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?

[BahHumbygge]

Ask google “what is a healthy diet?” and you’ll get about 300,000,000 pages of mostly dubious advice. Good luck sifting through all the unicorn healing and coffee enemas merchants. Or the other end of the spectrum the current national guidelines which state that 400 iu of vitamin D is adequate, when that’s merely sufficient to prevent you dropping dead from rickets. It ignores all the evidence based health benefits of high vit D such as ameliorating depression and mitigating infectious diseases. Most people are unaware that there’s anything outside of their formal educational and cultural paradigm, so they are most unlikely to be aware of other fields of knowledge, yet alone seek them out.

[cyclingmad]

Well only takes a vir of common sense some researching abilities to sort crap out from real stuff

But carry on spoon feeding people and losing certain skills and abilities of critical thinking and researching.

Engage your brains and common sense otherwise your just being lazy.

[barbites]

No. If you want it buy it. The government has spent enough already and we'll be paying for this for years...I'm sure people can buy their own vitamins...

[Aberforthsgoat]

Does anyone know if babies can take vitamin D? I've got drops for DS on advice of health visitor but they say not suitable if taking over 500ml of formula which he is. I should check the formula thinking of it it's probably because it already contains it. I've probably answered my own question 😂

[BahHumbygge]

I’m interested in this shit, so yes I seek it out. Most people aren’t though, they’re interested in particle physics or vintage My Little Ponies or double entry bookkeeping or whatever.

People can’t be expected to have a deep critical extensive knowledge on every single possible sphere that might possibly affect their life, such as car safety recalls, financial mis-selling, internet scams, nuanced details on nutrition, choosing investments and a million other things that they’re not even aware they need to be aware of. They might manage 3 to 5 “specialist subjects”, but then immediate real life needs get in the way, like raising disabled kids, caring for elderly parents, researching & applying for schools, training for a work promotion, dealing with holding everyday family life together in a pandemic on top of all the usual everyday stresses... “Now what was that vitamin I thought about researching a few months ago and what is it used for?“ 🤔 Ain’t. Going. To. Happen. Hence the government needs to issue explicit specific advice.

[Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow]

I had a number of mild and chronic health issues a decade or so ago. Quit debilitating and was offered medication or surgery, with side effects or lack of success.

I spent a lot of time reading. Not just articles but research papers. Really changed my diet and sorted some deficiencies. Which sorted other minor issues I had had. To cut a long story short, I was staggered - amazed - by what can be done nutritionally and through lifestyle to prevent and address many chronic western illnesses. Some is really simple (such as vitamin D or B12) and some less so (autoimmune diseases - not curable but hugely more manageable).’

I have spent the last three years studying it further and aim to help others. Mumsnetters laugh at “nutritionists” and claim “dieticians” (on the NHS) are the only way but it’s miles behind. Functional medicine looks at the body as a a whole. So eczema isn’t just a skin issue but a manifestation of another imbalance - or several. It baffles me why even consultants don’t consider this further as some is actually basic.

Neurologically, for Alzheimer’s, there are some amazing things being done to reduce symptoms and even reverse.

It’s incredible.

[LWJ70]

UK tax payers paid £500 billion to bailout the country from the last recession in 2008/2009

That's £500,000,000

Ladies and gentleman, that is 9 zeros.

There were 416, 000 people in UK care homes in December.
But that number is incorrect now because maybe 10,000 of them are now dead.

There are 4.5 million people aged 75 years and older in England, representing 8.2% of the total population. Most of these people are isolating. That means they cannot leave their homes and get supplements. Many do not have access to gardens or do not know that this could save their lives.

Not counting people who have existing conditions, that's 4.6 million people.

Each packet of 2 months vitamin D3 costs less than £1, so that's total of 4.6 million quid to supply the vulnerable.

That is 0.92% , less than one percent of the bailout.

Now back to the science:

Here's is a video with blood serum covid 19 data from two studies published less than a week ago- explains very simply why we should mass supplement.

I expect anyone who chooses to post on this thread with a 'nanny state' point of view to firstly understand the science and the evidence first. I therefore ask you to counter the science argument alongside your 'nanny state' comment.

I am warning a small minority of posters, if you do not express a valid scientific point of view I will openly question you about the science and continue until you reply.

Here is the video:

[LWJ70]

Sorry, that was 0.08% of the bail out money, much, much much less.

