Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

mdpi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 304 posts

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

#281

Post by anoncake »

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.

Are sun lamps sufficient to enhance Vitamin D production? They're mainly used for their psychological effects.

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

#282

Post by anoncake »

colechristensen wrote: post #97
dwighttk wrote: post #82

Do Vitamin D headlines make it to the front page more than average or does it just seem that way?

There is a strong signal to noise radio when it comes to the positive effectiveness of vitamin D. It has the benefits of being a common deficiency and having substantial weight behind positive effectiveness, low negative consequences, and being easy to acquire. People like the cure-all narrative, especially when even reasonable folk believe it has merit.

Basically: In the best case, it's a cure-all. In the worst case, it's still a cure-something.

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

#284

Post by dorkinspace »

11235813213455 wrote: post #279
lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t worry too much about sunscreen. Don’t have the link, but I remember reading a study that sunscreen had pretty much a zero 0% effect on Vitamin D levels, because most people wear way less sunscreen than they should, and the left over areas that people miss still produce enough.

btw sunscreen has a pretty negative effect on environment though, and is easily avoidable anyway with a cap/clothes

I can assure you that people with very light skin do not agree. Sunscreen is a necessity for some people.

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

#286

Post by Agustus »

11235813213455 wrote: post #279
lame-robot-hoax wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t worry too much about sunscreen. Don’t have the link, but I remember reading a study that sunscreen had pretty much a zero 0% effect on Vitamin D levels, because most people wear way less sunscreen than they should, and the left over areas that people miss still produce enough.

btw sunscreen has a pretty negative effect on environment though, and is easily avoidable anyway with a cap/clothes

The mineral based sunscreen is a big step in fixing this. Look for those that are environmentally friendly.

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

#287

Post by nradov »

waihtis wrote: post #146

I heard a different major factor from frontline healthcare workers - obesity. A vast majority of deaths in in the major hospital near myself has been obese people.

Yes obesity is one of several confirmed risk factors. But this is a confounding factor for Vitamin D deficiency. Obese patients are more likely to be deficient because the hormone is fat soluble.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.25.20237776

It's disappointing that most public health agencies have taken a defeatist approach and focused exclusively on preventing disease transmission. No matter what precautions we take a lot of people are still going to get infected so there should be equal focus on practical steps that everyone can take to improve their survival odds.

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

#288

Post by calyth2018 »

anoncake wrote: post #280
wraptile wrote: post #172

As someone with a constant vitamin D insufficiency I'd like to remind people that absorbtion is very difficult - you have to take it with a fatty meal! > The presence of fat in a meal with which a vitamin D-3 supplement is taken significantly enhances absorption of the supplement [1] 1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25441954

Getting people to eat fatty meals doesn't sound very challenging.

Try older seniors with diabetes who have long since adapted to low fat, low sugar meals. Often rather bland stuff.

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

#289

Post by nobody9999 »

stickfigure wrote: post #214
nobody9999 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AFAIU you can’t donate blood if you’re gay. At least, I saw some segment on Anderson Cooper where he claimed that was the case. That's not actually true. There are some restrictions if you're a man who has sex with men, but you're certainly not permanently barred from giving blood. cf. https://nybloodcenter.org/donate-blood/become-donor/can-i-do...

> There are some restrictions if you're a man who has sex with men This is a weird way of phrasing it. More accurate would be: You may not donate if you are a man who has sex with men. The only way to donate is to 1) stop having sex with other men and 2) wait 3 months. I'd say "you can't donate blood if you're gay" is a pretty close approximation.

>I'd say "you can't donate blood if you're gay" is a pretty close approximation.

As an approximation, yes. But that also includes bi-men, as well as women who have sex with bi men.

As such, your formulation also lacks precision, something you took me to task for (despite my link to actual data) in the previous sentence of your post.

Personally I think it's a dumb restriction given the advances in blood testing, but I don't run a blood donor program.

That said, those who deal with blood and blood products to be given to other humans tend to apply broad filters for donor acceptance. Note all the other restrictions in the the link I posted.

While extensive blood testing is the norm these days and the sensitivity of such testing is much better than it used to be, I imagine that being so picky about donors is much more about maintaining the integrity of the blood supply than being biased against any particular group -- even if it might seem that way.

Especially since the lack of screening/testing in the past caused a huge amount of suffering and death[0], including my own brother in-law, and through his exposure to tainted blood products, my sister as well.

Please note that such tragedies (with Hepatitis, HIV and other blood-borne diseases) are most certainly not the fault of donors.

Understanding the history[1] of these issues provides a lot of context (as it does for most things we do) for what we do today WRT the blood supply

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917149/

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232419/

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

#290

Post by wang_li »

bserge wrote: post #221
legulere wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s more about prescription drugs versus otc drugs. Prescription drugs need a prescription because they have potentially dangerous side effects. Often you don’t get a wanted effect without potential side effects. OTC drugs are usually extremely cheap (hence why you could think the medical community dislikes cheap medication). The fact that you don’t need a medical professional to get them makes them a target…

> Prescription drugs need a prescription because they have potentially dangerous side effects Or, more likely, someone just decided they should be prescription only. Why are melatonin, gabapentin, piracetam prescription only? Paracetamol will kill you in the right dosage, yet it's OTC. Hell, you can overdose on vitamins and minerals/metals, too. It's like a game for the industry, at the expense of a minority who have…

Metformin? Melatonin is otc.
Post reply on HN