21 ms·

Adequate Vitamin D Levels Cuts Risk of Dying from Covid-19 in Half, Study Finds

372 points by cpncrunch 6y ago

noja 6y ago
We need a quick, cheap way of regularly testing all of this stuff at home. Vitamin D levels take a while to change, I guess people will want to know before they have a deficiency. Maybe the Series 7 watch will feature blood testing.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  People in the Northern hemisphere could have solved their vitamin D problems by going outside for twenty minutes a few times a week over the last several months. Unfortunately sunscreen marketing has clouded our judgment. https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure-skin-cancer-science https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure...
  - noja 6y ago
    In some Northern hemisphere countries we are not allowed outside.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Where is this? I feel like I should have seen something about this on the news... If this is Covid-related, you should know that time spent outside in the sun away from crowds is better for your health than time spent in any situation inside.
    - 3np 6y ago
      Example of country where you are not allowed to go outside at all (except during temporary quarantine of a couple of weeks)? I now that even during France's confinement (which is over now), people were still allowed to leave their house for solitary outdoor exercise and walks.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - hinkley 6y ago
        I don’t know if you heard but over here on the west coast, shit’s on fire, yo.
        3np 6y ago
        Really?? I just met a friend who spent last week there taking surfing classes with a company - didn't seem like there were anything like that going on there. Haven't seen anything in the news, either.
        pmiller2 6y ago
        The air is currently clear as a bell in the Bay Area.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    A bunch of us have that kind of white skin that in adult years doesn't tan.. it burns in clearly unhealthy ways.
    - mark-r 6y ago
      My son says he doesn't tan - he pinks.
    - vixen99 6y ago
      Try https://fastrt.nilu.no/VitD-ez_quartMEDandMED_v2.html https://fastrt.nilu.no/VitD-ez_quartMEDandMED_v2.html and err on the low side if you're worried. Regular self-examination is always a good idea for everybody and essential for very pale skins. Vitamin D productive begins immediately when the skin is exposed.
      - hinkley 6y ago
        In the northern states, you burn long before you get enough vitamin D around the winter solstice. Assuming the sky is even clear. With vitamin d it’s about building up reserves while you can, and supplementing with food or vitamins.
        tpmx 6y ago
        I'm in Sweden, which is about the same latitude as Alaska. My sister and mom tan, I burn. Weird thing though, when I was a kid I spent so much time outdoors. Like, all of the time. That was before I got hold of a decent computer at like age 12 in 1989, and I started spending so much time indoors. After 30 years or so of mostly staying indoors, I burn when UV rays hit my skin. I'm willing to concede that my behavior is at least a part of the issue.
        rrock 6y ago
        Swedes tend to get a good amount of vitamin D from the herring and salmon in their diet.
  - cameronh90 6y ago
    I (Scottish-level white) spend an hour or longer outside every day, all year, in London. Yet my vitamin D levels were almost zero. Unless I take around 50,000 IU per week, they drop to insufficient. Not everyone seems to generate enough vitamin D from sun exposure.
    - bengale 6y ago
      Sounds unusual. I thought the paler you were the easier you generated it tbh. Also 50k IU sounds a lot too. I’m pale as fuck an 400iu a day and a quick walk put me in the healthy range.
      - lostlogin 6y ago
        > a quick walk put me in the healthy range. Could this be due to where you live? The winter in the UK can be very low light for quite long periods. The weeks-long ‘rain’ or whatever you call that semi drizzle is very dreary. There is about 3x the rainfall per year where I live now but it’s short and sharp in comparison.
        jessaustin 6y ago
        You're probably right. London is over 51° N latitude. Most people in the hemisphere are well south of that. Most people in Canada live south of that.
        cameronh90 6y ago
        Europe in general is fairly far north. According to Citymetric, half of Canada's population lives further south than Milan, and the most populated latitude in Europe is 52° N.
        ghaff 6y ago
        The Gulf Stream distorts a lot of perceptions as does the fact that a lot of the Canadian population lives pretty close to the US border. A lot of people in the US are pretty surprised that London, Amsterdam, and even Paris are at the same latitude as northern Newfoundland and Quebec way north of Montreal.
  - dboreham 6y ago
    Seems like these articles never clarify if they're talking about clothed or partially unclothed exposure. Hard to imagine much vit d being generated in the little bit of face and hand skin area exposed to sunlight by a normal clothed configuration.
    - Filligree 6y ago
      If you check, you'll often find they assume shorts and t-shirt.
    - interestica 6y ago
      And they often skip over skin colour as a significant factor. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372923/#:~:text=Circulating%20vitamin%20D%20concentrations%20differ,color%20%5B10%2C12%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372923/#:~:tex....
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        From the link given above: These seem like benefits everyone should be able to take advantage of. But not all people process sunlight the same way. And the current U.S. sun-exposure guidelines were written for the whitest people on earth. Every year, Richard Weller spends time working in a skin hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Not only is Addis Ababa near the equator, it also sits above 7,500 feet, so it receives massive UV radiation. Despite that, says Weller, “I have not seen a skin cancer. And yet Africans in Britain and America are told to avoid the sun.” ... People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in African Americans. ... How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well. What’s counterintuitive is that dermatologists run around saying, ‘Don’t go outside, you might die.’ At the same time, African Americans suffer high rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, internal cancers, and other diseases that seem to improve in the presence of sunlight, of which they may well not be getting enough. Because of their genetically higher levels of melanin, they require more sun exposure to produce compounds like vitamin D, and they are less able to store that vitamin for darker days. They have much to gain from the sun and little to fear.
  - drno123 6y ago
    From early March until mid-June, we were told by government to “stay home”. There were even few events where police tackled to the ground and arrested people who were taking a walk outside, away from any crowd, in a group of two. Now people do go outside, and even though we have more detected cases of Covid-19 as compared to spring, the cases are milder and mortality rates are lower. Country: Croatia
- mhb 6y ago
  You can get a blood test from DirectLabs in most of the US for vitamin D for $50. Don't know if you think that's cheap.
- odiroot 6y ago
  There was this Theranos thing, they had a similar idea.
alextheparrot 6y ago
Assaying vitamin D levels doesn’t necessarily mean that Vitamin D levels are the primary effector, though. Maybe I’m missing some details from the actual study, but showing that mortality risk is higher with a deficiency could support either of these: 1) Vitamin D deficiency causes increased mortality 2) Whatever causes increased mortality also changes or is correlated with Vitamin D levels
- andruby 6y ago
  While you’re not wrong. I often see comments like this when new studies come out. I think most people here know that correlation doesn’t mean causality. However in the case of Vitamin D, there’s a lot of studies pointing towards Vitamin D actually helping fight bad outcomes. Such as the clinical trial from Spain where they gave supplement Vitamin D to one group and compared the outcomes [0] That does seem to indicate that the Vitamin D really is helping. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
