Should the Government be handing out free doses of Vitamin D NOW?

[LWJ70]

I have recently discovered (from reading very new scientific abstracts) that low Vit D levels leave us more prone to respiratory tract viruses. Most people only associate it with a healthy skeleton. After a long, cold winter, millions of us could be slightly deficient. Our most vulnerable section of society is unable to make use of the sunlight, which is beneficial.Could this explain the greatly differing pathways of coronavirus throughout the globe? Read these abstracts:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30675873
clinmedjournals.org/article...ases-and-epidemiology-jide-3-030.php?jid=jide

Difficult to decipher the abstract's stats without looking at the full paper. It is a summary from 25 previous studies with a grand total of 11,321 participants. It is published by US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health with a big participation from the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London.

One thing is clear though:

''Vitamin D supplementation was safe, and it protected against ARIs overall. Very deficient individuals ................... experienced the benefit.

(ARI = acute respiratory infections)

I am amazed why this info is not being published in the wider public domain. Instead we have celebrity workouts, toilet rolls and memes.

Elderly people in sunny climates are probably not aware that they have afforded themselves a greater fighting chance to survive coronavirus.

There are 5.4 million people in the UK above the age of 75 years. The majority of them are locked in their houses (or they would prefer to be). If they leave their houses to buy vitamin supplements from a pharmacist, they could be exposed to the coronavirus. This is not far-fetched- a coronavirus can survive nine days or more on plastic/metal surfaces. Many parts of the UK are at a perfect temperature now for viral stability. If two thirds of infected people are asymptomatic, the infection is already everywhere.

My point is, why doesn't the NHS select the most vulnerable and make a mass delivery of Vit D or a broad spectrum of supplements?

Yes i read research yesterday about the ards/cytocine etc and that is how i decided on using vit D. I hadnt really read all this. But also about how its affecting BAME people more so vit d made sense.
As you say southern hemisphere is coming out of summer.
I mean they know cold and flu are in winter...mainly.

And not sure if you said but finland has high vit d and is doing a lot better than norway or sweden

Yes Keepdistance spot on - Scandinavian countries have low vit D deficiency considering their latitude. People from Finland must eat more oily fish than Norway or Sweden.

Another exception to the latitude trend is Ecuador which has many hours of sunshine per year, however it has approx 70% vit D deficiency. Ecuador's death rate is frightening at the moment.

Finland have implemented a vitamin D supplementing policy. That’s why their levels are higher. And it looks like their death rates may be lower from COVID-19 but I guess we won’t know until this is all over

Data from Iceland: estimated that half the population is infected.
Death rate= 0.004 %
A whopping 10% of Iceland's population tested.
Estimated 50% asymptomatic

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8210401/Iceland-finds-half-population-asymptomatic-infected-Covid-19.html

Iceland has very low vitamin D deficiency (approx 8%) whereas the UK probably has more than 30%.

Note : high % of ICU admittance data from BAME section of UK and high % of BAME deaths in NHS could suggest a vitamin D3 link:

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/coronavirus-bame-deaths-nhs-staff-labour-inquiry-a4412631.html

BAME deaths are probably more tied to the fact that they are more likely to form part of the poor in cities, more likely to take certain jobs with a higher risk of transmission (most key worker jobs for example), and more likely to have ageing related diseases (high blood pressure, diabetes etc, at younger ages.

This is what we take in France as a maintenance dose and it's about 2€ a bottle and 10x stronger than anything in the UK. I'm fairly sure you can get it online.

That is something to take once a week rather than daily Wally! Unless you are very deficient and it is a loading dose.

It's probably been linked earlier on the thread (if so, apologies) but the Dr who I saw making the case for Vitamin D supplements, Dr John Campbell

says just use ordinary Vit D supplements from anywhere. He also gives dosage advice towards the end of the video.

GrumpyHoonMain

BAME deaths are probably more tied to the fact that they are more likely to form part of the poor in cities

As a qualified scientist, I prefer to base a scientific hypothesis on evidence and data.

A study by the School of Food and Nutritional Science, University College Cork in 2016 measured vitamin D3 deficiency in UK caucasian = 20.2% and
BAME = 50.5%

Statistically speaking this is significant - if fact it's a massive difference.

Filter the following table for deaths per 1M . Look at the death rates on the northern hemisphere (dark cold winter just finishing)and compare them with the death rates and total cases in the southern hemisphere (exposure to sunlight over the last few months). The data is surprising. London, New York, Lombardy, Madrid are all situated between the 40th and 50th parallel north latitude:

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

I’ve seen a fair few people doing yoga or other mat-based exercises in the parks in ones and twos Xenia.

