7 ms·

N=43 (17 given vitamins vs 26 not) Highlights: "Significantly fewer DMB patients than controls required initiation of oxygen therapy subsequently throughout t

N=43 (17 given vitamins vs 26 not) Highlights: "Significantly fewer DMB patients than controls required initiation of oxygen therapy subsequently throughout their hospitalization (17.6% vs 61.5%, P=0.006)." "DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supports further larger randomized control trials to ascertain the full benefit of DMB in ameliorating COVID-19 severity." So while this is too small of a study to do anything but call for bigger studies, its additional evidence that vitamin deficiency may play a role in COVID-19 severity. Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway, it seems wise to do that.

Foivos 6y ago
> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway.... Could you elaborate on that? I thought that taking vitamin supplements without a recommendation from a doctor is just a way to have very expensive piss. Most of the things that get in, are removed from the body without being absorbed.
- ses1984 6y ago
  If you're deficient in something, your body probably up-regulates absorption. You can get higher quality vitamins with forms that are more easily absorbed, for example chelated magnesium instead of magnesium oxide. That said, I thought the evidence actually pointed to higher all cause mortality in people who take vitamins.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    > I thought the evidence actually pointed to higher all cause mortality in people who take vitamins. Citation absolutely needed The caveat is excessive consumption of Vitamin A (and maybe others), in some specific circumstances. Keyword: excessive
    - ses1984 6y ago
      See my other reply please.
  - partyboat1586 6y ago
    If you have a study that shows higher all cause mortality please link it. My hypothesis would be that healthy people don't take vitamins because they never saw the need, putting already sick people in the second category. I doubt that taking vitamins can actually do much harm in low doses.
    - ses1984 6y ago
      I just Googled "vitamins lead to higher all cause mortality." First result: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010173019.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010173019.h... >After adjustment, use of multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper, were all associated with increased risk of death in the study population. The top three links showed association between beta carotene supplementation and risk of death. A little further down, a study showing "higher plasma concentrations of vitamin B12 were associated with a 25% increased adjusted risk of all-cause mortality per 1-SD increase" https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2758742 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... >The use of multivitamins overall was associated with 2.4% increased absolute risk for death (hazard ratio [HR], 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.02 - 1.10). https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/751462#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20multivitamins%20overall,substantially%20between%201986%20and%202004 https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/751462#:~:text=The%20us.... The conclusion I personally draw from all this is: don't take a multi vitamin. Don't take any vitamins unless I have a good reason like a tested deficiency. If I think I could benefit from a supplement then I try to increase it in my diet instead.
      - raverbashing 6y ago
        The risk of excessive iron is known and not new If you read that link you'll see the findings for iron and calcium were replicated. (Not to mention this article is basically referencing a different article which is somewhere else, so we're missing the context) The B12 issue, as the own article mentions, is not necessarily connected to a dietary excess consumption > Participants within the highest quartile of vitamin B12 plasma concentrations (>455.41 pg/mL) were more likely to be older and have higher BMI and blood pressure.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  An ICU is more expensive than expensive piss But sure, you could be extra sure that your Vit-D/Zinc/Mg (and other vitamins) levels are low by going to the doctor now, doing an exam and waiting for the results to come back. Or you could go through your diet and estimate your nutritional intake and see if anything is missing (a lot of apps do that calculation)
  - macintux 6y ago
    > ...and see if anything is missing With the caveat that (word of mouth, not researched) the FDA recommendations on vitamin D are substantially too low.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
  I agree, you don’t need a supplement. I get regular checkups. I’ve never had a deficiency in any vitamin except D.
  - partyboat1586 6y ago
    Vitamin D deficiency is very common especially in people who spend their daytime hours inside and also in dark skinned people living in northern latitudes. In the UK doctors recommend everyone takes a vitamin D supplement in the winter.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      I've never heard this, where is it recommended?
      - partyboat1586 6y ago
        My Doctor told me. Also see the NHS page https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-....
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Very useful, thank you.
      - nunb 6y ago
        This is simply a result of how vitamin D is manufactured, and the lack of sunlight in northern latitudes.
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        It was specifically the NHS advice I was questioning, I'm aware of the basic cause. Thanks.
      - DanBC 6y ago
- ChrisRR 6y ago
  I don't know what you count as very expensive. Here in the UK, daily multivitamins are like £3 for 100
- MichaelApproved 6y ago
  One issue with vitamin is they don’t get absorbed well without certain foods. Worse yet, some foods could even block absorption. Calcium absorption is one of the trickier vitamins to get tight. If you’re taking vitamins specifically because you’re deficient, make sure you’re eating complimentary foods with them.
  - James_Henry 6y ago
