3 ms·

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

airhead969 6y ago
My new PCP doctor threw shade on why I was taking 5000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. I asked him why he wasn't considering Fauci and others take it for COVID outcome prophylaxis.
- yyyk 6y ago
  Note that very high levels of vitamin D supplements are possibly linked to reduction of volumetric bone density[0]. Low levels make sense given most people are more housebound during the pandemic. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31454046/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31454046/ "Conclusions and relevance: Among healthy adults, treatment with vitamin D for 3 years at a dose of 4000 IU per day or 10 000 IU per day, compared with 400 IU per day, resulted in statistically significant lower radial BMD; tibial BMD was significantly lower only with the 10 000 IU per day dose. There were no significant differences in bone strength at either the radius or tibia. These findings do not support a benefit of high-dose vitamin D supplementation for bone health; further research would be needed to determine whether it is harmful."
jdjdn827js 6y ago
> One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency. Is it? How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? How much variance / tolerance is there between people. Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels? This may be a serious oversight. Or it may be that the Vitamin D thing is pseudoscience.
- nradov 6y ago
  I recommend you read through all the studies indexed on this page and then get back to us. https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/ https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  > Is it? Yes > How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? Usually with a blood test. It's diagnosed because the blood test comes back out of range which is usually below 30 ng/ml for insufficiency, and below 20 for a deficiency. > How much variance / tolerance is there between people? The std. deviation is 16.6 ng/ml > Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels? I don't think we know, it's hard to track this. You'd need to follow a huge cohort of people who you test for vitamin d often enough so that while they're getting the infection we see their vitamin d in real time.
- kragen 6y ago
  > Is it? Yes, in the usual sense medical researchers use the term "risk factor", e.g., having a heart attack is a risk factor for having one of your great-grandparents die of a heart attack. Taking vitamin D probably won't reduce your covid risk, but it might, and it's a low-risk intervention that probably isn't harmful, so you should do it anyway unless you have some contraindication such as a high risk of kidney stones. The best review I've seen of the research literature is this post: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-more-than-you https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-mo... (That post isn't medical advice, but this comment clearly is.)
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Not a lot of people seem to know, but in the UK VitD supplements are recommended by the NHS for practically everyone in Winter. AIUI, VitD is involved in T-cell production and so is needed to maintain our immune systems. This is our course not medical advice.
Closi 6y ago
It's not an oversight, it's a limitation of how the study was conducted - you can't check for Vitamin D levels through an app. But what you can do in this study, is have a dataset with a good size (4m people from the UK!) which allows for much broader analysis than would be possible through other means. Blood testing 4m people during a pandemic is impractical, and widescale self-reporting will provide insights not otherwise available (as this paper shows).
- kragen 6y ago
  > Blood testing 4m people during a pandemic is impractical On at least two occasions China has swab-tested 10 million people in a single city within a week, when covid re-occurred in a city where it had been thought to be extirpated. I don't think blood testing is twice as difficult as swab testing. So, I don't think it's impractical per se. It's just impractical in the UK. You know what's impractical? 2.7 million people dying and an unknown fraction of the survivors suffering disabilities and injuries such as diabetes, heart attacks, and cerebrovascular attacks.
  - Closi 6y ago
    In your example in China they were swab testing for the virus in an attempt to measure/control its spread. That’s different to focusing resources on doing vitamin D testing for a speculative study to determine if there is a link between vitamin D and long Covid. I’m just saying that given limited resources during this global pandemic, the best use of resources at present probably isn’t monitoring 4 million people’s vitamin D levels for this specific study. I’m also saying that not every study has to study every possible factor - in fact this is almost impossible to do! This is a brilliant dataset of millions of people self reporting, and there are things that you can find with self reporting that you can’t find with blood testing (and visa versa). This is why other papers will do a literature review to compile together the results of multiple studies to understand the impact.
    - kragen 6y ago
      That's a fair point: in China they weren't screening for unknown risk factors like hypovitaminosis D either. And if hypovitaminosis D is a large risk factor (it is, though the causal relationship is unclear—it may just be a comorbidity stemming from some other underlying cause that increases covid risk) studies with much less power should be able to find it (and they did).
legulere 6y ago
Low levels of Vitamin D are correlated with a lot of bad things, but only for a few of them vitamin D supplementation seems to lead to betterment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements
- m0llusk 6y ago
  Because Vitamin D is involved in so much physiology there are many related factors. Low sleep and sleep debt are common and getting enough sleep is associated with higher Vitamin D levels. Stress is common and finding ways handle stress is associated with increased Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is present in eggs, oily fish, and organ meats. One of the most effective ways of increasing Vitamin D is to get some sun close to mid day. This is another example of cascading factors as making time to be outside at mid day tends to result in a range of other changes opening up diet options, increasing exercise, improving mood, and so on. So your knee jerk reaction is strictly speaking true yet also a distraction.