  - alextheparrot 6y ago
    If you look at the other comments on this thread, you'll quickly see why people like myself write comments clearly explaining what studies actually show. There is nothing wrong with understanding that the knowledge we have today is limited to a set of possible states - further study, such as the link, help collapse those states. Honestly, it makes the narrative more compelling too as showing direct action is easier than disproving all unseen movers.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Yes, low vitamin D is an indicator of frailty, so surely not all of the observed difference is causal. OTOH, giving people vitamin D in a RCT does seem to improve outcomes, so it looks like there's something real here.
- vmception 6y ago
  Only read the article, which could be very different from the actual study, the Forbes article is referring to people already hospitalized so we are talking about a pretty low bar of health already (low but probably common, make note of that reality), and of those people they are "getting" Vitamin D, which kind of suggests after they are hospitalized. This is new data then, because earlier studies were saying that Vitamin D supplements weren't improving circumstances, which would reinforce your perspective that people with inadequate Vitamin D levels had other issues. This article doesn't specify what "getting" Vitamin D means, maybe the study does. Let me know!
cmsonger 6y ago
I somehow did not ferret out from the Forbes article: Is this correlated or causal?
- mark-r 6y ago
  Nobody's done the kind of study that would establish that yet.
  - andruby 6y ago
    I’d say that the Spanish clinical trial does point towards causality. They gave a randomized group of patients Vitamin D and compared the outcomes. Correct me if I’m wrong but that seems like the best way to test for causality. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
acallaghan 6y ago
A lot of people will read this and immediately put themselves on huge doses of vit D thinking they'll be immune - rather than an deficiency increases mortality
- Lopalis 6y ago
  If it reduces their risk, what does it matter? Especially considering how many people are deficient in the best of times.
- theptip 6y ago
  Worth noting that a lot of people are vitamin D deficient. Particularly pronounced with those with a lot of melanin in the northern hemisphere, e.g. see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficiency-united-states/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficie... So to a first approximation, taking 1000 IU of vit D might be a good default recommendation for anyone if you can’t afford to get your blood work done. I am not aware of any evidence supporting megadosing though.
  - Eduard 6y ago
    Blood work?
    - 3np 6y ago
      Blood tests of serum levels etc.
    - steverb 6y ago
      Panel of various tests using your blood.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      By way of explanation: Your body accumulates a store of vitamin D in the liver, which it rations out into your bloodstream over time. When you ingest or produce vitamin D, your liver buffers the amount that ends up in your blood, which does two things. 1) saves for a rainy day (literally and figuratively) 2) protects you from vitamin d toxicity over the short term. Which I’m told is quite nasty. With a doctor’s supervision you can take large doses of vitamin d for a short time and your liver will soak it up. How fast your blood levels rise tells the doctor about how much more you need in the tank and/or if you are having absorption problems. They taper you off quickly as you approach a healthy blood level.
xnx 6y ago
Reminder that articles from forbes.com should not be seen as having any better reputation than those posted on blogger.com or medium.com.
- nabla9 6y ago
  Forbes reporting is mostly factual. They don't employ much fact checkers, but don't do glaring errors. Forbes has some Chinese bias and has been criticized for it. It's owned by HK investor. Forbes also has some columnist's who are not very accurate in their opinions. Those who post in blogger.com or medium.com don't have any responsibility to anyone. I think your opinion spreads the "they are all the same" message that is infantile.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    How can one be "accurate" in one's opinions?
    - dqv 6y ago
      They probably mean the opinion pieces themselves have factual inaccuracies and/or dubious sources. They probably don't mean that the opinions expressed in those pieces are themselves inaccurate.
    - randcraw 6y ago
      1) is the source reputable? (esp. the journal, magazine, author) 2) is the study well-designed and big enough to detect the signal as being reproducible and significant? 3) did the study ask the question it now supposedly answers? 4) did the study employ methods that discriminate precisely and robustly, like use of random groups and correction for complicating variables? Or is it based mostly on observations? And did it overlook the a priori distributions of variables known to confound the outcome of interest? If the article/study does not pass all these tests, it's unworthy of trust as an accurate test of its hypothesis or its claims of significance.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      By basing opinions on evidence and logical deduction. "I think the world is flat", is an opinion. You could say its accurate in so much as the subject of the sentence actually believes it. However, most people would say the "opinion" is wrong.
tpmx 6y ago
Giving further evidence to this study that came out in preprint about a month ago or so: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602... “Effect of calcifediol treatment and best available therapy versus best available therapy on intensive care unit admission and mortality among patients hospitalized for COVID-19: A pilot randomized clinical study” This one was actually about giving some patients calcifediol/vitamin D doses as part of the treatment, and comparing what happened to those who received the vitamin injection and those who didn't. tldr: "of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50 %).") Performed at Reina Sofia University Hospital, Córdoba, Spain.
- 3np 6y ago
  This is great as it isolates vit D from other factors (e.g. balanced diet, spending more time in the sun).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - chimichangga 6y ago
    Dr. Fauci says to take vitamin D if you're deficient to boost immune system https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advisor-fauci-takes-every-day-to-help-keep-his-immune-system-healthy.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advi...
    - spfzero 6y ago
      And a large proportion of people are deficient, probably most people actually. I’d rather he advised all people to get outside, do things outside under the sun and let your skin do its work, making all of the things it does, including D3.
      - Loulybob 6y ago
flattone 6y ago
Excellent medcram video on D re covid https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdc7T2UTHBI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdc7T2UTHBI
rossdavidh 6y ago
So, I cannot read the article without disabling adblocker, which I won't do, but here is their source anyway: https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2020/09/25/adequate-levels-of-vitamin-d-reduces-complications-death-among-covid-19-patients/ https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2020/09/25/adequate-levels-of-v... This is the nth study to talk about this. It's pretty well demonstrated by now that there is a correlation between vitD levels and covid-19 mortality. What is not clear is: - given that a deficiency is bad, does it matter if you have more than just the normal amount? In other words, does this only matter if you have a deficiency? - given that sunlight increases natural vitamin D production, could it be, not the vit D per se, but rather the sunlight exposure, that has the beneficial effect? - could this even just be a case of healthy people getting out more, hence getting more sunlight and thus vitamin D, and healthy people also dying less from covid-19 (or almost anything else)? What I would like to see is a study where they increase vit D levels, sunlight levels, both, or neither, and compare the mortality rates. If you don't feel it's ethical to do the neither option, you could compare to previous averages when neither was done. So far I have seen no evidence that this is being done, but hopefully soon?