    Disease is also something that can block absorption which I feel a lot of people overlook. If you are vitamin D deficient, that may not be just because you don't get enough sun or need to take pills. This could be a sign of a kidney problem. If you are magnesium deficient, maybe it is a sign of a kidney problem. If you are B12 deficient, maybe it is a sign of a kidney problem. If you have a normal diet and you have deficiencies, don't just look to supplements.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  Most people are deficient in one vitamin or another. Take magnesium as an example, 50% of people in the US are deficient[0]. Get your blood work done and get targeted supplements. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786912/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786912/
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  > very expensive piss What I do after working out (say 4x/week) or after hard day in the mountains during weekends is to take 1/2 a tablet of multivitamin after big meal. So around 5-7x/week. That tablet has 100% of all the vitamins and 30% of the minerals. So I get 50% of vitamins, 15% of the minerals with a lot of fluids and fats, after proper effort on the body. This mix should be helping the body regenerate all the damage done by the workout. I can't get any overdose or even come close to it, unless I would be eating some very specific food like some seafood (and then overdose would come from it anyway, regardless of multivitamins). The multivitamins I buy (cheap Swiss ones) are cca 3.5$ per 20 tablets, giving the price per dosage/piss somewhere around 8 cents. I certainly have much more expensive pissing activities even from cheapest beers, sodas (which I don't generally drink) or basically any liquid apart from tap water.
- Nursie 6y ago
  Americans have the most expensive piss in the world. Yes, unless you have good reason to think you have a deficiency, supplements are a waste of time and money. And even if you do have reason to think you might have a deficiency there are often better (usually dietary) ways to address it.
  - partyboat1586 6y ago
    Americans have expensive piss because of the expensive pharmacological drugs you take. Vitamins are very cheap.
    - Nursie 6y ago
      What's this "you" business? I'm not American. Vitamins absolutely contribute to this, and many/most you take will be excreted again.
- yomly 6y ago
  This is a misnomer according to a recent guest on the Joe Rogan podcast. Granted that might not be the best source, I reflected on that and the chemistry makes sense. Vitamins primarily will leach out via osmosis. Osmosis works by gradients. This probably means an exponential decay of absorption relative to concentration and as you consume more, your body will waste progressively more and uptake will be less efficient per unit mass. But it's not boolean/binary - your body doesn't suddenly stop everything after an arbitrary cutoff. There's an elegance to this - it means there is a lot of leeway in consumption so it is hard to overdose. But it also means that if you "need" to increase bioavailability of a water soluble vitamin, you can simply consume more orally and it will increase. It just becomes progressively more wasteful to do via that means. (IV is more efficient in this manner) So I suppose wasteful is not the same as pointless/useless
  - partyboat1586 6y ago
    Dr Rhonda Patrick was the guest if anyone is interested. Worth watching with paper and pen (or digital equivalent).
    - nradov 6y ago
      Show notes are here. https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/jre-1474 https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/jre-1474
      - 0-_-0 6y ago
        2 interesting references to vitamin D studies: 00:29:32 - In the Philippines, every standard deviation increase in serum vitamin D was associated with an 8 times more likely chance to have a mild rather than severe COVID-19 outcome and a 20 times more likely chance to have a mild rather than critical outcome. 00:30:37 - In Indonesia, 98.9% of patients with vitamin D deficiency died, 88% of patients with vitamin D insufficiency died but only 4% of patients with sufficient vitamin D died.
        nradov 6y ago
- ageitgey 6y ago
  It depends on where you live. Some places in northern latitudes such as the UK recommend everyone take daily Vitamin D supplements due to low UV exposure in the late-fall/winter/early-spring. See https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-... As far as if that means you take that as a multi-vitamin pill vs D3 supplements alone I guess is up to the individual. But either option only costs a few dollars/pounds. Maybe I was a little loose with language saying multi-vitamin.
  - Foivos 6y ago
    This is a known / common deficiency. But does it make sense to blindly take Vitamin C for example?
axegon_ 6y ago
Despite my somewhat limited knowledge in biology, my intuition was telling me that the number of patients seems way too small to come to definitive conclusions. Mind you, if Vitamin-D, magnesium and B12 play a role, that's good news for me: I've been very strict about those 3 in the past 2 years(and coincidentally loaded up my magnesium stash yesterday).
- rrmm 6y ago
  43 is a reasonable number to start with (it gives you some power wrt sample variance, but you have to pay attention to randomization). It might give you some information if the intervention were really, really bad for patients or really really good. (So it could be used to establish possible harms). But definitely not useful farther than that except to justify larger studies. I'm still hoping we catch a break one of these days.
- drocer88 6y ago
  The authors address the issue of small sample size in the Discusson section: "This study was conducted under difficult dynamic circumstances and is thus limited by the small sample size, and the lack of systematic biologic measures to support its findings. It is however a proof-of-principle effort with very promising results. Our findings would need to be further validated in a well-designed randomized study."
- snikeris 6y ago
  Magnesium is something I've recently been interested in as well. Surprisingly, you don't find it in many multivitamins, or if you do, it's in small quantities. My guess is that it would make the multivitamin too large if it were included. Leafy green vegetables are a good source of Mg, but most people don't eat enough of those.
  - axegon_ 6y ago
    Yep, but even with green vegetables, you'll struggle to get anywhere near the daily recommendation, around 400mg per adult. And that might be significantly more if you are active in some sports for muscle recovery. Personally I can feel the difference given that I exercise daily and I do a 20000 step walks every morning. But yeah, I rely on supplements, which is kind of the easy way out. And even the very good ones are pretty cheap(mine set me back around 20 euros and go for 3 months).
