5 ms·

It would be instructive to know the vitamin d deficiency rate of the typical 2019 hospitalized population. Or the rate of, say, hospitalized patients in taiwan

by graeme 6y ago

It would be instructive to know the vitamin d deficiency rate of the typical 2019 hospitalized population. Or the rate of, say, hospitalized patients in taiwan or new zealand (no covid) compared to their general populace’s. I’m a big proponent of the idea that vitamin d will likely help against covid 19 but this headline is missing some crucial comparative context. —— Edit: I’m rather wrong in the part below. Patient only refers to people receiving treatment, so this is an accurate use. Keeping it there for posterity. I believe the rest of my comment still stands. The headline is inaccurate. The study looked at hospitalized patients. That is a group in much worse health. And all manner of health conditions are correlated with low vitamin d.

OJFord 6y ago
It says 'patients', feeling a bit squiffy and calling in sick doesn't make you a patient (not even an out-patient), medical treatment or attention does.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- graeme 6y ago
  You’re quite right, I hadn’t properly thought through what patient means precisely. I edited my comment, thanks!
dbbk 6y ago
What is a non-hospitalised patient?
- SippinLean 6y ago
  A patient that is no longer hospitalized > 216 patients aged ≥18 years, with confirmed COVID-19 [admitted] from March 10 to March 31, 2020, and > 197 sex-matched population-based controls recruited from the Camargo Cohort during their last follow-up visit on January-March of the past year
- Barrin92 6y ago
  someone who is currently diagnosed with/ treated for covid, but does not require hospitalisation?
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  "outpatient"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ada1981 6y ago
Yes.. what is the base rate of vitamin D deficiency in the general population?
- watwut 6y ago
  47 if people complaining about this particular point bothered to skimm linked article.
  - 8bitsrule 6y ago
    That would be here: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa733/5934827 https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/cl... (I too missed it in the headline-linked article)
  - graeme 6y ago
    A thing I couldn’t find in the article: were the population based controls patients who were hospitalized in 2019, or merely members of the local population?
- wins32767 6y ago
  "Vitamin D deficiency was found in 82.2% of COVID-19 cases and 47.2% of population-based controls (p<0.0001)"
  - learnstats2 6y ago
    Given that the population-based controls were examined in January-March 2020 [(?) the year is slightly obfuscated but a generous reading allows 2020] and the COVID-19 cases were from March 10-31, the difference could be explained by people being in lockdown and not going outside.
    - NoOneNew 6y ago
      It was March or April when the NIH released a bunch of papers on diseases on either Kaggle or Github (can't exactly remember). I decided to dig into all the data for fun ("fun", it was all in json and you had to manually parse the bitch to read it all). There's a fuckton (in the scientific sense) of studies that show a really good relation to Vit D deficiency and generally being sick as shit (flu, URIs, sinus infections, gastro problems, etc). While Vit C might be good for recovering, D is what you want to focus on in general disease prevention (a wide gamut at that). Outside of that 60k paper release, there are lots of studies on the mental health of folks regarding low and regular Vit D levels (low Vit D levels lead to more, worse and prolonged depression & anxiety). What I've really taken away from this crazy year, why the hell is there all this research (decades worth, not a handful of years, I'm talking about roughly 40+ years worth) on good levels of Vit D levels leads to a statically healthy life and this fact is being completely shit on/ignored? Perfect? No. But, statistically speaking, you're sickly if your Vit D levels are low, regardless of Covid.
watwut 6y ago
You can't expect the headline to contain whole article. The population prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is in it. It is absurd when people complain about lacking data that are available in two logical clicks as if it would be fault of articles they don't read.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't be a jerk when correcting people, no matter how annoying another comment is or you feel it is. It's great to provide correct information, and also enough. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tinus_hn 6y ago
So can we please run the study to see if this is correlation or causation? I’m getting quite tired of seeing this vitamin D story with no follow up. It can’t be that hard right? It’s stuff that you can buy over the counter and that you’d have to use crazy amounts of to overdose.
- takeda 6y ago
  I remember there was a story on HN where there was study related to vitamin D where patients that received vitamin D had higher chance of recovery.
  - graeme 6y ago
    This one. Randomized control study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
- kuya_noel 6y ago
  earlier studies relate vitamin D deficiency to risk for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndromes in general. the "brandykinin hypothsis" links poor COVID-19 outcomes to vitamin D deficiency as vitamin D is a regulator of the Renin Angiotensin System. https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177#s1 https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177#s1
- kylebenzle 6y ago
  Its not a hard analysis to do but then they wouldn't be able to publish as easily. The scientific process is not about progress, its about publish or perish. D is perfect for this type of non-sense science as it is correlated with so many things and each one can get dozens of papers out of it.
- epmaybe 6y ago
  I wrote this whole long comment talking about all the issues in trying to design a good trial to figure this out, but here's one trial I think will give us some more info, it seems better designed than the other ones I've seen (sample size remains a problem): https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04525820 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04525820
benmmurphy 6y ago
The study has a demographic breakdown table that has some details about other conditions the covid and the control population had. One thing that stood out to me was: 'Immunosuppression'. The COVID population had this condition at 8x the rate the control group had and this condition may be induced deliberately. That seems like it could be an alternative explanation to low vitamin D.

