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Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

mdpi.com

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Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#151

Post by mixmastamyk »

Exmoor wrote: post #118
jberryman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am honestly completely shocked that we haven't seen governments and the media increasing people's awareness of this issue. The fact that it hasn't been picked up by journalists and public health officials should rather be reason for you to be skeptical of early research cherry-picked by random programmers on the internet... the same people that were blowing up HN with hydroxychloroquine stories just a few months…

When I was reading it in the spring I was skeptical for exactly those reasons, but it quickly became clear with even the smallest bit of research that it was well accepted the Vitamin D deficiency was linked with worsened effects from common viruses and that the vast majority of people in my region were deficient. Most of the people I've seen mentioning it recently have been medical and scientists on other sites.

Haven't been sick more than a day at a time since reading about it around 2010.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#152

Post by mixmastamyk »

wolco2 wrote: post #142
nucleardog wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s really the blocker here. Vitamin D supplementation is very low risk and the risks are well known. I’ve seen at least one study that I can recall saying exactly that—the correlation is there and vitamin D is safe and basically risk free so we should be supplementing it in at least the at-risk population immediately.

Vitamin D taken orally needs to bind with Calcium or Mg. Sun Lamps may be a better option for the at risk group.

Elderly can't produce vitamin D.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#153

Post by tzs »

progman32 wrote: post #112
ryandvm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often wondered if it would be economically feasible for blood donation banks to do this as a perk/incentive for giving blood. Every 6 months or so, you donate blood and as part of the process you get run-of-the-mill bloodwork report emailed to you a few days later. You'd have to make sure you weren't creating an incentive for sick people to donate blood just for the lab work, but otherwise it seems like it would…

There are fairly silly exclusions to donating blood. I was recently (but apparently no longer, thanks to new rules?) blocked from donating blood because I spent too much time in Europe. Would be unfortunate to gate this care on such eligibility.

You were probably blocked because of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (AKA human bovine spongiform encephalopathy AKA human mad cow disease).

The US recently removed the block for this on:

• people who were stationed with the military or lived on a base in Europe from 1980-1996, and

• people who lived in Europe for five years or more from 1980 to the present, except for two exceptions. Those are people who lived in Ireland or France for 5 years or more cumulatively from 1980-2001, and people who lived in the UK for 3 months or more cumulatively from 1980-1996.

Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Finland and the Czech Republic have similar rules, according to Wikipedia.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#154

Post by usrusr »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #42
nostromo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does exist now. Places like https://www.everlywell.com/ will test all sorts of things for you over the internet -- no doctor required.

If you ask a hundred random people on the street about this, how many would know about it? Transparency is a huge problem here.

And I'd instantly not trust it because providing the service for a nominal fee would be so much less of a money printing scheme than providing the service for a nominal fee, but then once the fee had established trust using that transaction as a sales vector for all kinds of snake oil that's supposedly exactly what you need according to the results. Unfortunately there are many good reasons to burden the medical economy with all these stifling regulations. The quest for the least bad system is a permanent struggle.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#155

Post by mixmastamyk »

colechristensen wrote: post #88
orangecat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I won't be surprised if we eventually determine that advocating Vitamin D supplements would have been one of the most beneficial strategies we could have implemented. But it's a "drug", and therefore "unethical" to recommend without years of studies even though we know that it has effectively zero risk.

You can overdose on vitamin D and it can have significant side effects. More or less anything that can have a positive effect on your health can have a negative effect if done wrong. If something has no possible negative effects it probably doesn’t do anything at all.

You can overdose on water but we still tell folks to drink several glasses a day, because most people don't get enough. That a tiny few are sensitive or go nuts with it shouldn't stop helping everyone else.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#156

Post by zackees »

g42gregory wrote: post #120
xenophonf wrote: post #81

MDPI follows an author-pays model, which incentivizes it to accept all submissions instead of publishing only good-quality work. In fact, this publisher is highly suspect, as it has allegedly pressured peer reviewers to accept low-quality work for publication in the recent past: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/open-access-editors-r... https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/be... I would trea…

I think that easy and inexpensive treatment methods are getting very skeptical reception by the medical community. My sense is that this is the training from the medical school, which in turn, is influenced (to a degree of course) by the pharmaceutical companies.