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  Well just as i post this another person posts an answer for me: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
hanklazard 6y ago
Original paper link (1) From the discussion section: "In acquired immunity pathways, 1,25(OH)2D has more modulating effect. 1,25(OH)2D inhibits activation of B-cells [29] and immunoglobulin synthesis [29]. This hormone also promotes Treg cells, which are responsible for anti-infectious action by inducing IL-10 production. This leads to suppression of Th1, and Th17 cells and IFNγ, IL-17, IL-6, IL-23 and IL-2 production and makes Th2 cells predominant. Th2 cells limits inflammatory processes by inhibiting Th1 cell-mediated cytokines and tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) [11, 30, 31]." Yes this could all be correlative, but lets assume for a moment that the effect is causal and as significant as this study is finding. It may seem like the effect of Vitamin D on the adaptive immune system doesn't make sense ... decreasing the antibody response and pushing the T-cell population towards a more TH2-type response. So, at least in terms of the adaptive immune system, Vitamin D is actually ~calming~ the immune system down, at least with regard to severe inflammation. One way to make sense of this result would be as another piece of evidence pointing to some people's immune hyper-activation('cytokine storm') as one of the forces behind severe covid19 disease. This tends to be happening in the second and third week of infection and leads to much more devastating results on the body, and in particular, the lungs with ARDS (2). (1) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (2) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-020-05190-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-020-05190-5
- sa1 6y ago
  There was some discussion that it is a bradykinin storm, not a cytokine storm. https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63 https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-...
- patfla 6y ago
  Some serious diseases (this was true with the Pandemic of 1918) cause their worst effects, including death, through overreactions of the immune system. Evolution is clever but it's not perfect and regulating biological systems is difficult - even for nature.
noneeeed 6y ago
Has there been any research into the vitamin d levels of patients after periods in hospital? Do vit d levels fall quickly enough for being admitted to hospital (and so being indoors) to become an issue in treatment?
ineedasername 6y ago
We don't know the source of the vitamin D: For example it's entirely possible that the type of person who has higher vitamin D levels is the type of person who takes care of themselves through things like vitamin supplements, and people who take care of themselves are less likely to have preventable underlying conditions. So, as always, it's important to remember that this study was retrospective, not experimental in nature.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Here's an experimental study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Thanks, that is much more significant than this study, even if it had fewer people.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  You could replace vitamin supplements with going for a walk.
  - tinus_hn 6y ago
    Yeah but how are you going to do that while quarantining? Going outside and having fun is verboten.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Is there a country which actually forbids going outside right now? Even Melbourne in heavy lockdown was allowing/recommending limited time exercise outside.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        They allowed an hour. I think it is two hours now.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Calcifediol doesn't seem readily available for consumer purchase. Because of that, this sort of feels like "Vitamin D could save people[1] from the worst of Covid! [1]Healthcare Wealthy Only" Corrections welcome.
- detaro 6y ago
  Why is specifically availability of Calcifediol relevant, which as far as I understand is a step in the middle of the bodys reaction chain while processing Vitamin D3 (which is easily available)?
- Smaug123 6y ago
  As I understand it, calcifediol is a metabolite of standard cholecalciferol, which is available extremely cheaply over the counter.
- nO0b 6y ago
  Calcifediol is just a way to rapidly increase the blood levels of Vitamin D in an obvious crisis situation. Going outside, and/or supplementing Vitamin D from exogenous sources takes many days to have an effect. Talk to your doctor, but start now. Your downside risk is fairly minimal. It is estimated that 40% of more of the US population is deficient in Vitamin D.
koolba 6y ago
Could this be a factor in near zero morbidity rates for young children? They clearly drink more milk and spend more time in the sun than the average adult.
- adventured 6y ago
  One of the reasons (plausibly there are multiple reasons) for that may have to do with children having fewer ACE2 enzymes lining the nasal cavity: From May: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766522 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766522 "The authors evaluated gene expression in nasal epithelial samples collected as part of a study involving patients with asthma from 2015 to 2018. The nasal epithelium is one of the first sites of infection with SARS-CoV-2, and the investigators probed for the expression of the cell surface enzyme angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which has been proven to bind to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and promote internalization of the virus into human cells. Among a cohort of 305 patients aged 4 to 60 years, older children (10-17 years old; n = 185), young adults (18-24 years old; n = 46), and adults (≥25 years old; n = 29) all had higher expression of ACE2 in the nasal epithelium compared with younger children (4-9 years old; n = 45), and ACE2 expression was higher with each subsequent age group after adjusting for sex and asthma."
- tpmx 6y ago
  Background to this comment: Vitamin D is commonly artifically added to milk.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I'd imagine this varies by country, and that should give relatively easy statistical comparisons?
    - tpmx 6y ago
      After spending the past 7 months as an amateur statistician I have found that nothing is easy when you want compare different countries.
zamalek 6y ago
Friendly reminder that vitamin D is not harmless, either. Overdoing it can have permanent consequences for your health. If you think you may be deficient (you probably are), have a medical professional assist you with blood work and safe dosage.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Overdosing is a real danger, but you have to eat a lot. Do talk to your doctor if you have one easily accessible, but if not, 1000-2000 units a day should not be a problem for anyone.
just-juan-post 6y ago
Want to end this mess quick and easy? The government should send every citizen $300 worth of vitamin D3 and remove all lifestyle restrictions. PS: Early on people like Musk and Ford jump in to help by donating ventilators. Why aren't we seeing other organizations and individuals creating huge pushes to things like manufacture D3 and create widespread publicity for plasma donation? You listening Bill G?
- em500 6y ago
  Not sure about the costs in the US, but here in the Netherlands, $300 worth of vitamin D would be about 30000 10mcg pills... edit: Some googling shows that they costs around 3 to 5 cents per pill in the US, so you're suggesting to send everyone 6000 - 10000 pills?
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You can buy a year's supply of 5000 IU/125 mcg D3 (which may be a bit too much as a daily dose according to current NIH guidelines) for ~$15 in the US.