[LWJ70]

£500,000,000 - not strictly 9 zeros, but you know what I mean ;)

[Nettleskeins]

Cycling...teenage son and I.had very healthy diet, did.lots of walking (early in the day and late afternoon) gardened, holidayed outdoors in uk. Blood tests for depression and other symptoms about three years ago found we both had plenty of everything, iron, b vits, folates, but both deficient in vit d. An educated informed subset of population. With white, fairish skins (get sunburnt easily) bmi normal.
How did we miss this? I only investigated it.because of a.chance comment on mumsnet.
The information is trickling down, and now that info could mean the difference to a.cytokine storm, or not (if you have good levels)

[MichaelMumsnet]

Hi all. We've deleted a few posts that are straying into the 'no personal attacks' area of our guidelines. Feel free to disagree on the thread but please can we try to keep things civil. Ta.
MNHQ

[LWJ70]

@MichaelMumsnet
Thank you so much !

[LWJ70]

The third study in the world that shows a clear relationship with vitamin D deficiency and covid 19 severity has been published. It's a study from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans.
20 patients, randomly sampled.
Conclusions:

''Strikingly, 100% of intensive care patients less than 75 years old had vitamin D deficiency. Among these, 64.6% had critically low (less than 20ng/mL) and three had less than 10 ng/mL.''

Only one of the randomly sampled patients was caucasian - the other 19 were afro american and hispanic.

The study also cites 33 references of causal evidence.

Here is the link.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838v1.full.pdf

A number of the patients were taking vitamin D supplements. So safe sunlight exposure must be more important and the much lower deaths rates in equatorial and southern hemisphere regions are surely explained by this.

SAGE, the group of scientists that advises Public Health England only meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they will not have seen this study. I doubt whether they have read the previous two conclusive blood studies.

Even if SAGE does read these three studies, they do not have any specialist molecular virologists or immunologists to professionally interpret and evaluate the scientific evidence:

''Government rushes out request for experts to work with Sage panel
Notice sent to universities amid concern over lack of expertise in parts of Covid-19 advisory group''

''The government's secret science group has a shocking lack of expertise''

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/27/gaps-sage-scientific-body-scientists-medical

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/29/government-rushes-out-request-for-experts-bolster-sage-panel

In the meantime thousands of elderly are dying in care homes. The government can't even be bothered to test all of them for covid and vit D def. and administer any vitamin D3 supplements. If only they knew.

[Lumene]

A number of the patients were taking vitamin D supplements. So safe sunlight exposure must be more important and the much lower deaths rates in equatorial and southern hemisphere regions are surely explained by this.

The ‘must’ and ‘surely’ here are hypotheses not facts. They MAY be true but need to be tested and explored to find out.

Does the disease deplete vit D and thus explain lower rates?

Could higher levels of vit d/supplements harm as well as or instead of helping, at any stage of the disease?

Are some vit d supplements more effective than others in raising vit D levels?

Are there other reasons sunnier climes might help lower disease rates (eg sunlight kills virus, more outside), or do the sunnier countries have different demographics? Etc

[Lumene]

I’m all for Vit D, I take a supplement having had a deficiency in the past.

Still need to be cautious and question though.

[Nettleskeins]

Bump. I still dont understand why this is not being cited in the news as an aspect.of BAME deaths. If only to alert people. Taxi drivers, supermarket workers, care home workers. Just not being given that piece of health information..

[LWJ70]

@Lumene

Three studies, one from the US conclusive. All show absolutely massive levels of vitamin D deficiency in only the severe covid 19 patients, 1020 so far, in three countries.
20 years of scientific evidence.

How many studies and for how long and for how many deaths are you prepared to wait for?

[LWJ70]

@Lumene

Please read the evidence from clinical research here.
And here:
www.dropbox.com/s/ka7h4fbi7xdz9s9/Covid-19%20and%20Vitamin%20D%20Information.pdf?dl=0

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.15777

Please reply with scientific evidence to your opimion

[LWJ70]

opinion, I mean

[LWJ70]

@Lumene

Are there other reasons sunnier climes might help lower disease rates (eg sunlight kills virus, more outside), or do the sunnier countries have different demographics? Etc

Compare BAME nations:

UK = 394 deaths/Million

Philipp = 5
India = 0.8
Vietnam =0
Nigeria =0.3

How can someone from Asia/African descent be tragically affected by walking on British soil?????

[LWJ70]

Indian study out today, 176 covid 19 patients (previously checked serum levels).

Same findings as the New Orleans, Indonesian and Philippines studies:

''100% of critical patients less than 75 years old had
Vitamin D insufficiency.''

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3593258

file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/SSRN-id3593258.pdf

[LWJ70]

5th Vit D3 study from Belgium.

Males showed markedly higher percentage of vitamin D deficiency ..Vit D deficiency is a possible risk factor for severe infection in males. Vit D3 supplementation might be an inexpensive, accessible and safe mitigation for covid

Link :
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20079376v1

[Nettleskeins]

Bump

[PowerslidePanda]

Female patients had comparable vitamin D status as control females.

So low vitamin D is not necessarily a risk factor for females?