If you dont read the news you are uniformed
If you do read the news you are misinformed
Now there is a random control trial (rct) showing significant benefit for the active form of vitamin d Calcifediol to very significantly benefit covid patients.
There is emerging interesting science that the virus causes a Bradykinin storm that explains some of the pathology. Vitamin D is known to mitigate Bradykinin effects. There are other agents that can be used to treat Bradykinin that are under investigation
Great links! The random control trial does point to promising results. I am happy to report that I have been taking a 2000 IU supplement quite faithfully for years, so hopefully that would mitigate the effects of any future infection.
So how did you learn about this research, if not via news sites such as the ones you linked to?
I would agree that this story should dominate headlines more than it has. Nevertheless, a cursory Google search shows it has in fact been covered by the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, UPI, Fox, ABC, and NBC.
Chris. I am glad that you are taking vitamin d. Itâs very mportant follow the Medical journals science journals. The news media has been and is horrible in reporting. We have to remember that the media is biased and has backing from its interests that has only gotten worse during an election year.
You speak of âthe mediaâ as if it is some monolithic, well-synchronized power house (always aligned against your own side, of course). Media is a very plural word, and never more so than now. So it is meaningless to cry about âitâ being biased. Of course âitâ is ⌠and every different which way depending on which outlet or blogger you have in mind. No matter which side or angle you are pushing, it will be a virtual certainty that there are media broadcasters promoting your view (for better or worse depending on what your view is. ⌠because donât think for a second that just because we can see bias everywhere, that suddenly this means all bias is equal, and therefore equally dismissable. Some biases are much, much wronger and wrong-headed than others.)
One thing among many that conspiracists donât understand is the free marketplace that commercial media operates in. They donât want to get scooped by their competitors or make mistakes that their competition might catch and have to make corrections and retractions latter. (That is of course not to say that apart from the facts there is no bias or spin, but that is the responsibility of the consumer to be discerning about.) Then there are the monetized tabloid blogs and YouTube channels pretending to be unbiased news sources but have no competition or incentive fo be honest â they are all about clickers and viewers, paid by the very big tech firms they decry.
I have no doubt that extra D vitamin is beneficial for those living in areas with relatively cold or dark winters. Our family takes extra D during winters but not during warm summers when sunshine takes care of the D vitamin need.
If D vitamin would have a major impact on mortality of covid patients, people living in subtropical or tropical areas should have a lower mortality rate than those living in northern areas because bare skin + sunshine should be an effective way to get D vitamin. Is there any evidence of this?
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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If itâs not on the BBC and in the Times, Telegraph and Guardian and New Scientist, itâs 2nd rate at best. The Atlanticâs good. The NYT and Washington Post mean well.
Kai. Itâs not that simple people that live in sunny areas can be deficient. It is diet related and certainly theirvare other factors in Covid infection and severity. People with darker skins, poor diet, obese and aged are more likely to be d deficient. This effects are immune function and is likely related to this innate immunity we see in a high percentage of the population. Also we now have new understanding that the virus may be causing a Bradykinin storm which is mitigated with D. The fact that this trial showed benefit with high doses of active d calfiferdiol in preventing icu suggests that it may be directly mitigating the Bradykinin storm.
But all the studies are showing strong correlation to vitamin d including this one from u Chicago that shows the vitamin d deficiency increases susceptibility to Covid infection by 77%. This is huge!!! Why isnât anyone hearing about it? Did you hear about these studies in the media??
Woah woah woah. Decrease ICU admission by 97%? When you see numbers like this, you can be assured that this is probably the result of either a small sample size or misleading statistics.
All hospitalized patients received as best available therapy the same standard care, (per hospital protocol), of a combination of hydroxychloroquine (400 mg every 12 hours on the first day, and 200 mg every 12 hours for the following 5 days), azithromycin (500 mg orally for 5 days. Eligible patients were allocated at a 2 calcifediol:1 no calcifediol ratio through electronic randomization on the day of admission to take oral calcifediol (0.532 mg), or not. Patients in the calcifediol treatment group continued with oral calcifediol (0.266 mg) on day 3 and 7, and then weekly until discharge or ICU admission. Outcomes of effectiveness included rate of ICU admission and deaths.
This seems okay, itâs not a placebo control trial but they have a clear end goal of what they are studying and only aimed to vary one thing. So how many patients did they look at?
Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission
So these seem like remarkable results, but how similar were the two groups in general? Some potential problems looking at the âcontrolâ and 'calcifediol â groups:
Control group was 70% male compared to 54% male in calcifediol group
60% of the control group compared to 25% of the calcifediol group had previously high blood pressure
61% of the control group compared to had âone prognostic bad risk factorâ compared to 48% of the calcifediol group
So, something like this could warrant further study, but there could be other underlying factors here and/or the results could just be due to chance with the small sample size and various risk factors that could impact the data. It could also be the people involved in the study were deficient in vitamin D and this could be something to help certain populations or people, but wouldnât cause much of an effect in a different population.
Matthew. Yes This is a small study and authors state need further study but amazing that no large scale clinical trial has been done while remdisivir which just had a trial showing only very modest effects.
All the studies are showing vitamin d deficiency is more likely to become infected and have more severe outcomes while supplementation (taking into account confounders ) is beneficial. The benefit to risk ratio for vitamin d is high and easily accessible. Everyone should take this.
The pandemic is really waning even though the infection rate is still high the death rate is decreasing as we have better ways of treating and the most susceptible have been effected. A high percent of the population is resistant to the virus.
While we have some better ways of treating, why do you think the most susceptible have been affected? For example, many states havenât seen many cases in nursing homes as of yet:
Yes maybe some the same ones that donât wear masks are overweight, smoke, drink excess alcohol they have other things to be concerned about. . Itâs a choice but vitamin D is beneficial cheap will reduce infection and spread reducing hospitalization and save lives.
Itâs actually not that easy to overdose on D anymore than paracetamol aspirin or antihistamines.