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

airhead969 6y ago

My new PCP doctor threw shade on why I was taking 5000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. I asked him why he wasn't considering Fauci and others take it for COVID outcome prophylaxis.

yyyk 6y ago
Note that very high levels of vitamin D supplements are possibly linked to reduction of volumetric bone density[0]. Low levels make sense given most people are more housebound during the pandemic. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31454046/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31454046/ "Conclusions and relevance: Among healthy adults, treatment with vitamin D for 3 years at a dose of 4000 IU per day or 10 000 IU per day, compared with 400 IU per day, resulted in statistically significant lower radial BMD; tibial BMD was significantly lower only with the 10 000 IU per day dose. There were no significant differences in bone strength at either the radius or tibia. These findings do not support a benefit of high-dose vitamin D supplementation for bone health; further research would be needed to determine whether it is harmful."

jdjdn827js 6y ago

> One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency. Is it? How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? How much variance / tolerance is there between people. Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels? This may be a serious oversight. Or it may be that the Vitamin D thing is pseudoscience.

nradov 6y ago
I recommend you read through all the studies indexed on this page and then get back to us. https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/ https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/
JamesBarney 6y ago
> Is it? Yes > How exactly is vitamin D deficiency measured and diagnosed? Usually with a blood test. It's diagnosed because the blood test comes back out of range which is usually below 30 ng/ml for insufficiency, and below 20 for a deficiency. > How much variance / tolerance is there between people? The std. deviation is 16.6 ng/ml > Most importantly does COVID impact Vitamin D levels? I don't think we know, it's hard to track this. You'd need to follow a huge cohort of people who you test for vitamin d often enough so that while they're getting the infection we see their vitamin d in real time.
kragen 6y ago
> Is it? Yes, in the usual sense medical researchers use the term "risk factor", e.g., having a heart attack is a risk factor for having one of your great-grandparents die of a heart attack. Taking vitamin D probably won't reduce your covid risk, but it might, and it's a low-risk intervention that probably isn't harmful, so you should do it anyway unless you have some contraindication such as a high risk of kidney stones. The best review I've seen of the research literature is this post: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-more-than-you https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-mo... (That post isn't medical advice, but this comment clearly is.)
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Not a lot of people seem to know, but in the UK VitD supplements are recommended by the NHS for practically everyone in Winter. AIUI, VitD is involved in T-cell production and so is needed to maintain our immune systems. This is our course not medical advice.

Closi 6y ago

It's not an oversight, it's a limitation of how the study was conducted - you can't check for Vitamin D levels through an app. But what you can do in this study, is have a dataset with a good size (4m people from the UK!) which allows for much broader analysis than would be possible through other means. Blood testing 4m people during a pandemic is impractical, and widescale self-reporting will provide insights not otherwise available (as this paper shows).

kragen 6y ago
> Blood testing 4m people during a pandemic is impractical On at least two occasions China has swab-tested 10 million people in a single city within a week, when covid re-occurred in a city where it had been thought to be extirpated. I don't think blood testing is twice as difficult as swab testing. So, I don't think it's impractical per se. It's just impractical in the UK. You know what's impractical? 2.7 million people dying and an unknown fraction of the survivors suffering disabilities and injuries such as diabetes, heart attacks, and cerebrovascular attacks.
- Closi 6y ago
  In your example in China they were swab testing for the virus in an attempt to measure/control its spread. That’s different to focusing resources on doing vitamin D testing for a speculative study to determine if there is a link between vitamin D and long Covid. I’m just saying that given limited resources during this global pandemic, the best use of resources at present probably isn’t monitoring 4 million people’s vitamin D levels for this specific study. I’m also saying that not every study has to study every possible factor - in fact this is almost impossible to do! This is a brilliant dataset of millions of people self reporting, and there are things that you can find with self reporting that you can’t find with blood testing (and visa versa). This is why other papers will do a literature review to compile together the results of multiple studies to understand the impact.
  - kragen 6y ago
    That's a fair point: in China they weren't screening for unknown risk factors like hypovitaminosis D either. And if hypovitaminosis D is a large risk factor (it is, though the causal relationship is unclear—it may just be a comorbidity stemming from some other underlying cause that increases covid risk) studies with much less power should be able to find it (and they did).

legulere 6y ago

Low levels of Vitamin D are correlated with a lot of bad things, but only for a few of them vitamin D supplementation seems to lead to betterment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements

m0llusk 6y ago
Because Vitamin D is involved in so much physiology there are many related factors. Low sleep and sleep debt are common and getting enough sleep is associated with higher Vitamin D levels. Stress is common and finding ways handle stress is associated with increased Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is present in eggs, oily fish, and organ meats. One of the most effective ways of increasing Vitamin D is to get some sun close to mid day. This is another example of cascading factors as making time to be outside at mid day tends to result in a range of other changes opening up diet options, increasing exercise, improving mood, and so on. So your knee jerk reaction is strictly speaking true yet also a distraction.