Studies corner

[Branster]

There are so many snippets of information regarding small tests, case studies and even research from all over the world, some interesting, some surprising, some hopeful. Too many and too small or sometimes obscure to make the main news

If you’d like to share you are welcome to join the thread.

I’ll make a start with these findings from Canada about a potential inhibitor drug

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200402144526.htm

[Haffiana]

[quote Quarantino]Hello, not been keeping up with this thread and not sure anyone's reading - just wondered if anyone knew anything about ivermectin? Apparently it's been going round the black market in South Africa and there's a small research group set up. WHO meta-analysis due soon but possibly more trials needed to come to any conclusion.
Cheap, and licensed for use in animals but not humans. I hadn't heard of it until today.
More info
www.sahpra.org.za/news-and-updates/sahpras-guidance-on-the-use-of-ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-or-treatment-of-covid-19/[/quote]
Interesting.

Many, many years ago I worked as an epidemiologist (in Middle East/Africa) and we used to gather blood etc samples from domestic animals when they were being penned for annual Ivermectin shots as this was the easiest time to get at the cross-section and volume of animals needed for our studies.

The incidence even then of people using Ivermectin on themselves was well known. It was almost routine in farm workers and they claimed it sorted out most diseases. Since many diseases in that area and with animal farmers in particular were indeed parasitical or had a parasite vector I just assumed that they were probably correct.

So I am not at all surprised that people who had access to Ivermectin would try using it for Covid.

[Quarantino]

Oh, thanks for that Haffiana! The South African clip I listened to didn't explain too much what it was so I knew I was missing some background.

[alreadytaken]

Control the pandemic if you want to save your economy www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720301754

[alreadytaken]

Autumn COVID-19 surge dates in Europe correlated to latitudes, not to temperature-humidity, pointing to vitamin D as contributing factor

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81419-w

[CherryBlossomOsaka]

The Spanish vitamin d RCT has finally been released on the Lancet website yesterday - the team of Spanish doctors used calcifediol an active form and more potent analogue of the vitamin. Their results replicate the astounding results achieved by a pilot study last year with nearly 1000 patients:

Adjusted results showed a reduced mortality for more of 60%. Higher baseline vit D3 levels were significantly associated with decreased mortality.Treated patients had an 82% reduced risk to require ICU.

This paper has yet to be peer reviewed, however calcifediol is ready to be used (if approved by NICE) in NHS trusts right now.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3771318

Once peer reviewed, it would prove causality and shed light (UV !!) on regional differences in pandemic mortality.

[Quarantino]

Some misgivings about the study here:
twitter.com/fperrywilson/status/1360944814271979523

I'm still taking vit D, but under no illusions it'll help vs covid...!

[CherryBlossomOsaka]

fperrywilson is some random guy on twitter. He's accused the scientists of lying and firing up antivaccs ............

15 very experienced doctors and scientists with over 500 published and peer reviewed articles at the covid 19 frontline. With one peer reviewed pilot RCT showing similar results.

On the topic of peer review, fperrywilson has neglected to peer review the trial himself on the lancet website.

Meanwhile even Boris Johnson's shown interest in parliament with La Junta de Andalucía's calcifediol protocol in care homes and this stems directly from the research over the last 12 months.

Whilst we wait for the 2nd dose of vaccine, low vit D3 serum levels need to rectified fast

[alreadytaken]

The statistics in the vitamin D may need to be recalculated. However that is unlikely to affect the overall conclusion - that vitamin D is important - only whether the results meet normal criteria of statistical significance. And sensible statisticians would tell you that for a treatment with little downside and a lot of potential benefit it would be better to use a lower significance level.

Anyway came to post some good news - lung damage recovery is being observed. This is not a randomised control trial, still worth knowing.

scitechdaily.com/most-lungs-recover-well-after-covid-19-according-to-extensive-health-assessment-3-months-after-recovery/

[MedSchoolRat]

"The Spanish vitamin d RCT has finally been released on the Lancet PREPRINT website yesterday"

Fixed that ...

Anybody can put any old rubbish on a preprint server (I speak with experience).

The SSRN comments section is shredding it, as are PubPeer & Twitter. "Quasi-experimental study at best". Maybe it will turn up in PlosOne .

I thought there were some vit D RCTs on covid, but not at ISRCTN. Huh.

[MedSchoolRat]

Oh dear, silly me to notice this late, SSRN actually retracted the preprint about vitamin D in Spanish covid patients.

Do you know how BAD an article has to be to get retracted from preprint? In this case, it was absence of ethics approval that the commentators grabbed onto in detail and probably was the last straw.

COVID-19 scientific literature is indeed a disaster area.
Fun to read about little cutting edge studies gals, but don't believe any of it matters without a lot of validation work.