One problem is that we’re not 100% sure about the extent to which any of the many different problems correlated with low vitamin D levels can be cured with supplementation, and how much is actually due to lack of exercise or some other effect of sunshine like nitric oxide production. A recent large study failed to find conclusive evidence that supplementation improved cancer rates for example. However in this particular situation supplementation seems like it’s well worth a try, especially for the elderly.

They should be encouraging people to go outside for half an hour of sunlight to get natural Vitamin D.

I take this every day as I have been convinced of the health benefits for some time.

I work in the NHS and never cease to be amazed at people coming in, suggesting they might be deficient, demanding a test and a prescription if proven low. Why can't people just take some responsibility and buy it instead of adding to the cost burden of testing and treating something so simple? Supermarkets sell Vit D as cheap as chips so no excuse

IDefinitely, definitely not scientific but I tent to find what we adapted to do for 1 million years is often right so eg we would have been outside a fair bit and in the sun and got a lot of vit D direct form the sun and each paper on vit D i have read confirms that and I suppose also confirms that "natural" is best (although of course take supplements if the option is scurvy, death etc etc). I agree that moving also helps with bones etc and lifting heavy things which particularly for women is often lacking particularly as they get older.

@Nettleskiens. Three drops is a maintenance dose here. There's an autumn single dose by the same company on prescription of 30000 ul. I think a lot of countries view the UK doses as insufficient to be fair.

@Wallywobbles the highest you can buy over the counter in the UK is 4000iu. On another thread there is a discussion that you will ‘overdose’ on this amount daily. I doubt they would sell it if that were the case. But interesting to see the doses in other countries.

A lot of Aussies (me included) have low levels of Vit D as we are so paranoid about skin cancer we constantly seek the shade. Thank you for the info here, I might get the rest of the family on my supplements too.

Well this explains why I can't get my prescribed Vit D. Before the prescription my level was in single numbers, so not only am 'vulnerable' I am not able to get the supplement I NEED.

If you were in any doubt that latitude and covid 19 deaths are linked somehow:

Recent call from three UK based researchers for hospitals to urgently analyse serum vitamin D3 levels from covid 19 patients:

www.dropbox.com/s/ka7h4fbi7xdz9s9/Covid-19 and Vitamin D Information.pdf?dl=0

Thanks @LWJ70

Very interesting

I think we need to be really careful with all this Vitamin D3 talk. I have been deficient in it (to the point where the level was almost non existent) and to get my levels up I was prescribed 50,000 iu per DAY over 5 days and then prescribed a maintenance dose of 1,000 iu per day followed by the standard 400 iu a day. High levels can be quite dangerous and simply starting a 400 iu a day when you might be deficient (a lot of us are in the Northern hemisphere) probably wont do a lot to get your levels up to the right amount. If you think you are deficient you should get your levels checked, seek proper advice and get a prescription (or advice on what you should buy) from a doctor.

@Bool The highest dose you can buy over the counter is definitely NOT 4000 iu. I have some 20,000 iu that I bought from the chemist just a few weeks ago and I am pretty sure I have bought 50,000 iu in the past.

Maybe this explains why the number of deaths in the south of Spain and south of Italy (where the climate is much sunnier) has been significantly smaller compared to the north

The highest level of Vitamin D3 you can buy over the counter with no prescription is 20,000. I’ve just bought 3 boxes for my family. (See my Asian doctors thread).

If you were in any real danger, you can bet such high dosage would be much more highly regulated. You can’t even buy Calpol and Lemsip in the same shop!

It's probably a bit of a postcode lottery, but in the last few years, there has been a big push away from doing vitamin and other 'low value' prescriptions on the NHS unless one has 'how are you functioning?' low levels with significant symptoms like osteomalacia or, for women, low enough to lose menstruation. There may be some areas where one can just demand it, but where I am, generally it's gets a prescription once, then advised on OTC use and not given a prescription again unless there is a major return in symptoms.

I've had them a few times over a decade, high as 200,000 IUs for a fortnight, and am now advised to be on at minimum 1000 IUs a day. I had to get my latest bunch from an online shop that was more of the body-building focus as my usual places were all out of stock. I've no idea if the government should be handing out free Vit D, I can see the possible benefits, but they'd need to deal with the supply issues of the far more beneficial protection gear, then the supply issues currently going on with Vitamin D, first before getting into mass supplements.