that’s also kind of how I read it .... it started off “low level of vitamin d has been linked to higher risk of severe covid-19...”. And the study shows that vit d supplement once you are already in bad shape doesn’t help. It doesn’t said supplement before you catch covid doesn’t help, at least I didn’t read it that way... nor does it said that it helps
I think having "taking vitamin D unlikely to help" in big red letters is a bit questionable and not sure why you did that. There have been other studies done that show it does have a positive effect. The single oral dose they used was very high and it was vitamin D3 which takes a week to two weeks to have an effect because it has to be converted by the body to calcifediol. It is interesting that they excluded people who were already supplementing Vitamin D from their study and focused on more severe cases. I would think that it would be surprising to see any significant benefit from vitamin D considering the state the patients were already in (less than 93% oxygen saturation levels) and the lag time with the type of vitamin D they gave, but nice to see a study done on it. He talks about a very small Indian study where they gave the same type of vitamin D3 but to mildly or asymptomatic patients at 60,000 IU daily for 7 days and they did see a statistically significant benefit. There was improvement in inflammatory markers as well in that study. Link to Indian study Spoiler https://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2020/11/12/postgradmedj-2020-139065.full What we have found Daily cholecalciferol supplementation of 60,000 IU helps in achieving 25(OH)D>50 ng/ml in 75% of participants by day-14. Therapeutic, high-dose cholecalciferol supplementation led to SARS-CoV-2 RNA negative in additional 41.7% participants (p<0.001) and was useful for viral SARS-CoV-2 RNA clearance. In conclusion, a high dose, oral vitamin D supplementation to augment 25(OH)D >50 ng/ml helped to achieve SARS-CoV-2 RNA negativity in greater proportion of asymptomatic vitamin D-deficient individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection along with a significant decrease in inflammatory marker. SARS-CoV-2 RNA negativity by cholecalciferol supplementation may help in reducing transmission rates of the highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 infection. A reassurance for public health workers regarding greater likelihood of SARS CoV-2 RNA negativity in individuals receiving therapeutic cholecalciferol supplementation will be encouraging. He also discusses a Spanish study where they gave the activated form of Vitamin D (calcifediol) and they saw dramatic reduction in ICU admissions. He also discusses the differences in the types of vitamin D and how they work. Link to the small Spanish study where they gave calcifediol (the activated form of vitamin D) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/ Results Spoiler Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50 %) p value X2 Fischer test p < 0.001. Univariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment versus without Calcifediol treatment: 0.02 (95 %CI 0.002−0.17). Multivariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment vs Without Calcifediol treatment ICU (adjusting by Hypertension and T2DM): 0.03 (95 %CI: 0.003-0.25). Of the patients treated with calcifediol, none died, and all were discharged, without complications. The 13 patients not treated with calcifediol, who were not admitted to the ICU, were discharged. Of the 13 patients admitted to the ICU, two died and the remaining 11 were discharged. Link to meta study involving respiratory tract infections and vitamin D supplementation https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583 Results Spoiler 25 eligible randomised controlled trials (total 11 321 participants, aged 0 to 95 years) were identified. IPD were obtained for 10 933 (96.6%) participants. Vitamin D supplementation reduced the risk of acute respiratory tract infection among all participants (adjusted odds ratio 0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.81 to 0.96; P for heterogeneity <0.001). In subgroup analysis, protective effects were seen in those receiving daily or weekly vitamin D without additional bolus doses (adjusted odds ratio 0.81, 0.72 to 0.91) but not in those receiving one or more bolus doses (adjusted odds ratio 0.97, 0.86 to 1.10; P for interaction=0.05). Among those receiving daily or weekly vitamin D, protective effects were stronger in those with baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <25 nmol/L (adjusted odds ratio 0.30, 0.17 to 0.53) than in those with baseline 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels ≥25 nmol/L (adjusted odds ratio 0.75, 0.60 to 0.95; P for interaction=0.006). Vitamin D did not influence the proportion of participants experiencing at least one serious adverse event (adjusted odds ratio 0.98, 0.80 to 1.20, P=0.83). The body of evidence contributing to these analyses was assessed as being of high quality. Conclusions Vitamin D supplementation was safe and it protected against acute respiratory tract infection overall. Patients who were very vitamin D deficient and those not receiving bolus doses experienced the most benefit. Link to study discussing the connection between vitamin D deficiency and covid infection rates https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/con...rNar4XGlzA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA Spoiler Discussion To our knowledge, this study provides the first assessment of the association of vitamin D deficiency and potentially insufficient treatment with testing positive for COVID-19. The multivariable analysis suggests that persons who are likely to have deficient vitamin D levels at the time of COVID-19 testing were at substantially higher risk of testing positive for COVID-19 than were persons who were likely to have sufficient levels. That patients with deficient last vitamin D levels who did have increased treatment were not found to have increased risk for COVID-19 compared with patients with likely sufficient vitamin D status may suggest a protective effect of treatment, but the confidence intervals on estimated rates for these groups are too wide to exclude the possibility of no treatment effect. Conclusions The findings of this study suggest a role of vitamin D status, based on deficiency of levels and treatment, in risk of COVID-19 infection. Randomized clinical trials of interventions to reduce vitamin D deficiency are needed to determine if those interventions could reduce COVID-19 incidence, including both broad population interventions and interventions among groups at increased risk of vitamin D deficiency and/or COVID-19. Link to a study discussing the association between higher vitamin D levels and lower mortality and severe cases of Covid Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at least 30 ng/mL reduced risk for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799 Spoiler Conclusion The present study