[alreadytaken]

Latest vitamin D study to be published - negative results but again showing that a lot of poor quality research gets published.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776738?guestAccessKey=f5804d82-41ff-44f8-829f-90c98f52e117&utm_source=silverchair&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=article_alert-jama&utm_content=olf&utm_term=021721

In this study the treatment group were more likely to be male, black, diabetic, have hypertension and were heavier - all factors known to be associated with poor outcomes in covid. This is a problem with simple randomisation and a small sample, but a problem that could have been at least partially avoided by using a stratified sample. Sample is unfortunately too small to compare outcomes within subgroups.

They were given a single dose on average 10 days after symptoms developed. While this lifted them out of severe deficiency it isnt necessarily enough to be beneficial. They had more deaths but less need for oxygen and fewer admissions to ICU.

Disappointing study - but given the considerable differences between treatment and control group it would have to have had massive benefit to be detected. Not enough to stop me taking vitamin D.

[CherryBlossomOsaka]

How quickly proven science is so easily forgotten and purposely ignored as irrelevant.

We already know and have RCTs that respiratory virus serious outcomes are mitigated by optimal vitamin d3 serum lebels.

Results: We identified 25 eligible RCTs (a total of 11,321 participants, aged from 0 to 95 years.)

Vitamin D supplementation reduced the risk of ARI among all participants.

Vitamin D supplementation was safe, and it protected against ARIs overall. Very deficient individuals and those not receiving bolus doses experienced the benefit.

This is totally ignored 2019 pre-covid science.

Scientists have already proved that increasing our vitamin d3 serum increase our protection against severe outcomes from respiratory viruses - it's not really such a big deal.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30675873/

[alreadytaken]

If the virus evades vaccines there will be other ways to deal with it. news.osu.edu/tricking-the-novel-coronavirus-with-a-fake-handshake/

[alreadytaken]

Gym outbreaks - but from classes
www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/health/coronavirus-gyms-outbreaks.html

[CherryBlossomOsaka]

An open-label randomized study of 87 vitamin D deficient hospitalized Covid patients found that vitamin D supplementation (60,000 IU/day for 8-10 days) lowered inflammatory biomarkers.

Inflammatory biomarkers are compounds in the bloodstream which are excessive during cytokine storms.

Therapeutic improvement in vitamin D to 80-100 ng/ml has significantly reduced the inflammatory markers associated with COVID-19 without any side effects. Hence, adjunctive Pulse D therapy can be added safely to the existing treatment protocols of COVID-19 for improved outcomes.

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-152494/v1


All hospitals should be using this protocol - Dr Quinton is successfully using this type of protocol in Newcastle Hospital which is the second best performing England covid 19 hospital.

This is the 30th replication of these types of results in a worldwide study. Please do not reply that this is not a double blind RCT which would result in many placebo patients dying - we already know.

[alreadytaken]

small study suggests nitric oxide sprays are worth watching www.goodnewsnetwork.org/taffix-success-and-other-covid-19-nasal-sprays/

[alreadytaken]

Protection against covid reinfection lower in the elderly in Denmark linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140673621005754

[alreadytaken]

Effect on behaviour of misinformation and political views in America www.brookings.edu/research/how-misinformation-is-distorting-covid-policies-and-behaviors/

[alreadytaken]

Antibodies mutate too - good news theconversation.com/coronavirus-is-evolving-but-so-are-our-antibodies-156810

[alreadytaken]

CBD compound from cannabis has been found to stop COVID-19 replication in lung epithelial cells

www.goodnewsnetwork.org/cbd-was-found-to-prevent-viral-rna-expression-and-reverse-gene-changes-in-infected-lung-cells/

[alreadytaken]

Changes to the microbiome reduces time to resolution of symptoms in those with covid who have comorbidites

www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/01/14/2158541/0/en/Kaleido-Biosciences-Announces-Positive-Interim-Results-of-Controlled-Study-of-KB109-in-Patients-with-Mild-to-Moderate-COVID-19.html

[kittykatkit]

Just wanted to say thanks for continuing to add studies. Your thread is on my watchlist!

[alreadytaken]

@kittykatkit Thanks, I have been posting less but will add some more after the encouragement

Pregnant and breastfeeding mothers who are vaccinated pass on covid antibodies www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(21)00187-3/fulltext

[alreadytaken]

Effectiveness of testing air passengers

www.oxera.com/publications/effectiveness-of-dual-testing-schemes-for-air-passengers/?utmsource=UKH+CV19+-+update+email&utmcampaign=4f493ef9e9-EMAILCAMPAIGN8720201258COPY01&utmmedium=email&utmterm=0_5608eb3d21-4f493ef9e9-57364442

and rapid tests that could give results at the airport

www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-20second/britain-approves-20-second-covid-19-test-distributor-says-idUSKBN2BI16J?rpc=401&

[alreadytaken]

Italy doesnt think schools drive covid infection www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(21)00069-7/fulltext