rrmm 6y ago
Yeah this seems like it'd be much easier to roll out on wide spread basis than HCQ. With an appropriate caution about dosage consulting a doc before making any changes, they're all water soluble. That there statement about the limits of the study should be taken to heart. People seem to get too fixated on the first results they hear and hold on to them more strongly than subsequent results which can often provide better data to make decisions on.
- smilespray 6y ago
  Surely Vitamin D is fat soluble?
  - rrmm 6y ago
    Ahh you are right, thanks for the correction. D looks like upper tolerable dosage is around 4000IU/day for 9+ years old. Some studies apparently see overt toxicity after several months of 50000IU/day dosages.
dwheeler 6y ago
The number of people in the study is too small to really make much in the way of definitive conclusions. But it is certainly enough that a larger study should occur. In the meantime, since vitamins are cheap and not dangerous at these doses, it seems a reasonable measure to go ahead and take them. They might help, there's weak evidence to suggest that they might, and they shouldn't hurt. However, it's important not to overdose. I know that at least vitamin D is dangerous if overdosed. Most people as they get older are low in vitamin D anyway. In my mind this is something like masks were months ago. Maybe they help, maybe they don't, but the risk of wearing a mask or taking vitamins is pretty negligible, and there are common-sense reasons to believe they might be helpful. Until better experimental results are available, you should use common sense approaches to reduce your risks. They might not work, but the harm of doing them is negligible.
- j-conn 6y ago
  One thing to keep in mind in the US is that dietary supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA. Consumers have to place a lot of trust in the manufacturer that their product is free from potentially harmful contaminants.
- eloff 6y ago
  You're not going to overdose vitamin D at 1000 IU. Do your own research, but the RDA is too low for people living in the northern hemisphere. I'm a computer programmer living in Canada, I take 3000 IU a day. A good sun exposure can produce 50,000 IU, not all of which gets absorbed. If you have too much over a long period of time it can cause calcification. You're probably not going to experience that under 10000 IU a day. Again, do your own research. I'm not an expert in this field.
- jerf 6y ago
  If we're going to call out one of those three vitamins for overdose potential, it's the magnesium you should be calling out, not the vitamin D. Accidental vitamin D overdose seems to be a non-issue, almost (but not quite) entirely theoretical. Clinically-significant doses of magnesium can have real effects on the body, though, even in the "safe range"; it affects your heart fairly strongly, for instance, and needs to be in balance with some other nutrients. Even if you are in fact in need of magnesium supplementation, you can trigger some heart issues if you supplement magnesium without the other nutrients you need to go with it. This won't happen to most people, but I'd guess it's a 3-4 more orders of magnitude serious concern than vitamin D overdose.
hannob 6y ago
> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway, it seems wise to do that. There is no evidence that taking a basic mulit-vitamin has any benefit for average people. Depending on the composition of vitamins it can be harmful [1]. [1] https://www.cochrane.org/CD007176/LIVER_antioxidant-supplements-for-prevention-of-mortality-in-healthy-participants-and-patients-with-various-diseases https://www.cochrane.org/CD007176/LIVER_antioxidant-suppleme...
- ageitgey 6y ago
  I should have been more specific on location and vitamin. The UK government recommends everyone in the UK take daily supplements of Vitamin D during half of the year due to low sun exposure. It was a typo to say "multi-vitamin".
- MrStonedOne 6y ago
  > There is no evidence that taking a basic mulit-vitamin has any benefit for average people. I've heard this, before, i've even seen studies linked. The study you linked shows a 3-4% increase in morality rate, but with a error margin of 95%, that, uhh, doesn't add up to much. The studies commonly linked usually test healthy people without any vitamin deficiencies in order to see if giving somebody "extra" vitamins has any benefit. A worthless measure when, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, 40% of people have a vitamin deficiency of some kind.
  - scott_s 6y ago
    It's not a worthless measure, as the recommendation from the top comment, and a widespread belief is that a daily multivitamin is useful for everyone. The important takeaway from this study is not the potential harm - which very well may just be noise - but that there is no obvious benefit.
Vysero 6y ago
Some scientists were calling for these studies on YouTube but those videos were all banned sadly... I was lucky enough to catch one of them before they got banned though.
alexbanks 6y ago
> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway, it seems wise to do that. I'm finding it kind of shocking how many people are disputing the value of basic multi-vitamins. It feels like we're being contrarian just for the sake of it. Take a multivitamin. Worst case, your health stays the same and you pee out what you don't need. Best case, maybe you're less susceptible to the harsher symptoms of covid. Seems like a win/win.
- neuronic 6y ago
  No, the worst case is you throw money away but I guess the HN crowd doesn't really grasp that there are people who have to consider each dollar/euro/etc... At least take vitamin supplements with proven effect and decent uptake and not garbage filler pills designed to collect snake oil money.
  - alexbanks 6y ago
    That's a valid point that I've yet to see anyone in this thread make. The arguments against vitamin supplementation in this thread seem to be challenging the validity of supplementation, which was the point of my post.
lostmsu 6y ago
You can help to increase sample size by participating: https://home-trial.losttech.software/ https://home-trial.losttech.software/
bagacrap 6y ago
yeah, don't take a multi. The amounts of D and C they put in those things are far lower than what you need to get immunity benefits.