by graeme 6y ago

OJFord 6y ago

It says 'patients', feeling a bit squiffy and calling in sick doesn't make you a patient (not even an out-patient), medical treatment or attention does.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
graeme 6y ago
You’re quite right, I hadn’t properly thought through what patient means precisely. I edited my comment, thanks!

dbbk 6y ago

What is a non-hospitalised patient?

SippinLean 6y ago
A patient that is no longer hospitalized > 216 patients aged ≥18 years, with confirmed COVID-19 [admitted] from March 10 to March 31, 2020, and > 197 sex-matched population-based controls recruited from the Camargo Cohort during their last follow-up visit on January-March of the past year
Barrin92 6y ago
someone who is currently diagnosed with/ treated for covid, but does not require hospitalisation?
ARandomerDude 6y ago
"outpatient"

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ada1981 6y ago

Yes.. what is the base rate of vitamin D deficiency in the general population?

watwut 6y ago
47 if people complaining about this particular point bothered to skimm linked article.
- 8bitsrule 6y ago
  That would be here: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa733/5934827 https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/cl... (I too missed it in the headline-linked article)
- graeme 6y ago
  A thing I couldn’t find in the article: were the population based controls patients who were hospitalized in 2019, or merely members of the local population?
wins32767 6y ago
"Vitamin D deficiency was found in 82.2% of COVID-19 cases and 47.2% of population-based controls (p<0.0001)"
- learnstats2 6y ago
  Given that the population-based controls were examined in January-March 2020 [(?) the year is slightly obfuscated but a generous reading allows 2020] and the COVID-19 cases were from March 10-31, the difference could be explained by people being in lockdown and not going outside.
  - NoOneNew 6y ago
    It was March or April when the NIH released a bunch of papers on diseases on either Kaggle or Github (can't exactly remember). I decided to dig into all the data for fun ("fun", it was all in json and you had to manually parse the bitch to read it all). There's a fuckton (in the scientific sense) of studies that show a really good relation to Vit D deficiency and generally being sick as shit (flu, URIs, sinus infections, gastro problems, etc). While Vit C might be good for recovering, D is what you want to focus on in general disease prevention (a wide gamut at that). Outside of that 60k paper release, there are lots of studies on the mental health of folks regarding low and regular Vit D levels (low Vit D levels lead to more, worse and prolonged depression & anxiety). What I've really taken away from this crazy year, why the hell is there all this research (decades worth, not a handful of years, I'm talking about roughly 40+ years worth) on good levels of Vit D levels leads to a statically healthy life and this fact is being completely shit on/ignored? Perfect? No. But, statistically speaking, you're sickly if your Vit D levels are low, regardless of Covid.

watwut 6y ago

You can't expect the headline to contain whole article. The population prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is in it. It is absurd when people complain about lacking data that are available in two logical clicks as if it would be fault of articles they don't read.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
Please don't be a jerk when correcting people, no matter how annoying another comment is or you feel it is. It's great to provide correct information, and also enough. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tinus_hn 6y ago

So can we please run the study to see if this is correlation or causation? I’m getting quite tired of seeing this vitamin D story with no follow up. It can’t be that hard right? It’s stuff that you can buy over the counter and that you’d have to use crazy amounts of to overdose.

takeda 6y ago
I remember there was a story on HN where there was study related to vitamin D where patients that received vitamin D had higher chance of recovery.
- graeme 6y ago
  This one. Randomized control study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602...
kuya_noel 6y ago
earlier studies relate vitamin D deficiency to risk for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndromes in general. the "brandykinin hypothsis" links poor COVID-19 outcomes to vitamin D deficiency as vitamin D is a regulator of the Renin Angiotensin System. https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177#s1 https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177#s1
kylebenzle 6y ago
Its not a hard analysis to do but then they wouldn't be able to publish as easily. The scientific process is not about progress, its about publish or perish. D is perfect for this type of non-sense science as it is correlated with so many things and each one can get dozens of papers out of it.
epmaybe 6y ago
I wrote this whole long comment talking about all the issues in trying to design a good trial to figure this out, but here's one trial I think will give us some more info, it seems better designed than the other ones I've seen (sample size remains a problem): https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04525820 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04525820

benmmurphy 6y ago

The study has a demographic breakdown table that has some details about other conditions the covid and the control population had. One thing that stood out to me was: 'Immunosuppression'. The COVID population had this condition at 8x the rate the control group had and this condition may be induced deliberately. That seems like it could be an alternative explanation to low vitamin D.