What is it with the obsession over vitamin D on HN?
Maybe it's due to the fact that most of HN'ers have indoor jobs(or education) and typically work long hours, leading to endemic Vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
61–70 of 112 posts
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#62I'm against Vitamin supplementations altogether but I'll try to share a reason why supplementing Vitamin D in particular is not a good idea.
The only form of Vitamin D that matters is D3. If you are not getting that, you're just ingesting a toxin that is useless at best.
Even if you are taking D3, it is not effective without K2. So, if you're just taking D3, again, it's useless at best.
Let's say you're taking D3+K2 as oral supplementation. How much are you taking? One of the richest natural sources of Vitamin D3 is Salmon. You'd have to eat a kilo (2.2 lbs) of Salmon just to get 8400 IU of D3. If you're taking a lot more (for example, 80,000 IU as used in this study), your liver has to deal with it... and it has not evolved to deal with that amount. The D3 produced in your body because of sun exposure doesn't have to go through the liver.
Nutrition science is hard but nutrition is easy. Just eat what people have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years. Supplements are almost always a bad idea.
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#63I'm against Vitamin supplementations altogether but I'll try to share a reason why supplementing Vitamin D in particular is not a good idea. The only form of Vitamin D that matters is D3. If you are not getting that, you're just ingesting a toxin that is useless at best. Even if you are taking D3, it is not effective without K2. So, if you're just taking D3, again, it's useless at best. Let's say you're taking D3+K2…
I'm not following your explanation.
> Let's say you're taking D3+K2 as oral supplementation [...] You'd have to eat a kilo (2.2 lbs) of Salmon
So, what's so bad about D3+K2 if you do not want to eat a kilo of Salmon a day?
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vitamin D can be bought without prescription and there is currently no shortage, so why should a country (government) distribute it? Anyone who wants some can buy some. Handing out free Vitamin D is like handing out free gym passes. It's not bad, but also not really a government's responsibility except for cases when people would benefit a lot but could not afford it at all.
I always find it odd that people take such a hands-off approach when it comes to things like Vitamin D usage, while at the same time cheerleading for governments to crack down hard on things like gyms, birthday parties, church services, elementary schools. Nothing is too extreme in the name of COVID, except that somehow distributing Vitamin D would be going overboard?
You are conflating different viewpoints into a single entity, let's call them "them" for purpose of discussion.
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#65I'm against Vitamin supplementations altogether but I'll try to share a reason why supplementing Vitamin D in particular is not a good idea. The only form of Vitamin D that matters is D3. If you are not getting that, you're just ingesting a toxin that is useless at best. Even if you are taking D3, it is not effective without K2. So, if you're just taking D3, again, it's useless at best. Let's say you're taking D3+K2…
The only form of Vitamin D that matters is D3. If you are not getting that, you're just ingesting a toxin that is useless at best.
You say this with authority (but no sources), but it does not appear to be true. D3 seems to be preferable, and more efficacious, but that does not mean that D2 does nothing.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d2-vs-d3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22552031/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23792937/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/vitamin-d2...
Just eat what people have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years.
And spend 8 hours a day hunting, foraging, or working the fields, I suppose.
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#66Does Vitamin D improve the overall survival of elderly patients who are not suffering Covid?
Yes, reduces cold and flu-related difficulties as well.
It was recognized a century ago that tuberculosis patients who were taken outside in the sun did better than those who weren't.
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#67I am curious to know why countries didn't buy large quantities of vitamin D and distribute them to all people? Wouldn't that be cheaper and more effective than complete lockdowns, full hospitals, etc.?
Because the lockdowns aren’t about a virus
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#68The important factors for Vitamin D are that it's cheap to manufacture and has well known (low) risks. We have reasons to believe that it might help fight Covid, especially in deficient individuals, even if we do not have controlled studies. Making it freely available and recommended for anyone who doesn't obviously get enough already is a reasonable strategy. It might not work - the correlation may not be causal. Bu…
One could make a similar argument, but you then run up against a major WHO policy document on public health measures to combat influenza, which states:
"Ten RCTs were included in the meta-analysis, and there was no evidence that face masks are effective in reducing transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."
and
"According to the GRADE approach, there was moderate quality of evidence involving >6000 participants that face masks are ineffective in reducing influenza transmission in the community."
and
"Reusable cloth face masks are not recommended. Medical face masks are generally not reusable, and an adequate supply would be essential if the use of face masks was recommended. If worn by a symptomatic case, that person might require multiple masks per day for multiple days of illness."
https://www.who.int/influenza/publications/public_health_mea...
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#69I'm against Vitamin supplementations altogether but I'll try to share a reason why supplementing Vitamin D in particular is not a good idea. The only form of Vitamin D that matters is D3. If you are not getting that, you're just ingesting a toxin that is useless at best. Even if you are taking D3, it is not effective without K2. So, if you're just taking D3, again, it's useless at best. Let's say you're taking D3+K2…
> The D3 produced in your body because of sun exposure doesn't have to go through the liver.
Most people don’t have access to that much sunlight, whether it’s because they have to spend most of the day working indoors, or, like me, they live in a polar region where you literally can’t get sun most of the year.
While it may be better for your liver not to have more to process, I highly doubt taking vitamin supplements is worse than living with a deficiency.
Also, in polar cultures, eating large amounts of vitamin D rich foods is exactly what people have been doing for thousands of years, without it causing health problems. And I can tell you from experience, that failing to get that vitamin D WILL cause health problems.
Re: Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients
#70This isn't new, we knew about this in April. If you don't get much sunlight or do but have melenated skin which reduces absorption and live in a northern climate, you should be taking supplements.
You're right that this isn't new, but that's only because it's just as weak as all the other "evidence" on this topic. The reality is, there is a very weak body of evidence that maybe vitamin D provides a slight benefit. And yet, its proponents engage in the same hyperbole as the medical marijuana crowd. Take it if you want, it's not going to hurt you at any kind of reasonable dose, but it's not some miracle cure tha…
You know when I first read your comment about the medical marijuana crowd, I wanted to shoot up and defend it. It's brought me great benefits for my specific medical condition that it applies to.
However that's just it, my specific medical condition (migraines) isn't everyone's. So many people in the "crowd" are going around telling everyone it will cure their depression, anxiety, and basically anything that's painful or uncomfortable for them. It's not a miracle cure, and has it's clear detriments.