- Havoc 6y ago
  Given that people are drinking bleach I don’t think sending a large amount of vit D is a clever plan. Way to many idiots out there that will take more than recommended “just to be sure”
jonplackett 6y ago
Every time there's an article like this I say something like "OK, can we please now have governments giving people vitamin D for free now? What's the worst that can happen?" and every time, someone says it's not worth it, or that people will get a vitamin D overdose. I think people find it really hard to accept that something so basic could actually help and not be some kind of disaster.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- buu700 6y ago
  That sounds like a great idea. At the same time, I can't help but imagine all the conspiracy theories that would result from the government sending pills to everyone in the country. One approach could be to have the government just start subsidizing vitamin D to $0 (up to a specific quantity per person per month) at private retailers, or offer a rebate or tax credit for any verifiable purchases of vitamin D. Edit: To help address toxicity concerns, anything like this should also cover vitamin K.
  - em500 6y ago
    I don't know about the US, but here in the Netherlands a bottle of 300 x 10mcg pills costs €2.50. I doubt the current costs are holding back usage.
    - llarsson 6y ago
      Just wait until stores figure out that people are going to be willing to pay many times that if vitamin D becomes a recommended supplement against covid-19. The cost increase of alcohol-based hand sanitizer is just inane, especially now when it seems that production had caught up.
    - jonplackett 6y ago
      It’s not just about the cost (though for people most likely to get covid cost could still be important) it’s about educating people and getting the message out. If the government say this is going to be free because it’s so useful, people will notice and do it. Even if they ultimately just buy their own because it’s more convenient.
GhostVII 6y ago
How many people actually have inadequate vitamin D levels? They chose a fairly arbitrary amount (30 ng/ml) as their measure for an inadequate level.
- et2o 6y ago
  It’s pretty frequent
  - randcraw 6y ago
    Yes, AFAIK all diabetics have diminished D levels, as do many vegans.
nimish 6y ago
This would explain "flu season" just as well as anything related to distancing or indoor air filtration : the lack of sunlight at high latitudes results in poor vitamin d production
- beagle3 6y ago
  I don't have the references handy, but IIRC "flu season" and winter diseases in general were essentially resolved by a model that takes absolute (not relative) humidity and gives the probability that aerosols (e.g., a sneeze or breath) will remain in air for a while, or fall to the ground. IIRC, same computations correctly predict flu season (and other viral diseases) for the last 10 years or so, but fail to predict covid-19 dispersion (and in particular, predicted a drop during the summer of the northern hemisphere, which did not happen) - which may indicate either that the model is borked, or that the primary dispersion vector is NOT, as commonly assumed, aerosolized -- in fact, there are quite a few pieces of evidence pointing in that direction. (Not that it's impossible, just that it's not the primary one).
  - nimish 6y ago
    Given we know aerosolization is a vector I'd take humidity to be confounded with something else. Even then, unless experiment reveals it you can't take simulations as anything except hypothesis generators. Serum vitamin d concentration vs virus damage would be an interesting trial.
    - beagle3 6y ago
      We do not know that it is the primary vector, though. We know that the fecal-oral route is also a vector, one that’s historically a big problem in nursing homes, and plays a nontrivial part in spread through food preparation (unlike e.g. with flu which is essentially all aerosol with short life). The spread data is not properly reflected in recommendations IMHO and likely for political and politically correct reasons.
acqq 6y ago
At the moment I'm checking this, the title of the article is much less sure than what's on HN. "Study Suggests Reduced Mortality Risk For Covid-19 May Be Associated With Adequate Vitamin D Levels" Whereas the current HN title claims that "study finds" that "Vitamin D Levels Cuts Risk" which is much stronger claim, which doesn't have to be true -- i.e. an editorialized title, not what HN typically prefers.
exabrial 6y ago
Great question for hn: why is infection rate, not death rate, the metric de jur...
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Two different problems for two different groups of people. Policy makers and individuals want to focus on infection rate. Lower infection rate = less spreading = less trips to the hospital = the society is "winning" Hospitals and doctors want to focus on death rate. At the point they get a patient, they are already infected. They want the lowest % of people possible to die, to show that their care is working. Neither effort is in conflict with each other, and can be near perfectly parallelized. I.e. the hospitals trying a new medicine to lower death rate has no impact on a region trying to lower infection.
moshimoshir 6y ago
Yet another thing trump was right about
nradov 6y ago
I would like to see a study that tests whether a large dose of vitamin D improves outcomes when administered during the early stage of COVID-19. Dr. Gerry Schwalfenberg reported positive results with giving 50000 IU as an influenza treatment but that's just anecdotal. We desperately need more research in this area. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tuna-piano 6y ago
A couple great posts about vitamin D posted to HN: -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261124 -And her part 3 (which links to tons of studies and is quite informative): https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence My TLDR from reading those posts: Vitamin D overdosing is possible, can have some pretty severe consequences. Vitamin D deficiency is correlated with tons of conditions. But this seems likely to be a correlation and not a causation. Simply because unhealthy people spend more time indoors than healthy people. The relevant statement in her post from part 3: "Vitamin D seems to reduce asthma attacks in adults with mild to moderate disease, and daily or weekly Vitamin D seems to prevent acute respiratory infection in those with Vitamin D less than 10 ng/ml (25 nmol/l). There is considerable excitement around Vitamin D's potential role in Covid treatment, though we do not yet have enough evidence to make a definitive conclusion"
- kovach 6y ago
  No one dies of Vitamin D overdose. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying of COVID-19. So dosing everyone with Vitamin D is extremely low risk for a very high reward...
thinkingemote 6y ago
Worth repeating that people in the UK are unable to get enough vitamin D from the sun from next month until the spring.
- Havoc 6y ago
  Unable or unlikely? There are still a fair few hours of sun...
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    Unable to get enough. The sun is too low.
ksajadi 6y ago
As a person with darker skin living in Europe, I’m told I have vitamin D deficiency and take supplements. Could the higher rate of COVID illness in black and minorities be related to this?
- vr46 6y ago
  For sure. We used to live in a basement flat in the UK, and when my partner and kid were diagnosed with Vit D deficiency (white skin) I knew I had it too (dark skin). Two weeks of dosing myself cured my knee pains. And I’m a highly-clued up HN reader. Start hoovering those tablets, fellow darker-skinned technocrats!
  - ksajadi 6y ago
    :) I'm told the under tongue sprays work best...
fallingfrog 6y ago
They need to disambiguate whether the effect holds for people who are getting vitamin d from sunlight vs people who get it from supplements. It could be that sunlight/fresh air/exercise/being healthy enough for the above is the real explanation.
devaboone 6y ago
The headlines on Vitamin D and Covid far surpass the actual data. Here is my summary on the latest research: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid

372 points by cpncrunch 6y ago

noja 6y ago

We need a quick, cheap way of regularly testing all of this stuff at home. Vitamin D levels take a while to change, I guess people will want to know before they have a deficiency. Maybe the Series 7 watch will feature blood testing.

jessaustin 6y ago
People in the Northern hemisphere could have solved their vitamin D problems by going outside for twenty minutes a few times a week over the last several months. Unfortunately sunscreen marketing has clouded our judgment. https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure-skin-cancer-science https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure...
- noja 6y ago
  In some Northern hemisphere countries we are not allowed outside.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Where is this? I feel like I should have seen something about this on the news... If this is Covid-related, you should know that time spent outside in the sun away from crowds is better for your health than time spent in any situation inside.
  - 3np 6y ago
    Example of country where you are not allowed to go outside at all (except during temporary quarantine of a couple of weeks)? I now that even during France's confinement (which is over now), people were still allowed to leave their house for solitary outdoor exercise and walks.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - hinkley 6y ago
      I don’t know if you heard but over here on the west coast, shit’s on fire, yo.
      - 3np 6y ago
        Really?? I just met a friend who spent last week there taking surfing classes with a company - didn't seem like there were anything like that going on there. Haven't seen anything in the news, either.
      - pmiller2 6y ago
        The air is currently clear as a bell in the Bay Area.
- tpmx 6y ago
  A bunch of us have that kind of white skin that in adult years doesn't tan.. it burns in clearly unhealthy ways.
  - mark-r 6y ago
    My son says he doesn't tan - he pinks.
  - vixen99 6y ago
    Try https://fastrt.nilu.no/VitD-ez_quartMEDandMED_v2.html https://fastrt.nilu.no/VitD-ez_quartMEDandMED_v2.html and err on the low side if you're worried. Regular self-examination is always a good idea for everybody and essential for very pale skins. Vitamin D productive begins immediately when the skin is exposed.
    - hinkley 6y ago
      In the northern states, you burn long before you get enough vitamin D around the winter solstice. Assuming the sky is even clear. With vitamin d it’s about building up reserves while you can, and supplementing with food or vitamins.
      - tpmx 6y ago
        I'm in Sweden, which is about the same latitude as Alaska. My sister and mom tan, I burn. Weird thing though, when I was a kid I spent so much time outdoors. Like, all of the time. That was before I got hold of a decent computer at like age 12 in 1989, and I started spending so much time indoors. After 30 years or so of mostly staying indoors, I burn when UV rays hit my skin. I'm willing to concede that my behavior is at least a part of the issue.
        rrock 6y ago
        Swedes tend to get a good amount of vitamin D from the herring and salmon in their diet.
- cameronh90 6y ago
  I (Scottish-level white) spend an hour or longer outside every day, all year, in London. Yet my vitamin D levels were almost zero. Unless I take around 50,000 IU per week, they drop to insufficient. Not everyone seems to generate enough vitamin D from sun exposure.
  - bengale 6y ago
    Sounds unusual. I thought the paler you were the easier you generated it tbh. Also 50k IU sounds a lot too. I’m pale as fuck an 400iu a day and a quick walk put me in the healthy range.
    - lostlogin 6y ago
      > a quick walk put me in the healthy range. Could this be due to where you live? The winter in the UK can be very low light for quite long periods. The weeks-long ‘rain’ or whatever you call that semi drizzle is very dreary. There is about 3x the rainfall per year where I live now but it’s short and sharp in comparison.
      - jessaustin 6y ago
        You're probably right. London is over 51° N latitude. Most people in the hemisphere are well south of that. Most people in Canada live south of that.
        cameronh90 6y ago
        Europe in general is fairly far north. According to Citymetric, half of Canada's population lives further south than Milan, and the most populated latitude in Europe is 52° N.
        ghaff 6y ago
        The Gulf Stream distorts a lot of perceptions as does the fact that a lot of the Canadian population lives pretty close to the US border. A lot of people in the US are pretty surprised that London, Amsterdam, and even Paris are at the same latitude as northern Newfoundland and Quebec way north of Montreal.
- dboreham 6y ago
  Seems like these articles never clarify if they're talking about clothed or partially unclothed exposure. Hard to imagine much vit d being generated in the little bit of face and hand skin area exposed to sunlight by a normal clothed configuration.
  - Filligree 6y ago
    If you check, you'll often find they assume shorts and t-shirt.
  - interestica 6y ago
    And they often skip over skin colour as a significant factor. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372923/#:~:text=Circulating%20vitamin%20D%20concentrations%20differ,color%20%5B10%2C12%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5372923/#:~:tex....
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      From the link given above: These seem like benefits everyone should be able to take advantage of. But not all people process sunlight the same way. And the current U.S. sun-exposure guidelines were written for the whitest people on earth. Every year, Richard Weller spends time working in a skin hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Not only is Addis Ababa near the equator, it also sits above 7,500 feet, so it receives massive UV radiation. Despite that, says Weller, “I have not seen a skin cancer. And yet Africans in Britain and America are told to avoid the sun.” ... People of color rarely get melanoma. The rate is 26 per 100,000 in Caucasians, 5 per 100,000 in Hispanics, and 1 per 100,000 in African Americans. ... How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well. What’s counterintuitive is that dermatologists run around saying, ‘Don’t go outside, you might die.’ At the same time, African Americans suffer high rates of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, internal cancers, and other diseases that seem to improve in the presence of sunlight, of which they may well not be getting enough. Because of their genetically higher levels of melanin, they require more sun exposure to produce compounds like vitamin D, and they are less able to store that vitamin for darker days. They have much to gain from the sun and little to fear.
- drno123 6y ago
  From early March until mid-June, we were told by government to “stay home”. There were even few events where police tackled to the ground and arrested people who were taking a walk outside, away from any crowd, in a group of two. Now people do go outside, and even though we have more detected cases of Covid-19 as compared to spring, the cases are milder and mortality rates are lower. Country: Croatia
mhb 6y ago
You can get a blood test from DirectLabs in most of the US for vitamin D for $50. Don't know if you think that's cheap.
odiroot 6y ago
There was this Theranos thing, they had a similar idea.

