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This is NOT a prospective controlled study!
There’s plenty of information in Pubmed.
Don’t look only for Level 1 studies.
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- Jul 21, 2019
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OK, this is what the last paper on Vit D and COVID says:
Vitamin D, SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease
The continued spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the disease COVID-19 that is caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to calls for widespread high-dose vitamin D supplementation.35–39 These calls are without support from pertinent studies in humans at this time, but rather based on speculations about presumed mechanisms. There have been two key studies published to support this presumption: (1) An unbiased screen of repurposed drugs for treatment of avian influenza A H5N1 virus using appropriate cell lines and mice, which highlighted calcitriol (the active hormone of vitamin D) as a potential therapy.40 (2) A recent analysis of vitamin D and viral infections.41 However, whether these mechanisms apply with SARS-CoV-2 is not known. Studies investigating vitamin D and COVID-19 are currently underway,42 43 and more are likely to follow. Given that ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected with Covid-19—and this appears to be the case principally in the UK, the USA and other European countries—further research is justified, especially given that there is clear evidence that vitamin D deficiency is particularly common in these ethnic groups.44 45
However, we strongly caution against doses higher than the upper limit (4000 IU/day; 100 µg/day);7 8 and certainly of very high doses of vitamin D (in some reports, 10 000 IU/day (250 µg/day) of vitamin D are being promoted) unless under personal medical advice/clinical advice by a qualified health professional. Instead, we advocate the following lifestyle strategies for avoiding vitamin D deficiency and ensuring a healthy, balanced diet.
So, either you want to believe tentative and inconclusive data because it suits your bias or you are going to be scientific and wait for proper prospective and well controlled studies. If you elect the first one, why are you on this site?
Vitamin D, SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease
The continued spread of the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the disease COVID-19 that is caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to calls for widespread high-dose vitamin D supplementation.35–39 These calls are without support from pertinent studies in humans at this time, but rather based on speculations about presumed mechanisms. There have been two key studies published to support this presumption: (1) An unbiased screen of repurposed drugs for treatment of avian influenza A H5N1 virus using appropriate cell lines and mice, which highlighted calcitriol (the active hormone of vitamin D) as a potential therapy.40 (2) A recent analysis of vitamin D and viral infections.41 However, whether these mechanisms apply with SARS-CoV-2 is not known. Studies investigating vitamin D and COVID-19 are currently underway,42 43 and more are likely to follow. Given that ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected with Covid-19—and this appears to be the case principally in the UK, the USA and other European countries—further research is justified, especially given that there is clear evidence that vitamin D deficiency is particularly common in these ethnic groups.44 45
However, we strongly caution against doses higher than the upper limit (4000 IU/day; 100 µg/day);7 8 and certainly of very high doses of vitamin D (in some reports, 10 000 IU/day (250 µg/day) of vitamin D are being promoted) unless under personal medical advice/clinical advice by a qualified health professional. Instead, we advocate the following lifestyle strategies for avoiding vitamin D deficiency and ensuring a healthy, balanced diet.
So, either you want to believe tentative and inconclusive data because it suits your bias or you are going to be scientific and wait for proper prospective and well controlled studies. If you elect the first one, why are you on this site?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #66
I am not into discussing medicine on social media.
So just a note, and I am out:
In order to get a well designed Level 1 study on the specific subject, you need to identify a significant number of vitD deficient volunteers (thousands), preferably in the covid19 high risk group, and use vitD supplementation, no supplementation and placebo, and get statistically important results on the long term.
Do you think that such a study is doable? Or ethical, during the pandemic? And will you have enough time for the groups to get exposed to the virus, since they are now being vaccinated?
Could it be more ethical to promote in the social media the advice that concludes the bmj article that you posted?
Summary for social media
Vitamin D is essential for good health, especially bone and muscle health. Many people have low blood levels of vitamin D, especially in winter or if confined indoors, because summer sunshine is the main source of vitamin D for most people. Government vitamin D intake recommendations for the general population are 400 IU (10 µg) per day for the UK7 and 600 IU (15 µg) per day for the USA8 (800 IU (20 µg) per day for >70 years) and the EU.9 Taking a daily supplement (400 IU /day (10 µg/day) in the UK) and eating foods that provide vitamin D is particularly important for those self-isolating59 with limited exposure to sunlight. Vitamin D intakes greater than the upper limit of 4000 IU (100 µg) per day may be harmful and should be avoided unless under personal medical/clinical advice by a qualified health professional.
