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The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

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Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to separate the elderly who aren't vitamin D deficient from the ones who are? Sounds like a basic measure that could be taken.

All are because the skin loses its ability to generate it in old age. Supplements are the only way.

If the body can absorb vitamin D from supplements then it can absorb it from food as well so your statement is wrong. You can eat 2-3 eggs and you're done.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#362
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say that with such certainty?

Randomized trial. This was not simply observational. There will be no correlation between being given higher dose vitamin D and age in this trial, the results appear at first blush to be showing Vitamin D is working independant of age. By the by this /exactly/ why a randomised trial has been the gold standard for medical treatment for so long. False correlations, confounding factors etc are all vastly less likely to…

Yep, in broad strokes, randomisation removes any bias or confounding effects such as age, gender, behaviour, genetic disposition etc. The price you pay is in precision; randomisation and the best practice analysis (intention to treat) tend to produce weaker signals of effectiveness compared to the control treatment. But that price is worth paying because randomisation is really the only way to be sure that you are seeing a real effect caused by your treatment.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on what the potential hazards are for the claim being correct versus the claim being incorrect. If the claim is that you can't get it from sharing an elevator, I would say the hazards if that claim is wrong are much greater than if that claim is correct. So, from a risk-management perspective, without any evidence, it's much better to assume that you can get COVID-19 from sharing an elevator until e…

If I live in a high-rise, then there are large problems in avoiding elevators that could be worse. If all residents were to use stairs, aside from cardiac difficulties of some, mobility issues, risks of falling when carrying large loads, etc, there’s also going to be great amounts of aerosols generated by the huffing and puffing of many people using the stairs all day long (possibly in close proximity for multiple pe…

A recent article in the Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal details how a large COVID-19 outbreak in China was traced back to one asymptomatic individual who infected a neighbor when they used the same elevator in their apartment building — though they were not in the elevator at the same time.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/9/20-1798_article

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it hasn’t been shown for elevators. I think this is because of the required time to breathe in a minimal viral load. Do you have evidence otherwise?

Yes I heard planes as well surprisingly safe relative to choir practice. Environments where lots of droplets are created are less safe...

I wonder how safe it is to queue at an airport, walk to the plane on a ramp among 100 yawning, coughing others, and reverse that process on the other side.

It may negate the safety of the actual airplane trip, or it may not.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All are because the skin loses its ability to generate it in old age. Supplements are the only way.

If the body can absorb vitamin D from supplements then it can absorb it from food as well so your statement is wrong. You can eat 2-3 eggs and you're done.

I don't think eggs have that much vitamin D, though. I googled: It said 2 eggs have 87iu.

To put this in perspective: I take 800iu as a maintenance dose to keep my vitamin D levels up. (I'm doing this under a doctor's supervision: I've been sick with low levels and she does blood tests occasionally to be sure). 2 eggs is simply not enough.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#366

Surly now it's time to just start giving everyone some free vitamin D. Best case scenario: Less dead people. Worst case scenario: We all have healthier bones.

Vitamin D pills look to be 3-5¢ per day. Hardly seems like something I’d be supportive of creating a “free” supply chain for.

Compare that to the cost of lockdown. To e cost of an ICU nurse. To the cost of a vaccine?

The point of making it free is so everyone will have it - not just because of the price.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#367

Very small scale but sounds promising. I've been taking 2000UI/day for few years now since my doc found my vitamin D was pretty low, it's now far up in the normal range now. I didn't let him give me the massive doses that they want to give you for low vitamin D, and opted for just starting to take the supplement, when I went back in 3 months later everything was in the normal range. I don't actually get much sunlight…

Sounds great. What's important to understand with high vitamin D doses is that overdoses can occur unregulated by the body.

The regulation of vitamin D usually occurs before its synthesis after sunlight exposure. Supplementing synthesized vitamin D circumvents the regulation and allows vitaminosis to happen.

I have read wildly different recommendations for the dose. Typical package is 1000 IU, you take 2000 IU, others recommend upwards of 8000 IU due to possible issues with earlier studies leading to FDA/regulatory agencies recommendations. Again, rather stay below 5000 IU unless explicitly told otherwise by a doc. Always get blood work done to REALLY figure out your levels and how to fix them.

Again, why we can overdose with supplements but too much sunlight won't cause an overdose:

Sunlight + components ---> X (regulation) Vitamin D ---> effect in body

Supplements start behind the regulation step...

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#368
post #3

From the results: “Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50%) p value X2 Fischer test p Which sounds like as strong a signal as a study of this scale could hope to show.

It's useful to note that this study doesn't need to stand on its own as evidence. It contributes to a growing body. As most of you may have already seen, there is a lot of observational evidence that people with low vitamin D have the worst C19 outcomes. Obviously, correlation by itself doesn't mean causation. But it is a hint. On top of the hint, we already have dozens of RCTs that vitamin D supplements suppress res…

What is a doze that someone should take daily in winter when exposure to sun is minimal?

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#369
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is it stops viral transcription at levels that also happen to be lethal to humans :p

My recollection is that it stops viral replication in vitro in monkey cells but does not stop viral replication in vitro in human cells.

Yes, it just stops replication "within the glass" (that's the meaning of "in vitro") with the cell culture, not in living human patients, and even "within the glass" only when using the "the Vero E6 cell line which is derived from kidney cells of green monkeys."

https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/new-study-hydroxy...

"The mechanism of action of hydroxychloroquine is to block entry of the virus into cells. Viral entry requires a helper enzyme. In the Vero E6 cell line, this enzyme is cathepsin L which hydroxychloroquine blocks. However, in the human lung cell line, the helping enzyme is TMPRSS2. Hydroxychloroquine does not effectively block this enzyme and cellular entry of the virus occurs."

So, inspired by the reports of the experiments with wrong cells a French doctor made some false claims about his success when treating patients, which were then promoted by one person wanting to be reelected, and then the followers... the results can be seen in the comments here.

Re: The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19

#370
Dai (2018): Magnesium status and supplementation influence vitamin D status and metabolism: results from a randomized trial https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30541089/

"Our findings suggest that optimal magnesium status may be important for optimizing 25(OH)D status. "

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