Also - big tech is coming out against vitamin supplementation with their creepy censorship:

Example of YouTube saying they will ban vit. c videos using the "misinformation" label: https://twitter.com/i/status/1252676099169038337

Vit. c is known to be a potent immune booster. So this is a real head scratcher.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#157

Post by mixmastamyk »

webwielder2 wrote: post #9

I read an article a few years ago that postulated that Vitamin D itself (whatever it is) was only part of the Vitamin D story. Essentially, sunlight confers benefits that are associated with Vitamin D, but Vitamin D itself may not be the cause of those benefits. And so, supplements are not sufficient. Does anyone know enough to comment on that generally, and regarding COVID? Edit: here is the article https://www.outs…

Many people can't get enough sunlight even if they wanted to, living at northern latitudes and/or cloudy areas.

Eldery can't produce it from sunlight either. This information doesn't help them.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#158

Post by gfxgirl »

peteretep wrote: post #46
KLexpat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that vitamin D absorption is one of those things linked to ethnicity. It is very basic and undisputed science that lower melanin in skin = higher vitamin D absorption. No European educational institution or government wants to publicise research highlighting that ethnic groups indigenous to the northern hemisphere are more suited to the natural environment they are endemic too, and less likely to have…

> No European educational institution or government wants to publicise research highlighting that ethnic groups etc This is just not true and sounds like some weird dog whistle: https://ambulance.libguides.com/c.php?g=677734&p=4854430 From there is the following study which concludes “ Greater risk of severe COVID-19 in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations is not explained by cardiometabolic, socioeconomic or…

There's a greater risk in Asians? Japan has had 20k deaths or 1 in 60k, vs USA which is currently at 1 in 1200

People always make up random excuses like

"Japan locked down more" No they didn't. In fact they've been practically unlocked since June.

"Japan doesn't test as much" That wouldn't hide a raise in the death rate overall.

"Japanese people wear masks" Restaurants, coffeeshops, and bars are full (yes, they are) and those people are not wearing masks. They do wear them elsewhere (trains, busses, stores, outside...)

In any case, that Asians are of "Greater Risk of severe COVID-19" doesn't seem to fit the facts at least in Japan.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#159

Post by mixmastamyk »

Ragib_Zaman wrote: post #13

I highly recommend watching this video: https://youtu.be/Kvh4D_osFXs Sunlight gives us vitamin D and nitric oxide (which improves blood flow and reduces hypertension). Vitamin D is crucial for the functioning of our immune systems, and the 1000IU dosage of many supplements is laughably small. A light skinned person in a singlet standing outside at noon for 30 minutes will produce between 10,000IU and 20,000IU in thei…

> but avoiding the sun when it is high in the sky

This is bad advice at high latitudes or in winter time. In those situations the highest sun should be sought.

Re: Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths

#160

Post by TechBro8615 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #95
schoolornot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I'm feeling ill or need a test I call a friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner in another state. She has a ballpark idea of my current health, enough info to fit on an index card. Then she files a script with the pharmacy or writes me a prescription for a blood test. The whole thing is done in 5 minutes. In fact, the whole thing is done over iMessage. Firewall is the perfect term. Everyone knows the industry…

You can get blood tests without a prescription - or at least without a nurse friend, by just paying a fairly small fee and going to a local labcorp/quest diagnostics. e.g. privatemdlabs.com (I'm not recommending this site - just giving it as an example. Though I have used it before without issue, there may be other companies providing better/more competitive services in this field)

This is true, but a full panel of tests will easily run you in the multiple hundreds of dollars.
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