplementation required to achieve 30 ng, or even 20 ng/mL for most people probably isn't worth it, and with unintended health consequences.

[citation needed]

Safe upper limit is considered 4000 IU daily which will get you up there (and beyond) easily and is very affordable.

For comparison, spending a while in the sun with your upper body exposed is easily 10,000 IUs for a light skinned person.

> Brown and black people likely have significantly lower "healthy" levels that don't warrant supplementation.

[citation desperately needed]

Dark-skinned people are generally advised to supplement.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#144

Post by vlovich123 »

valarauko wrote: post #123
cseleborg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about this deficiency thing. How is it defined, and does it make any sense to claim that such a large part of the population is deficient? Shouldn't that be considered "normal" (excluding the truly pathological cases), as opposed to "above-average"?

At least for Vit D and B12, the healthy levels were determined by establishing levels in "healthy" cohorts. Deficiency diseases for both of these vitamins are relatively rare, so it is easier to establish a wider "safe" range, rather than "deficiency" ranges. There's been a great deal of debate on safe Vit D levels, and the consensus (such as it is) is that a serum level of 30 ng/mL is likely optimal. Yet there are m…

Are there really no better studies than just those that categorize "healthy" cohorts & establish standards from that? That would presume a linear causal relation between "health" and vitamin levels in the body which would flip the order of operations - you want to establish a linear causal relation before you start recommending levels.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#145

Post by conistonwater »

giardini wrote: post #139
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right and it is no secret: - 40% of US Americans are B12 deficient https://www.livekindly.co/b12-deficiency-genetic-makeup/#:~:... . - 42% are Vitamin D deficient: https://www.cantonmercy.org/healthchat/42-percent-of-america... . - up to 50% are Magnesium deficient: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180226122548.h... - 10 - 20% of women are iron deficient: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2007/0301/p671.h…

And perhaps most of our conclusions are wrong (not b/c of our poor reasoning, but b/c we are misled by poor studies)! Remember that half of all research papers are probably wrong and most of medical research is wrong, according to John Ioannidis: "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" by John P. A. Ioannidis: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo... Lighter reading on this topic: "Lie…

I think this is wrong: Ioannidis's major point is that a lot of studies in medicine are underpowered (a similar issue to the replication crisis in psychology), leading to a lot of false positives. But there is no reason to think that this would be the case for a study that finds a vitamin deficiency in the population. We can expect no issues with p-hacking or garden of forking paths just because there is no place for them (the researchers are not looking for crazy-small interactions between vitamin levels and one of many possible outcomes, they're just recording the vitamin concentrations), and we know roughly the right concentrations for those vitamins too.

So I think this is misplaced skepticism, you shouldn't really dismiss studies so easily without thinking through the issues first. This would be much more relevant if the research was specifically about some random compound's small effect on Covid-19 without a prior reason to think it would be relevant at all - then the problems would indeed appear.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#146

Post by gridlockd »

cj wrote: post #134
valarauko wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently taking 60K IU D3. The dosage is 1 capsule a week, for 8 weeks, and the capsules come 4 to a pack. This is followed by a maintenance dosage of 1 60k capsule once a month.

Is this to treat a medical condition? I'm curious why an acute high dose would be preferable over a lower dose taken daily.

Sounds like he was diagnosed with a very low level of Vitamin D and got prescribed high dosage to get up to a healthy level quickly.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#147

Post by nunb »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #42
partyboat1586 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vitamin D deficiency is very common especially in people who spend their daytime hours inside and also in dark skinned people living in northern latitudes. In the UK doctors recommend everyone takes a vitamin D supplement in the winter.

I've never heard this, where is it recommended?

This is simply a result of how vitamin D is manufactured, and the lack of sunlight in northern latitudes.

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#148

Post by _0ffh »

PSA: Before supplementing Vitamin D, do some research on calcification and Vitamin K2.

Or you can trust a random person from the internet and supplement 40mcg K2 mk7 all-trans per every 1000IU of Vitamin D. That seems to be around the usual amount used in studies [1].

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate factor for high Vitamin D dosages of multiple tenths of thousands IU. Personally, I'd be wary of such dosages anyway.

[1] https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Schuetzt-Vitamin-D-vor-Covi...

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#149

Post by _0ffh »

coldcode wrote: post #120
axegon_ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite my somewhat limited knowledge in biology, my intuition was telling me that the number of patients seems way too small to come to definitive conclusions. Mind you, if Vitamin-D, magnesium and B12 play a role, that's good news for me: I've been very strict about those 3 in the past 2 years(and coincidentally loaded up my magnesium stash yesterday).

I've seen mentions of Vitamin K2 alongside D, something to do with the calcium issues with D. Maybe the magnesium is another way to manage that?

Don't know about the Magnesium, but good of you to ask about K2! I've put up a PSA at [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23391978

Re: Study of the effect of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 on Covid-19 patients

#150

Post by jerf »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #103
krageon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While toxic amounts of basically anything are bad, introducing random facts that have no bearing on what is discussed can mislead some readers into thinking you're making a point related to the topic at hand. While it may be unintentional, this is misleading and therefore not helpful.

Look at the context. I was responding to the implication that taking 3 vitamins is categorically safe. It is not.

If your definition of "safe" is so strict that it declares that's not safe, that's fine and your decision, but it's not a definition you can live by. You're not actually holding your actions in your life to that standard, because you can't be. It's fundamentally broken to do risk analysis without considering the possible benefits as well. Otherwise you end up with the answer to literally everything being "It could be harmful", with no countervailing possibilities, and your heuristic says "no" to everything, including doing nothing. You can't live that way.
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