Uh...the minimum daily requirement was determined by empirical methods, and I was in the range where disease can occur. I felt better when the deficiency was corrected. That’s a far cry from placebo.
So, the first one from India is highly suspicious. They say they took 40 asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients in a TERTIARY center. How do you get all these "no symptoms or mild symptoms" to such a center? Tertiary is a prestigious referral. I find it unlikely that these patients would show up here first. Then, you get a weird randomization where you have 16 in one group and 24 in the other. I also find strange this result:
The mean duration to SARS-CoV-2 negativity was 17.6±6.1 and 17.6±6.4 days (p=0.283) in the intervention and control arm, respectively.
I don't know what to make of this. If the duration of infection is the same in both groups. What do the other results mean?
This is the first conclusion from the second study. There best is up to you to figure out why it is not what is required:
"To our knowledge, this is the largest observational study of hospital in-patients with COVID-19 to examine any potential associations between the treatment of the acute infection and vitamin D status, and cholecalciferol treatment."
The mean duration to SARS-CoV-2 negativity was 17.6±6.1 and 17.6±6.4 days (p=0.283) in the intervention and control arm, respectively.
I don't know what to make of this. If the duration of infection is the same in both groups. What do the other results mean?
This is the first conclusion from the second study. There best is up to you to figure out why it is not what is required:
"To our knowledge, this is the largest observational study of hospital in-patients with COVID-19 to examine any potential associations between the treatment of the acute infection and vitamin D status, and cholecalciferol treatment."
So, if you don't discuss medicine in social media, then, please tell me in the "Summary for Social media" where it says that this is for COVID instead of in general?
You don’t need Level 1 studies to follow already applied general, low cost, low risk recommendations.
Lower level retrospective studies are more than enough.
Example: There are no Level 1, prospective, randomized controlled studies for the benefit of the use of masks in the covid 19 pandemic.
There is no need to study this, and it’s unethical. We have enough evidence from other sources.
I totally disagree withy our premise. Completely.
Anecdotal and suggestive information is not appropriate. And it is NOT unethical to prospectively study potential treatments correctly. Otherwise, you will end up with more HCQ or Clorox up your ass.
There is also this old paper in BMJ about parachutes. So your comparison of masks is ridiculous.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #73
Vitamin D is harmless and non invasive, as opposed to HCQ and Clorox.
Maybe the perfect scientific test has not been conducted so far, but all evidences show strong correlation. So why don't the government's and universities show interest? Instead we all pay billions to big pharma and waited in line for 1 year... Makes no sense to me.
FWIW:
Merck - Vitamin D Toxicity: https://www.msdmanuals.com/en-au/pr...cy-dependency-and-toxicity/vitamin-d-toxicity
OP
- Thread Starter
- #75
"In adults, taking 1250 mcg (50,000 units)/day for several months can cause toxicity."
Well sure that is going too far. 5,000 to 20,000 ius is fine.
Beautiful? What is your damage anyway??
The crusader for Vit D has been Prof. Holick. This is his seminal review paper:
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/80/6/1678S/4690512
and a shortened version:
https://www.direct-ms.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Grant-Hollick-review.pdf
He keeps publishing:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53864-1
There are also more critical views:
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/901146 (you need to register for free for the English version, some of the international versions of this article don't need this).
This is a version for the general public:
https://khn.org/news/how-michael-holick-sold-america-on-vitamin-d-and-profited/
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/80/6/1678S/4690512
and a shortened version:
https://www.direct-ms.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Grant-Hollick-review.pdf
He keeps publishing:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53864-1
There are also more critical views:
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/901146 (you need to register for free for the English version, some of the international versions of this article don't need this).
This is a version for the general public:
https://khn.org/news/how-michael-holick-sold-america-on-vitamin-d-and-profited/
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