alextheparrot 6y ago

Assaying vitamin D levels doesn’t necessarily mean that Vitamin D levels are the primary effector, though. Maybe I’m missing some details from the actual study, but showing that mortality risk is higher with a deficiency could support either of these: 1) Vitamin D deficiency causes increased mortality 2) Whatever causes increased mortality also changes or is correlated with Vitamin D levels

andruby 6y ago
While you’re not wrong. I often see comments like this when new studies come out. I think most people here know that correlation doesn’t mean causality. However in the case of Vitamin D, there’s a lot of studies pointing towards Vitamin D actually helping fight bad outcomes. Such as the clinical trial from Spain where they gave supplement Vitamin D to one group and compared the outcomes [0] That does seem to indicate that the Vitamin D really is helping. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  If you look at the other comments on this thread, you'll quickly see why people like myself write comments clearly explaining what studies actually show. There is nothing wrong with understanding that the knowledge we have today is limited to a set of possible states - further study, such as the link, help collapse those states. Honestly, it makes the narrative more compelling too as showing direct action is easier than disproving all unseen movers.
mlyle 6y ago
Yes, low vitamin D is an indicator of frailty, so surely not all of the observed difference is causal. OTOH, giving people vitamin D in a RCT does seem to improve outcomes, so it looks like there's something real here.
vmception 6y ago
Only read the article, which could be very different from the actual study, the Forbes article is referring to people already hospitalized so we are talking about a pretty low bar of health already (low but probably common, make note of that reality), and of those people they are "getting" Vitamin D, which kind of suggests after they are hospitalized. This is new data then, because earlier studies were saying that Vitamin D supplements weren't improving circumstances, which would reinforce your perspective that people with inadequate Vitamin D levels had other issues. This article doesn't specify what "getting" Vitamin D means, maybe the study does. Let me know!

cmsonger 6y ago

I somehow did not ferret out from the Forbes article: Is this correlated or causal?

mark-r 6y ago
Nobody's done the kind of study that would establish that yet.
- andruby 6y ago
  I’d say that the Spanish clinical trial does point towards causality. They gave a randomized group of patients Vitamin D and compared the outcomes. Correct me if I’m wrong but that seems like the best way to test for causality. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...

acallaghan 6y ago

A lot of people will read this and immediately put themselves on huge doses of vit D thinking they'll be immune - rather than an deficiency increases mortality

Lopalis 6y ago
If it reduces their risk, what does it matter? Especially considering how many people are deficient in the best of times.
theptip 6y ago
Worth noting that a lot of people are vitamin D deficient. Particularly pronounced with those with a lot of melanin in the northern hemisphere, e.g. see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficiency-united-states/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficie... So to a first approximation, taking 1000 IU of vit D might be a good default recommendation for anyone if you can’t afford to get your blood work done. I am not aware of any evidence supporting megadosing though.
- Eduard 6y ago
  Blood work?
  - 3np 6y ago
    Blood tests of serum levels etc.
  - steverb 6y ago
    Panel of various tests using your blood.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    By way of explanation: Your body accumulates a store of vitamin D in the liver, which it rations out into your bloodstream over time. When you ingest or produce vitamin D, your liver buffers the amount that ends up in your blood, which does two things. 1) saves for a rainy day (literally and figuratively) 2) protects you from vitamin d toxicity over the short term. Which I’m told is quite nasty. With a doctor’s supervision you can take large doses of vitamin d for a short time and your liver will soak it up. How fast your blood levels rise tells the doctor about how much more you need in the tank and/or if you are having absorption problems. They taper you off quickly as you approach a healthy blood level.

xnx 6y ago

Reminder that articles from forbes.com should not be seen as having any better reputation than those posted on blogger.com or medium.com.

nabla9 6y ago
Forbes reporting is mostly factual. They don't employ much fact checkers, but don't do glaring errors. Forbes has some Chinese bias and has been criticized for it. It's owned by HK investor. Forbes also has some columnist's who are not very accurate in their opinions. Those who post in blogger.com or medium.com don't have any responsibility to anyone. I think your opinion spreads the "they are all the same" message that is infantile.
- mlyle 6y ago
  How can one be "accurate" in one's opinions?
  - dqv 6y ago
    They probably mean the opinion pieces themselves have factual inaccuracies and/or dubious sources. They probably don't mean that the opinions expressed in those pieces are themselves inaccurate.
  - randcraw 6y ago
    1) is the source reputable? (esp. the journal, magazine, author) 2) is the study well-designed and big enough to detect the signal as being reproducible and significant? 3) did the study ask the question it now supposedly answers? 4) did the study employ methods that discriminate precisely and robustly, like use of random groups and correction for complicating variables? Or is it based mostly on observations? And did it overlook the a priori distributions of variables known to confound the outcome of interest? If the article/study does not pass all these tests, it's unworthy of trust as an accurate test of its hypothesis or its claims of significance.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    By basing opinions on evidence and logical deduction. "I think the world is flat", is an opinion. You could say its accurate in so much as the subject of the sentence actually believes it. However, most people would say the "opinion" is wrong.

tpmx 6y ago

Giving further evidence to this study that came out in preprint about a month ago or so: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602... “Effect of calcifediol treatment and best available therapy versus best available therapy on intensive care unit admission and mortality among patients hospitalized for COVID-19: A pilot randomized clinical study” This one was actually about giving some patients calcifediol/vitamin D doses as part of the treatment, and comparing what happened to those who received the vitamin injection and those who didn't. tldr: "of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50 %).") Performed at Reina Sofia University Hospital, Córdoba, Spain.

3np 6y ago
This is great as it isolates vit D from other factors (e.g. balanced diet, spending more time in the sun).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chimichangga 6y ago
  Dr. Fauci says to take vitamin D if you're deficient to boost immune system https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advisor-fauci-takes-every-day-to-help-keep-his-immune-system-healthy.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advi...
  - spfzero 6y ago
    And a large proportion of people are deficient, probably most people actually. I’d rather he advised all people to get outside, do things outside under the sun and let your skin do its work, making all of the things it does, including D3.
    - Loulybob 6y ago

flattone 6y ago

Excellent medcram video on D re covid https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdc7T2UTHBI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdc7T2UTHBI

rossdavidh 6y ago

So, I cannot read the article without disabling adblocker, which I won't do, but here is their source anyway: https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2020/09/25/adequate-levels-of-vitamin-d-reduces-complications-death-among-covid-19-patients/ https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2020/09/25/adequate-levels-of-v... This is the nth study to talk about this. It's pretty well demonstrated by now that there is a correlation between vitD levels and covid-19 mortality. What is not clear is: - given that a deficiency is bad, does it matter if you have more than just the normal amount? In other words, does this only matter if you have a deficiency? - given that sunlight increases natural vitamin D production, could it be, not the vit D per se, but rather the sunlight exposure, that has the beneficial effect? - could this even just be a case of healthy people getting out more, hence getting more sunlight and thus vitamin D, and healthy people also dying less from covid-19 (or almost anything else)? What I would like to see is a study where they increase vit D levels, sunlight levels, both, or neither, and compare the mortality rates. If you don't feel it's ethical to do the neither option, you could compare to previous averages when neither was done. So far I have seen no evidence that this is being done, but hopefully soon?