revealed an independent association between vitamin D sufficiency [25(OH)D ≥ 30 ng/mL] and decreased risk of adverse clinical outcomes from COVID-19. The severity of clinical outcomes from COVID-19 and mortality were reduced in patients who were vitamin D sufficient. Clinical features were also significantly different in patients who were vitamin D sufficient. They had a lower risk of becoming unconscious and becoming hypoxic. Patients who were vitamin D sufficient had significantly lower blood levels of the inflammatory marker CRP and had a higher total blood lymphocyte count suggesting that vitamin D sufficiency had improved the immune function in these patients and raising the inflammatory markers. This beneficial effect on the immune system may also reduce the risk of acquiring this insidious potentially life-threatening viral infection. It is recommended that further studies including RCTs are need be designed to evaluate the role of vitamin D status on risk of developing COVID-19 infection and mitigating complications and mortality in those infected with the virus. It remains debatable as to what the optimum serum level of 25(OH)D should be for maximizing its effect on the immune system. We did observe that 6.3% of the patients who had a blood level of 25(OH)D of at least 40 ng/mL succumbed to the infection compared to 9.7% and 20% who died and had a circulating blood level above and below 30 ng/mL respectively. Thus, a blood level of at least 40 ng/mL may be optimal for vitamin D’s immunomodulatory effect. Therefore, based on the available literature and results from this study it is reasonable to recommend vitamin D supplementation, along the guidelines recommended by the Endocrine Society to achieve a blood level of 25(OH)D of at least 30/mL, to children and adults to potentially reduce risk of acquiring the infection and for all COVID-19 patients especially those being admitted into the hospital. There are also large trials going on in Norway and UK currently and I'm sure in other places as well.
It's lower than 30%. He estimates it to be 5% of cases will suffer some form of long covid. In the UK it is estimated there are about 60,000 or so people suffering from long covid which translates to a 3.7% crude rate. Why do I keep posting this doctor? Because I think he does an excellent job at aggregating news and studies and breaking them down in a reasonable fashion.
It's the title of the Reuter's article. Text with a link defaults to red color on this bbs. It's not that uncommon for tests to have different results for something relatively new and especially if they focus on different areas. This one is D3 given to patients that were already in bad shape. Result were it didn't help them.
His point is to stop posting click bait articles. The link clearly says Vitamin D unlikely to help you when they could have caveated by stating it doesnt help if you're sick. That is a reckless claim considering it doesnt hurt if people take a couple thousand IU Daily.
“Increasing vitamin D levels in critically ill patients did not shorten their hospital stay or lower their odds of being moved to intensive care, needing mechanical ventilation, or dying, doctors in Brazil found. “ Right there in the article and in the post.
I gave as much as I could to concisely explain things and back up the points. Maybe it was too long for anyone to read or even care. I spend time putting posts together in order to hopefully add a little more depth to the discussion. I hope you and anyone else who liked that post with the Reuter's article understood the difference between that Brazilian study and the Spanish study which used an already "activated" form of vitamin D (calcifediol) that can be used by the body nearly immediately. That Spanish study showed a spectacular success rate in patients that were already hospitalized. Oral vitamin D3 can take 7-14 days or longer before it begins to increase 25-OH D levels in the blood in deficient people. That is why calcifediol was given in the Spanish study. The difference is important to recognize.
Moderna says its COVID-19 vaccine is 100 percent effective at preventing severe cases https://theweek.com/speedreads/9524...100-percent-effective-preventing-severe-cases
OT but this is great news potentially monumental and era changing breakthrough for medicine and pharmacology and frankly all science. The Deep Mind AI - yes the one who became famous for beating GO masters- seem now able to predict the 3D folding of proteins with as high accuracy as the best labs. If this technology improves, and matures even more the consequences will be ..so far reaching and can change our lives. For drugs, farming, ecology. So far to know how proteins folded you had to go blind and search slowly and methodically for years and the accuracy was not so good. While the Deep Mind after getting educated on some databases only recently already has shown accuracy of 92/100 which is the same as the best lab results. Scientists thought that this breakthrough would come much later probably not in our lifetime but now..if this holds true maybe in 10 ? 15? years we can have specialised designer drugs . Biotechnology will explode.
Quantum computing is about to blow past traditional systems and they are exceptional at tasks you mentioned.
I read an article about that this morning I was going to post, but forgot to. This is cool. ‘It will change everything’: DeepMind’s AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03348-4 https://deepmind.com/
Was diagnosed with it on Friday. I haven't had any extreme symptoms, fever, headache, stuffy nose, and loss of taste/smell which is the only thing lingering but it sucks much more than I'd imagine.
Covid-19: Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine approved for use next week in UK The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, paving the way for mass vaccination. Britain's medicines regulator, the MHRA, says the jab, which offers up to 95% protection against Covid-19 illness, is safe to be rolled out. The first 800,000 doses will be available in the UK from next week, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.
The level increased but didn’t help. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.16.20232397v1 “Vitamin D3 supplementation significantly increased serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels compared to placebo (difference, 24.0 ng/mL [95% CI, 21.0% to 26.9%]; P = .001).” “Findings In this double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial involving 240 hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19, a single dose of 200,000 IU of vitamin D3 supplementation was safe and effective in increasing 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, but did not significantly reduce hospital length of stay (hazard ratio, 1.12) or any other clinically-relevant outcomes compared with placebo.”
I was going to post this but not surprised that I'm already beat to it. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little brigther.
