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Hi Deva, what do you think about the Vitamin D Hammer? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC44638
by Cactus2018 6y ago
Hi Deva, what do you think about the Vitamin D Hammer?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/
> A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-time 50 000 IU dose of vitamin D3 or 10 000 IU 3 times daily for 2 to 3 days. The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 to 72 hours. One-time doses of vitamin D at this level have been used safely and have never been shown to be toxic.8 We urgently need a study of this intervention.
- WhompingWindows 6y agoI'm not Deva, however this is basically an anecdotal case from one clinic. To garner further scientific consideration, they'd need to expand their idea into an RCT, otherwise there are too many confounding factors and lack of control to say that the hammer is actually effective and that we aren't seeing placebo effects, biases introduced, etc.
- devaboone 6y agoAgree. It's nice to say that I did something and the patient had amazing results, but it doesn't mean that my action had anything to do with how they felt. Many people will recover from the flu without any treatment. It might not matter whether you give a vitamin.
- nostromo 6y agoOne pilot study found that a big Vitamin D dose would cut the hospital length in half for people on ventilators. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4939707/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4939707/ The control group spent on average 36 days in the hospital, the group getting a single 500,000 IU dose of vitamin D3 spent an average of 18 days in the hospital.
- mrandish 6y agoIt's interesting data but we need to keep in mind that the demonstrated correlation is between "Vit D deficiency" and "worse COVID ICU outcomes". We don't have much yet (that I'm aware of) on D3 mega-supplementation specifically on those who were not D3 deficient to start with.
- genewitch 6y agoThe linked study was published in 2016, and has nothing to do with covid-19. And it also flies in the face of the physician comments at the head of this discussion, where a few doses of 5000-10000iu see harmful effects, this study was of a half million iu over 5 days!
- mixmastamyk 6y agoDifferent people handle different amounts... differently. There are some folks with really low levels. Often they can not absorb the vitamin efficiently, for whatever reason. I suspect that most of that high dose is passed in these folks, so a beneficial amount manages to make it through. Unless you are very low and facing a serious illness these mega-doses are not needed. Supervision by a physician of these doses makes sense.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoDoesn’t the flu usually resolve within a few days without a vitamin D hammer? Did they do a controlled blinded study to determine whether it made a difference?
- CoolGuySteve 6y agoIt sounds like Tamiflu, where you're still sick but for a day or two less than without it.
- majkinetor 6y agoIt depends. It can take from few days to few weeks. Also, there can be serious side effects for life.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoI agree, there’s a diversity of possible outcomes. I think case reports of flu recovery after a treatment are of limited value absent a quantitative analysis showing the treatment had some effect.