rossdavidh 6y ago
Well just as i post this another person posts an answer for me: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...

hanklazard 6y ago

Original paper link (1) From the discussion section: "In acquired immunity pathways, 1,25(OH)2D has more modulating effect. 1,25(OH)2D inhibits activation of B-cells [29] and immunoglobulin synthesis [29]. This hormone also promotes Treg cells, which are responsible for anti-infectious action by inducing IL-10 production. This leads to suppression of Th1, and Th17 cells and IFNγ, IL-17, IL-6, IL-23 and IL-2 production and makes Th2 cells predominant. Th2 cells limits inflammatory processes by inhibiting Th1 cell-mediated cytokines and tumour necrosis factor α (TNFα) [11, 30, 31]." Yes this could all be correlative, but lets assume for a moment that the effect is causal and as significant as this study is finding. It may seem like the effect of Vitamin D on the adaptive immune system doesn't make sense ... decreasing the antibody response and pushing the T-cell population towards a more TH2-type response. So, at least in terms of the adaptive immune system, Vitamin D is actually ~calming~ the immune system down, at least with regard to severe inflammation. One way to make sense of this result would be as another piece of evidence pointing to some people's immune hyper-activation('cytokine storm') as one of the forces behind severe covid19 disease. This tends to be happening in the second and third week of infection and leads to much more devastating results on the body, and in particular, the lungs with ARDS (2). (1) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... (2) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-020-05190-5 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10067-020-05190-5

sa1 6y ago
There was some discussion that it is a bradykinin storm, not a cytokine storm. https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63 https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-...
patfla 6y ago
Some serious diseases (this was true with the Pandemic of 1918) cause their worst effects, including death, through overreactions of the immune system. Evolution is clever but it's not perfect and regulating biological systems is difficult - even for nature.

noneeeed 6y ago

Has there been any research into the vitamin d levels of patients after periods in hospital? Do vit d levels fall quickly enough for being admitted to hospital (and so being indoors) to become an issue in treatment?

ineedasername 6y ago

We don't know the source of the vitamin D: For example it's entirely possible that the type of person who has higher vitamin D levels is the type of person who takes care of themselves through things like vitamin supplements, and people who take care of themselves are less likely to have preventable underlying conditions. So, as always, it's important to remember that this study was retrospective, not experimental in nature.

jjeaff 6y ago
Here's an experimental study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Thanks, that is much more significant than this study, even if it had fewer people.
ketamine__ 6y ago
You could replace vitamin supplements with going for a walk.
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  Yeah but how are you going to do that while quarantining? Going outside and having fun is verboten.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    Is there a country which actually forbids going outside right now? Even Melbourne in heavy lockdown was allowing/recommending limited time exercise outside.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      They allowed an hour. I think it is two hours now.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Calcifediol doesn't seem readily available for consumer purchase. Because of that, this sort of feels like "Vitamin D could save people[1] from the worst of Covid! [1]Healthcare Wealthy Only" Corrections welcome.

detaro 6y ago
Why is specifically availability of Calcifediol relevant, which as far as I understand is a step in the middle of the bodys reaction chain while processing Vitamin D3 (which is easily available)?
Smaug123 6y ago
As I understand it, calcifediol is a metabolite of standard cholecalciferol, which is available extremely cheaply over the counter.
nO0b 6y ago
Calcifediol is just a way to rapidly increase the blood levels of Vitamin D in an obvious crisis situation. Going outside, and/or supplementing Vitamin D from exogenous sources takes many days to have an effect. Talk to your doctor, but start now. Your downside risk is fairly minimal. It is estimated that 40% of more of the US population is deficient in Vitamin D.

koolba 6y ago

Could this be a factor in near zero morbidity rates for young children? They clearly drink more milk and spend more time in the sun than the average adult.

adventured 6y ago
One of the reasons (plausibly there are multiple reasons) for that may have to do with children having fewer ACE2 enzymes lining the nasal cavity: From May: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766522 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2766522 "The authors evaluated gene expression in nasal epithelial samples collected as part of a study involving patients with asthma from 2015 to 2018. The nasal epithelium is one of the first sites of infection with SARS-CoV-2, and the investigators probed for the expression of the cell surface enzyme angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which has been proven to bind to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and promote internalization of the virus into human cells. Among a cohort of 305 patients aged 4 to 60 years, older children (10-17 years old; n = 185), young adults (18-24 years old; n = 46), and adults (≥25 years old; n = 29) all had higher expression of ACE2 in the nasal epithelium compared with younger children (4-9 years old; n = 45), and ACE2 expression was higher with each subsequent age group after adjusting for sex and asthma."
tpmx 6y ago
Background to this comment: Vitamin D is commonly artifically added to milk.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I'd imagine this varies by country, and that should give relatively easy statistical comparisons?
  - tpmx 6y ago
    After spending the past 7 months as an amateur statistician I have found that nothing is easy when you want compare different countries.

zamalek 6y ago

Friendly reminder that vitamin D is not harmless, either. Overdoing it can have permanent consequences for your health. If you think you may be deficient (you probably are), have a medical professional assist you with blood work and safe dosage.

BurningFrog 6y ago
Overdosing is a real danger, but you have to eat a lot. Do talk to your doctor if you have one easily accessible, but if not, 1000-2000 units a day should not be a problem for anyone.

just-juan-post 6y ago

Want to end this mess quick and easy? The government should send every citizen $300 worth of vitamin D3 and remove all lifestyle restrictions. PS: Early on people like Musk and Ford jump in to help by donating ventilators. Why aren't we seeing other organizations and individuals creating huge pushes to things like manufacture D3 and create widespread publicity for plasma donation? You listening Bill G?