Foivos 6y ago

> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway.... Could you elaborate on that? I thought that taking vitamin supplements without a recommendation from a doctor is just a way to have very expensive piss. Most of the things that get in, are removed from the body without being absorbed.

ses1984 6y ago
If you're deficient in something, your body probably up-regulates absorption. You can get higher quality vitamins with forms that are more easily absorbed, for example chelated magnesium instead of magnesium oxide. That said, I thought the evidence actually pointed to higher all cause mortality in people who take vitamins.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  > I thought the evidence actually pointed to higher all cause mortality in people who take vitamins. Citation absolutely needed The caveat is excessive consumption of Vitamin A (and maybe others), in some specific circumstances. Keyword: excessive
  - ses1984 6y ago
    See my other reply please.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  If you have a study that shows higher all cause mortality please link it. My hypothesis would be that healthy people don't take vitamins because they never saw the need, putting already sick people in the second category. I doubt that taking vitamins can actually do much harm in low doses.
  - ses1984 6y ago
    I just Googled "vitamins lead to higher all cause mortality." First result: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010173019.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010173019.h... >After adjustment, use of multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper, were all associated with increased risk of death in the study population. The top three links showed association between beta carotene supplementation and risk of death. A little further down, a study showing "higher plasma concentrations of vitamin B12 were associated with a 25% increased adjusted risk of all-cause mortality per 1-SD increase" https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2758742 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... >The use of multivitamins overall was associated with 2.4% increased absolute risk for death (hazard ratio [HR], 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.02 - 1.10). https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/751462#:~:text=The%20use%20of%20multivitamins%20overall,substantially%20between%201986%20and%202004 https://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/751462#:~:text=The%20us.... The conclusion I personally draw from all this is: don't take a multi vitamin. Don't take any vitamins unless I have a good reason like a tested deficiency. If I think I could benefit from a supplement then I try to increase it in my diet instead.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      The risk of excessive iron is known and not new If you read that link you'll see the findings for iron and calcium were replicated. (Not to mention this article is basically referencing a different article which is somewhere else, so we're missing the context) The B12 issue, as the own article mentions, is not necessarily connected to a dietary excess consumption > Participants within the highest quartile of vitamin B12 plasma concentrations (>455.41 pg/mL) were more likely to be older and have higher BMI and blood pressure.
raverbashing 6y ago
An ICU is more expensive than expensive piss But sure, you could be extra sure that your Vit-D/Zinc/Mg (and other vitamins) levels are low by going to the doctor now, doing an exam and waiting for the results to come back. Or you could go through your diet and estimate your nutritional intake and see if anything is missing (a lot of apps do that calculation)
- macintux 6y ago
  > ...and see if anything is missing With the caveat that (word of mouth, not researched) the FDA recommendations on vitamin D are substantially too low.
2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
I agree, you don’t need a supplement. I get regular checkups. I’ve never had a deficiency in any vitamin except D.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  Vitamin D deficiency is very common especially in people who spend their daytime hours inside and also in dark skinned people living in northern latitudes. In the UK doctors recommend everyone takes a vitamin D supplement in the winter.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I've never heard this, where is it recommended?
    - partyboat1586 6y ago
      My Doctor told me. Also see the NHS page https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-....
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        Very useful, thank you.
    - nunb 6y ago
      This is simply a result of how vitamin D is manufactured, and the lack of sunlight in northern latitudes.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        It was specifically the NHS advice I was questioning, I'm aware of the basic cause. Thanks.
    - DanBC 6y ago
ChrisRR 6y ago
I don't know what you count as very expensive. Here in the UK, daily multivitamins are like £3 for 100
MichaelApproved 6y ago
