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Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

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Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#81

Post by ColanR »

ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

> Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here....we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is really nearly the same as getting it naturally

I don't know what you mean by 'a ton', but there is good evidence that Vitamin D supplements do provide much of the same benefit [0] [1].

> Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D).

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16959053/

[1] https://sci-hub.se/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#82

Post by glofish »

mrfusion wrote: post #56
ve55 wrote: post #2

Although this is a notable finding it's important to remember that it doesn't lead to the conclusion that supplementing vitamin D will be very beneficial here. When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well, and we don't have a ton of good science to back up if curing a vitamin D deficiency via supplementation of pure vitamin D is rea…

> When vitamin D is produced in the body naturally via exposure to sunlight there's a huge amount of other things that occur as well Any further reading on that? On the other hand worth supplementation you don’t get the harmful uv rays.

UV rays should not be considered harmful de-facto!

Overexposure to UV rays is what causes trouble.

Slathering on the sunscreen even when not necessary (like walking from point A to point B, or spending 15 minutes outside, is what causes the predominant vitamin D deficiency in the first place.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#83

Post by odysseus »

As I wrote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025501 :

There is an app I've been using to track my Vitamin D for a few years now: http://dminder.ontometrics.com

(Not affiliated with the app, just happy with it.) It tells you the sun angle, peak hour of the day, and maximum time you should be in that day's sun based on your skin type, to avoid getting burnt while still getting enough D.

Be careful though - you might get a little OCD about Vitamin D tracking with this app. I did, and mainly use it now for checking how long it is safe to stay outdoors. (Instead of full blown tracking.)

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#85

Post by tekgnos »

baix777 wrote: post #65
tekgnos wrote: post #22

It is not surprising at all that Covid-19 matches what we already know about Vitamin D and Influenza. There are consequences for radically altering the environment in which humans evolved. We were nude outdoors and now we are clothed and indoors. When we do briefly go outside, we are all conditioned to slather on sunscreen, which blocks all Vitamin D generation. Why do people tend to get sick in the wintertime and no…

Humans have being wearing clothes for about 170,000 years, indoors and outdoors, long enough for a evolutionary response. Along with fire, clothing is one of our great inventions and allows humans to live in colder climates than we could otherwise. We have, along with other creatures like lice, been evolving since we started wearing clothes. But why do people get more sick in the winter, when they are forced into clo…

Sure, there has been evolution. Like the adaptation of white skin for humans in northern latitudes. Why was it so important to evolve pale skin for humans living in high latitudes?

Social distancing in summer as a reason why people don't get sick is an interesting theory, any studies that support it?

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#86

Post by y0ssar1an »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #78

I've been very frustrated in my attempts to raise this issue with the local health department where I live. I was brushed aside, and was told "correlation does not imply causation". I doubt that the person on the phone wanted to get into a conversation about dynamical systems or nonlinear data analysis, so I didn't even go there. Instead I sent a letter full of references to published research, and citing other lette…

In this case, the doctors really do know better. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to just about every disease. That's because it's a marker of frailty, not a direct cause for most of these diseases. In other words, correlation does not imply causation.

It sounds like you have too much confidence in published research and not enough confidence in your local health officials.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#87

Post by zaroth »

My wife just had a Vitamin D test which came at 15ng/mL, so we are chuckling right now that she is 100% going to die if she gets COVID.

Dark humor aside, that is one hell of a chart. Really helps explain the huge drop in death rate over the summer.

I must say it’s a bit of a missed opportunity to build up herd immunity while the sun is shining here in the northern hemisphere.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#88

Post by tekgnos »

AQuantized wrote: post #47
tekgnos wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study used a tiny amount of Vitamin D (2,00IU/day) which is absolutely not enough Vitamin D to have any affect on someone who is deficient. Going outside in a swimsuit produces 10,000+IU equivalent. We evolved nude, outdoors. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3356951/

It's not a tiny amount, probably about 40% of what most adults should be getting optimally, and significantly better than having almost no intake, which is the case for a lot of people who rarely go outside and don't eat any fatty fish.

That's fair. The RDA at 400 is tiny.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#89

Post by conorh »

I've mentioned this before, but my wife is a parathyroid surgeon (parathyroids are the glands that regulate the calcium in your neck) and would beg you to PLEASE monitor your calcium levels if you are supplementing with Vitamin D. She often sees patients on high doses of Vitamin D from well intentioned doctors, but with out of whack calcium levels because of it, and the patients can be very sick without understanding why. Often their doctors don't understand the processes either which is why they end up with her. I'll have her write a blog post about it at some point, but it is a real risk with possible severe long term consequences and she sees it a lot more often these days. She is getting her blog kicked off here (just yesterday actually) https://devaboone.com if you want to follow along.

Re: Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]

#90

Post by y0ssar1an »

et2o wrote: post #5

Vitamin D has been endlessly promoted as a treatment for many diseases due to evidence from observational studies, but hundreds of millions of dollars in randomized controlled trials have never demonstrated it to be effective for any disease except rickets. There was just a large trial published in JAMA [1] examining its effectiveness for depression given solid observational data. It was not at all effective. The rea…

This should be the top comment.
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