em500 6y ago
Not sure about the costs in the US, but here in the Netherlands, $300 worth of vitamin D would be about 30000 10mcg pills... edit: Some googling shows that they costs around 3 to 5 cents per pill in the US, so you're suggesting to send everyone 6000 - 10000 pills?
- ghaff 6y ago
  You can buy a year's supply of 5000 IU/125 mcg D3 (which may be a bit too much as a daily dose according to current NIH guidelines) for ~$15 in the US.
Havoc 6y ago
Given that people are drinking bleach I don’t think sending a large amount of vit D is a clever plan. Way to many idiots out there that will take more than recommended “just to be sure”

jonplackett 6y ago

Every time there's an article like this I say something like "OK, can we please now have governments giving people vitamin D for free now? What's the worst that can happen?" and every time, someone says it's not worth it, or that people will get a vitamin D overdose. I think people find it really hard to accept that something so basic could actually help and not be some kind of disaster.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
buu700 6y ago
That sounds like a great idea. At the same time, I can't help but imagine all the conspiracy theories that would result from the government sending pills to everyone in the country. One approach could be to have the government just start subsidizing vitamin D to $0 (up to a specific quantity per person per month) at private retailers, or offer a rebate or tax credit for any verifiable purchases of vitamin D. Edit: To help address toxicity concerns, anything like this should also cover vitamin K.
- em500 6y ago
  I don't know about the US, but here in the Netherlands a bottle of 300 x 10mcg pills costs €2.50. I doubt the current costs are holding back usage.
  - llarsson 6y ago
    Just wait until stores figure out that people are going to be willing to pay many times that if vitamin D becomes a recommended supplement against covid-19. The cost increase of alcohol-based hand sanitizer is just inane, especially now when it seems that production had caught up.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    It’s not just about the cost (though for people most likely to get covid cost could still be important) it’s about educating people and getting the message out. If the government say this is going to be free because it’s so useful, people will notice and do it. Even if they ultimately just buy their own because it’s more convenient.

GhostVII 6y ago

How many people actually have inadequate vitamin D levels? They chose a fairly arbitrary amount (30 ng/ml) as their measure for an inadequate level.

et2o 6y ago
It’s pretty frequent
- randcraw 6y ago
  Yes, AFAIK all diabetics have diminished D levels, as do many vegans.

nimish 6y ago

This would explain "flu season" just as well as anything related to distancing or indoor air filtration : the lack of sunlight at high latitudes results in poor vitamin d production

beagle3 6y ago
I don't have the references handy, but IIRC "flu season" and winter diseases in general were essentially resolved by a model that takes absolute (not relative) humidity and gives the probability that aerosols (e.g., a sneeze or breath) will remain in air for a while, or fall to the ground. IIRC, same computations correctly predict flu season (and other viral diseases) for the last 10 years or so, but fail to predict covid-19 dispersion (and in particular, predicted a drop during the summer of the northern hemisphere, which did not happen) - which may indicate either that the model is borked, or that the primary dispersion vector is NOT, as commonly assumed, aerosolized -- in fact, there are quite a few pieces of evidence pointing in that direction. (Not that it's impossible, just that it's not the primary one).
- nimish 6y ago
  Given we know aerosolization is a vector I'd take humidity to be confounded with something else. Even then, unless experiment reveals it you can't take simulations as anything except hypothesis generators. Serum vitamin d concentration vs virus damage would be an interesting trial.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    We do not know that it is the primary vector, though. We know that the fecal-oral route is also a vector, one that’s historically a big problem in nursing homes, and plays a nontrivial part in spread through food preparation (unlike e.g. with flu which is essentially all aerosol with short life). The spread data is not properly reflected in recommendations IMHO and likely for political and politically correct reasons.

acqq 6y ago

At the moment I'm checking this, the title of the article is much less sure than what's on HN. "Study Suggests Reduced Mortality Risk For Covid-19 May Be Associated With Adequate Vitamin D Levels" Whereas the current HN title claims that "study finds" that "Vitamin D Levels Cuts Risk" which is much stronger claim, which doesn't have to be true -- i.e. an editorialized title, not what HN typically prefers.

exabrial 6y ago

Great question for hn: why is infection rate, not death rate, the metric de jur...

brianwawok 6y ago
Two different problems for two different groups of people. Policy makers and individuals want to focus on infection rate. Lower infection rate = less spreading = less trips to the hospital = the society is "winning" Hospitals and doctors want to focus on death rate. At the point they get a patient, they are already infected. They want the lowest % of people possible to die, to show that their care is working. Neither effort is in conflict with each other, and can be near perfectly parallelized. I.e. the hospitals trying a new medicine to lower death rate has no impact on a region trying to lower infection.

moshimoshir 6y ago

Yet another thing trump was right about

nradov 6y ago

I would like to see a study that tests whether a large dose of vitamin D improves outcomes when administered during the early stage of COVID-19. Dr. Gerry Schwalfenberg reported positive results with giving 50000 IU as an influenza treatment but that's just anecdotal. We desperately need more research in this area. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

tuna-piano 6y ago

A couple great posts about vitamin D posted to HN: -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261124 -And her part 3 (which links to tons of studies and is quite informative): https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence My TLDR from reading those posts: Vitamin D overdosing is possible, can have some pretty severe consequences. Vitamin D deficiency is correlated with tons of conditions. But this seems likely to be a correlation and not a causation. Simply because unhealthy people spend more time indoors than healthy people. The relevant statement in her post from part 3: "Vitamin D seems to reduce asthma attacks in adults with mild to moderate disease, and daily or weekly Vitamin D seems to prevent acute respiratory infection in those with Vitamin D less than 10 ng/ml (25 nmol/l). There is considerable excitement around Vitamin D's potential role in Covid treatment, though we do not yet have enough evidence to make a definitive conclusion"

kovach 6y ago
No one dies of Vitamin D overdose. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying of COVID-19. So dosing everyone with Vitamin D is extremely low risk for a very high reward...

thinkingemote 6y ago

Worth repeating that people in the UK are unable to get enough vitamin D from the sun from next month until the spring.

Havoc 6y ago
Unable or unlikely? There are still a fair few hours of sun...
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Unable to get enough. The sun is too low.

ksajadi 6y ago

As a person with darker skin living in Europe, I’m told I have vitamin D deficiency and take supplements. Could the higher rate of COVID illness in black and minorities be related to this?

vr46 6y ago
For sure. We used to live in a basement flat in the UK, and when my partner and kid were diagnosed with Vit D deficiency (white skin) I knew I had it too (dark skin). Two weeks of dosing myself cured my knee pains. And I’m a highly-clued up HN reader. Start hoovering those tablets, fellow darker-skinned technocrats!
- ksajadi 6y ago
  :) I'm told the under tongue sprays work best...

fallingfrog 6y ago

They need to disambiguate whether the effect holds for people who are getting vitamin d from sunlight vs people who get it from supplements. It could be that sunlight/fresh air/exercise/being healthy enough for the above is the real explanation.

devaboone 6y ago

The headlines on Vitamin D and Covid far surpass the actual data. Here is my summary on the latest research: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid