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Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

medrxiv.org

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Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#51

Post by namdnay »

subsubzero wrote: post #26
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

I also had a vitamin D deficiency that was found after a particularly bad string of colds, my Dr told me to take a supplement(5000ius daily) of vitamin D and have not seen anything like it since. Apparently windows cars/office block sunlight's ability to create vitamin D in a person so a car ride or sitting near an office window does not provide any help. And if you are in a office job you are def. not getting enough…

> if you are in a office job you are def. not getting enough vitamin D.

I think this really depends on location and lifestyle. Anyone in a Mediterranean or sunnier climate that spends more than 30mn a day outside will be fine

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#52

Post by nicoburns »

lidHanteyk wrote: post #10
dontbenebby wrote: post #7

Is there any evidence multivitamins are harmful (not just that there's no proof they help improve health?) It's because of stuff like this I take one. Maybe I'm wasting money, but absent a harm I feel it's worth it to hedge my bets.

Yes, vitamin D is well-known to be harmful in excess [0] and to be fat-soluble, meaning that it can build up gradually over time. You might not hear of such conditions very often, though, since getting excess vitamin D usually takes effort. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Excess

Of course literally everything is harmful in excess, including essentials such as water and oxygen. The harmful dose being very different to the normal/helpful dose is as good as it gets.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#53

Post by mkolodny »

danenania wrote: post #28
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

Does anyone know of a rule of thumb for how much time spent in direct sunlight is equivalent to a Vitamin D supplement? Is an hour per day (on average) sufficient?

It depends on your skin color [0]. For people with light skin, 13 minutes of direct midday sunlight three times a week may be enough. But for people with dark skin, you may need 30 minutes to 3 hours of direct sunlight (the article doesn't make it clear whether that is three times a week or once a day) to get enough vitamin D.

[0] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-from-sun#skin...

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#54

Post by mixmastamyk »

kryogen1c wrote: post #38

this doesnt pass the correlation vs causation smell test for me. i suspect VID correlates well with COVID comorbidities, like a sedentary lifestyle, hypertension, and weight problems. the opposite is also probably true, that people with good vit D levels correlate with healthier lifestyles and fewer comorbidities.

Perhaps. D has been long known to support the immune system however, including respiratory ailments. More study needed.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#55

Post by Broken_Hippo »

danenania wrote: post #28
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

Does anyone know of a rule of thumb for how much time spent in direct sunlight is equivalent to a Vitamin D supplement? Is an hour per day (on average) sufficient?

My doctor's advice: 15-30 minutes of sun per day, with more than just your face exposed. So yes, an hour a day might be sufficient. You don't need to sunbathe, luckily, and cloudy days count too.

For me, this only counts from May to August: I'm pretty far north, and there isn't proper sun strength much of the year.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#56

Post by matsemann »

nosefrog wrote: post #14
mindcrime wrote: post #8

Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement." I've heard that many times over the years and I have taken a Vitamin D supplement on and off (more off than on) over the years. When this COVID-19 thing first hit, I had a physical scheduled…

Same thing happened to me. I was in the single digits for Vitamin D, and my doc had me taking 10000 a day (or week) I think. Within a month, I started to feel way more energy in the afternoon (I used to feel dead by 1pm). I also mysteriously kept getting sick with small colds that winter before supplementing, and those also went away.

How is it taken in the rest of the world? In Norway, it's traditionally done by drinking cod liver oil daily during the winter months. At least that's what I do.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#57

Post by elric »

simonsarris wrote: post #2

I find this compelling: > Strikingly, 100% of ICU patients less than 75 years old had VDI [Vitamin D Insufficiency] Since mid-March I've been trying to keep track of Vitamin D/Sunlight suggestions and papers here: https://simonsarris.com/sunlight

This mess started towards the end of the winter, a long period of low sunlight and presumably lower vit D levels. What's the rate of VDI in 75 year olds in general towards the end of winter? I can't find any numbers, but I suspect it'll be close to 100% in any non-warm climate.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#58

Post by korethr »

Interesting.

Okay, let's play with this. Let us extrapolate from the strong correlation found by this retrospective review, and postulate that Vitamin D Insufficiency (VDI) is indeed a major contributing factor in either the severity of a COVID-19 infection, or the chances of contracting it. (I am not claiming this is indeed true, correlation != causation, but I think strong correlations are certainly worth looking at and playing with).

It is my observation that in my local area, the shelter-in-place order has resulted in more people spending more of their time indoors and not going outside as much. The park in my neighborhood is empty. I see less people on the bike trails visible from the roads I take to the grocery store. A nature park 20 minutes from my house, the kind that people go to to get out of the city and the hell away from other people, is closed with COVID-19 as the justification and scary signs threatening fines posted at all the entrances. And so on.

With less people getting outside, and less often, that means more people are getting less sun exposure, and less vitamin D. Assuming that their diets aren't changing to make up for that, that means more people with VDI, and those already with VDI getting worse. As such, if VDI will make it easier to catch COVID, or make the symptoms worse once caught, I can't help but wonder if these shelter-in-place orders intended to slow the spread won't end up shooting us in the foot, setting us up for a 2nd wave more brutal than had people been encouraged and incentivized to get outside more.

I really hope I'm wrong about that.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#59

Post by hollander »

ashtonkem wrote: post #25
the_jeremy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A psychiatrist I saw multiple years ago told me to start taking Vitamin D. I went more or less blindly with 5,000 IU after reading some internet articles. I got my blood checked last year and decided I should probably actually know if I'm doing too much or too little. I was within 5% of the middle of the healthy range for vitamin D levels. For reference, 5,000 IU is >800% the FDA daily recommended value. People with…

Also, the absorption of it orally appears to be kind of finicky.

Vitamin D intake via supplements (vitamin pills) results in vitamin D storage in fat in you body. The storage decays over time, and it appears that intake via supplements decays twice as fast as intake via sun exposure.

Re: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe Covid-19

#60

Post by fb1994 »

korethr wrote: post #58

Interesting. Okay, let's play with this. Let us extrapolate from the strong correlation found by this retrospective review, and postulate that Vitamin D Insufficiency (VDI) is indeed a major contributing factor in either the severity of a COVID-19 infection, or the chances of contracting it. (I am not claiming this is indeed true, correlation != causation, but I think strong correlations are certainly worth looking a…

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4504358/
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