One issue with vitamin is they don’t get absorbed well without certain foods. Worse yet, some foods could even block absorption. Calcium absorption is one of the trickier vitamins to get tight. If you’re taking vitamins specifically because you’re deficient, make sure you’re eating complimentary foods with them.
- James_Henry 6y ago
  Disease is also something that can block absorption which I feel a lot of people overlook. If you are vitamin D deficient, that may not be just because you don't get enough sun or need to take pills. This could be a sign of a kidney problem. If you are magnesium deficient, maybe it is a sign of a kidney problem. If you are B12 deficient, maybe it is a sign of a kidney problem. If you have a normal diet and you have deficiencies, don't just look to supplements.
partyboat1586 6y ago
Most people are deficient in one vitamin or another. Take magnesium as an example, 50% of people in the US are deficient[0]. Get your blood work done and get targeted supplements. [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786912/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786912/
saiya-jin 6y ago
> very expensive piss What I do after working out (say 4x/week) or after hard day in the mountains during weekends is to take 1/2 a tablet of multivitamin after big meal. So around 5-7x/week. That tablet has 100% of all the vitamins and 30% of the minerals. So I get 50% of vitamins, 15% of the minerals with a lot of fluids and fats, after proper effort on the body. This mix should be helping the body regenerate all the damage done by the workout. I can't get any overdose or even come close to it, unless I would be eating some very specific food like some seafood (and then overdose would come from it anyway, regardless of multivitamins). The multivitamins I buy (cheap Swiss ones) are cca 3.5$ per 20 tablets, giving the price per dosage/piss somewhere around 8 cents. I certainly have much more expensive pissing activities even from cheapest beers, sodas (which I don't generally drink) or basically any liquid apart from tap water.
Nursie 6y ago
Americans have the most expensive piss in the world. Yes, unless you have good reason to think you have a deficiency, supplements are a waste of time and money. And even if you do have reason to think you might have a deficiency there are often better (usually dietary) ways to address it.
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  Americans have expensive piss because of the expensive pharmacological drugs you take. Vitamins are very cheap.
  - Nursie 6y ago
    What's this "you" business? I'm not American. Vitamins absolutely contribute to this, and many/most you take will be excreted again.
yomly 6y ago
This is a misnomer according to a recent guest on the Joe Rogan podcast. Granted that might not be the best source, I reflected on that and the chemistry makes sense. Vitamins primarily will leach out via osmosis. Osmosis works by gradients. This probably means an exponential decay of absorption relative to concentration and as you consume more, your body will waste progressively more and uptake will be less efficient per unit mass. But it's not boolean/binary - your body doesn't suddenly stop everything after an arbitrary cutoff. There's an elegance to this - it means there is a lot of leeway in consumption so it is hard to overdose. But it also means that if you "need" to increase bioavailability of a water soluble vitamin, you can simply consume more orally and it will increase. It just becomes progressively more wasteful to do via that means. (IV is more efficient in this manner) So I suppose wasteful is not the same as pointless/useless
- partyboat1586 6y ago
  Dr Rhonda Patrick was the guest if anyone is interested. Worth watching with paper and pen (or digital equivalent).
  - nradov 6y ago
    Show notes are here. https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/jre-1474 https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/jre-1474
    - 0-_-0 6y ago
      2 interesting references to vitamin D studies: 00:29:32 - In the Philippines, every standard deviation increase in serum vitamin D was associated with an 8 times more likely chance to have a mild rather than severe COVID-19 outcome and a 20 times more likely chance to have a mild rather than critical outcome. 00:30:37 - In Indonesia, 98.9% of patients with vitamin D deficiency died, 88% of patients with vitamin D insufficiency died but only 4% of patients with sufficient vitamin D died.
      - nradov 6y ago
ageitgey 6y ago
It depends on where you live. Some places in northern latitudes such as the UK recommend everyone take daily Vitamin D supplements due to low UV exposure in the late-fall/winter/early-spring. See https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-... As far as if that means you take that as a multi-vitamin pill vs D3 supplements alone I guess is up to the individual. But either option only costs a few dollars/pounds. Maybe I was a little loose with language saying multi-vitamin.
- Foivos 6y ago
  This is a known / common deficiency. But does it make sense to blindly take Vitamin C for example?

axegon_ 6y ago

Despite my somewhat limited knowledge in biology, my intuition was telling me that the number of patients seems way too small to come to definitive conclusions. Mind you, if Vitamin-D, magnesium and B12 play a role, that's good news for me: I've been very strict about those 3 in the past 2 years(and coincidentally loaded up my magnesium stash yesterday).

rrmm 6y ago
43 is a reasonable number to start with (it gives you some power wrt sample variance, but you have to pay attention to randomization). It might give you some information if the intervention were really, really bad for patients or really really good. (So it could be used to establish possible harms). But definitely not useful farther than that except to justify larger studies. I'm still hoping we catch a break one of these days.
drocer88 6y ago
The authors address the issue of small sample size in the Discusson section: "This study was conducted under difficult dynamic circumstances and is thus limited by the small sample size, and the lack of systematic biologic measures to support its findings. It is however a proof-of-principle effort with very promising results. Our findings would need to be further validated in a well-designed randomized study."
snikeris 6y ago
Magnesium is something I've recently been interested in as well. Surprisingly, you don't find it in many multivitamins, or if you do, it's in small quantities. My guess is that it would make the multivitamin too large if it were included. Leafy green vegetables are a good source of Mg, but most people don't eat enough of those.
- axegon_ 6y ago
  Yep, but even with green vegetables, you'll struggle to get anywhere near the daily recommendation, around 400mg per adult. And that might be significantly more if you are active in some sports for muscle recovery. Personally I can feel the difference given that I exercise daily and I do a 20000 step walks every morning. But yeah, I rely on supplements, which is kind of the easy way out. And even the very good ones are pretty cheap(mine set me back around 20 euros and go for 3 months).

rrmm 6y ago

Yeah this seems like it'd be much easier to roll out on wide spread basis than HCQ. With an appropriate caution about dosage consulting a doc before making any changes, they're all water soluble. That there statement about the limits of the study should be taken to heart. People seem to get too fixated on the first results they hear and hold on to them more strongly than subsequent results which can often provide better data to make decisions on.

smilespray 6y ago
Surely Vitamin D is fat soluble?
- rrmm 6y ago
  Ahh you are right, thanks for the correction. D looks like upper tolerable dosage is around 4000IU/day for 9+ years old. Some studies apparently see overt toxicity after several months of 50000IU/day dosages.

dwheeler 6y ago

The number of people in the study is too small to really make much in the way of definitive conclusions. But it is certainly enough that a larger study should occur. In the meantime, since vitamins are cheap and not dangerous at these doses, it seems a reasonable measure to go ahead and take them. They might help, there's weak evidence to suggest that they might, and they shouldn't hurt. However, it's important not to overdose. I know that at least vitamin D is dangerous if overdosed. Most people as they get older are low in vitamin D anyway. In my mind this is something like masks were months ago. Maybe they help, maybe they don't, but the risk of wearing a mask or taking vitamins is pretty negligible, and there are common-sense reasons to believe they might be helpful. Until better experimental results are available, you should use common sense approaches to reduce your risks. They might not work, but the harm of doing them is negligible.

j-conn 6y ago
One thing to keep in mind in the US is that dietary supplements aren’t regulated by the FDA. Consumers have to place a lot of trust in the manufacturer that their product is free from potentially harmful contaminants.
eloff 6y ago
You're not going to overdose vitamin D at 1000 IU. Do your own research, but the RDA is too low for people living in the northern hemisphere. I'm a computer programmer living in Canada, I take 3000 IU a day. A good sun exposure can produce 50,000 IU, not all of which gets absorbed. If you have too much over a long period of time it can cause calcification. You're probably not going to experience that under 10000 IU a day. Again, do your own research. I'm not an expert in this field.
jerf 6y ago
If we're going to call out one of those three vitamins for overdose potential, it's the magnesium you should be calling out, not the vitamin D. Accidental vitamin D overdose seems to be a non-issue, almost (but not quite) entirely theoretical. Clinically-significant doses of magnesium can have real effects on the body, though, even in the "safe range"; it affects your heart fairly strongly, for instance, and needs to be in balance with some other nutrients. Even if you are in fact in need of magnesium supplementation, you can trigger some heart issues if you supplement magnesium without the other nutrients you need to go with it. This won't happen to most people, but I'd guess it's a 3-4 more orders of magnitude serious concern than vitamin D overdose.

hannob 6y ago

> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway, it seems wise to do that. There is no evidence that taking a basic mulit-vitamin has any benefit for average people. Depending on the composition of vitamins it can be harmful [1]. [1] https://www.cochrane.org/CD007176/LIVER_antioxidant-supplements-for-prevention-of-mortality-in-healthy-participants-and-patients-with-various-diseases https://www.cochrane.org/CD007176/LIVER_antioxidant-suppleme...

ageitgey 6y ago
I should have been more specific on location and vitamin. The UK government recommends everyone in the UK take daily supplements of Vitamin D during half of the year due to low sun exposure. It was a typo to say "multi-vitamin".
MrStonedOne 6y ago
> There is no evidence that taking a basic mulit-vitamin has any benefit for average people. I've heard this, before, i've even seen studies linked. The study you linked shows a 3-4% increase in morality rate, but with a error margin of 95%, that, uhh, doesn't add up to much. The studies commonly linked usually test healthy people without any vitamin deficiencies in order to see if giving somebody "extra" vitamins has any benefit. A worthless measure when, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, 40% of people have a vitamin deficiency of some kind.
- scott_s 6y ago
  It's not a worthless measure, as the recommendation from the top comment, and a widespread belief is that a daily multivitamin is useful for everyone. The important takeaway from this study is not the potential harm - which very well may just be noise - but that there is no obvious benefit.

Vysero 6y ago

Some scientists were calling for these studies on YouTube but those videos were all banned sadly... I was lucky enough to catch one of them before they got banned though.

alexbanks 6y ago

> Since taking a basic multi-vitamin is good anyway, it seems wise to do that. I'm finding it kind of shocking how many people are disputing the value of basic multi-vitamins. It feels like we're being contrarian just for the sake of it. Take a multivitamin. Worst case, your health stays the same and you pee out what you don't need. Best case, maybe you're less susceptible to the harsher symptoms of covid. Seems like a win/win.

neuronic 6y ago
No, the worst case is you throw money away but I guess the HN crowd doesn't really grasp that there are people who have to consider each dollar/euro/etc... At least take vitamin supplements with proven effect and decent uptake and not garbage filler pills designed to collect snake oil money.
- alexbanks 6y ago
  That's a valid point that I've yet to see anyone in this thread make. The arguments against vitamin supplementation in this thread seem to be challenging the validity of supplementation, which was the point of my post.

lostmsu 6y ago

You can help to increase sample size by participating: https://home-trial.losttech.software/ https://home-trial.losttech.software/

bagacrap 6y ago

yeah, don't take a multi. The amounts of D and C they put in those things are far lower than what you need to get immunity benefits.