Anything we can do to stop the CV from leading to pneumonia/serious complications?

[MrsMGE]

Just this.

It's likely we'll all get it at some point. It's unavoidable considering the vaccine is months, if not years away.

Obviously some of us may have already had it and we've been asymptomatic.

But if we haven't, is there anything we could do to stop the infection from developing into a full-on pneumonia? No one seems to be providing any advice, e.g. is there anything we can do at an early stage of the infection to improve our chances of avoiding getting seriously ill? This would be very useful advice.

Looking to hear particularly from medical professionals, although I appreciate you're all extremely busy now.

I thought it was 70% in ICU we’re obese.

The report you've linked says 70% 'overweight or obese'. Over 70%% of people in all the age bands above 45 in womanf's chart are overweight or obese.

Ah ok, sorry I was looking at 30%. I think it’s still cited as a risk factor?

Thing is, being overweight or obese increases your risk factor for everything.

I’m not judging- like I say I’m overweight and trying hard to remedy it.

.vit d. 1000iu a day Minimum. 2000 if you have never taken it, dont get outside much, and have felt SAD this winter(seasonal affective disorder).

I think something like 64% of the general population are overweight or obese anyway.

I don’t think they’ve factored in diabetes etc?

Odd how it’s mostly men who are affected though.

Not being male seems a good way of avoiding icu at the moment. I've been looking at the ICNARC reports. www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Latest-News

The comparison of covid 19 with pneumonia is interesting.

Practical measures seem to be keeping viral load down (so if you get it, only get a bit). Which I guess is hygiene and social distancing. Lots of keeping well hydrated including when ill with covid.

Otherwise, I think general good health. Don't be fat, get fit. Eat good food. Pinch of luck.

I’m just trying to get my head around it statistically but just because a certain percentage of the population of the population are overweight doesn’t mean it’s not a risk factor.

I think it is different to seasonal flu where being overweight isn’t a risk factor and actually being underweight and frail is a risk factor.

I think to some extent the BMI thing is a bit of a red herring. Someone with a BMI of 28 who runs regularly or exercises everyday is clearly going to have a better lung capacity and overall health than someone of the same BMI whose only daily exercise is the walk from the sofa to the fridge. I think lifestyle is so important here. We should all be taking responsibility for our health and exercising and eating as well as we can.

I am slightly overweight due to steroids - I have asthma and Addison’s disease which means I need to take daily life long steroids and it’s meant I’ve put on 3 stone. I’m 12.8 stone and 5ft 7. I have always been slim in my earlier pre disease life. However, I eat very healthily, I run 3 times a week and I always do at least 8-10k steps a day (usually 40 mins of that is brisk walking). My blood pressure is low and my heart is good. I am very healthy for someone who is 40.

My 17 year old daughter is a size 6-8, 5ft 9 and has high cholesterol- she gets that from her dads side where it’s genetic (I have low cholesterol). On paper she should be fighting fit. It worries me. I encourage her to eat well and exercise but she’s not interested- typically super noodles and sitting glued to her phone.

I think the media has focused on BMI but it’s just an indication. Someone can be very healthy and have a slightly higher BMI. Obviously when you get to 35 plus BMI it’s a bit different. That’s going to put serious strain on your body.

I had (I think, wasn’t tested) coronavirus for 2.5 weeks and given my health conditions I should have been very unwell, and I did have a terrible cough and high fever but I managed to get over it fairly quickly. I do take lots of multivitamins and a high dose vitamin D which I think also helps.

I think it is different to seasonal flu where being overweight isn’t a risk factor and actually being underweight and frail is a risk factor.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people who've recovered from CV report having lost a lot of weight, so being underweight to start with may not be a good thing.

There's probably too many confounding factors and not enough accurate data at the moment for anyone to disentangle it all.

Losing weight is a result of the virus but not a risk factor in ending up in ICU/worse prognosis but yes lots of different factors at play that we don’t quite understand yet.

Basically, you should follow health guidelines- fresh air, exercise, not smoking, eating healthily, maintaining healthy weight etc- that we’ve always been told to do.

The healthier you are, the better your chances.

As is the case for all illness and life really.

(appeared only yeseterday) Article in medrxiv reckoned that BMI >= 40 is its own risk factor.

I get the impression that's the most common definition of morbidly obese, so not 'ordinary' obesity Higher level.

Early intervention, get to hospital before things become critical. May not be possible given guidelines.

I have a BMI of 20, no respiratory or cardivascular problems, walk everywhere, one of my jobs is physical and 1/2 a week I do an exercise class, cycle or hill walk. Not the obvious candidate for pneumonia but I've had it in the past and believe me it's not pleasant. Both times all I've wanted to eat are grapes, apple and cranberry juices and strawberries, so I guess that was my body telling me it needed certain vitamins from these foods.

In preparation for this, I eat as well as I could, more fruit and better quality protein. I've been alternating with a multi vitamin, zinc or Vitamin D tablet (for a small boost), trying to keep up water intake and continuing with fast walk, hill walking or cycling to keep my fitness levels up. I have decided if I do get symptons of Covid (even minor) then I'm going to try and make myself totally relax so my energy can go into getting better. DH will happily cook tea, do a few extras in the house for me as he saw how bad I was with pneumonia. Knowing I fancied refreshing items before and the fact we'll all be self isolating I've got a large variety of fruit juices in (which won't do any harm as they'll be a form of vitamin C if we can't get a food delivery).

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.

I've heard that when they have done autopsies, expecting to find pneumonia, they have found blood clots instead.

@TabbyMumz Sorry to be stupid, but what does this mean? Are you saying that it's not pneumonia that is the main complication, but blood clots? I read in several papers it's actually oxygen deprivation, similar to one experienced at high altitude.

I've heard medics are increasingly concerned that covid is causing blood clots in the lungs and this is causing a lot of the deaths aswell as pneumonia. It's also causing a lot of blood clots and strokes in asymptomatic people. Medics in New York have started giving thrombylosis to patients to break up blood clots. And blood thinners.

I think a lot of people are going overboard about vitamin d, but actually its clots you should be concerned about. I was considering starting to take aspirin.

@TabbyMumz

I think a lot of people are going overboard about vitamin d, but actually its clots you should be concerned about. I was considering starting to take aspirin.

Be careful to ignore worldwide data on BAME deaths and 20 yrs of data on vitamin D deficiency.

All the BAME nations have tiny death tolls compared to the UK.

UK = 394 deaths per million
Philippines = 5
India = 0.8
Vietnam =0
Nigeria =0.3

These differences are not about poverty, obesity, diabetes, heart disease.

When BAME workers come to the UK, the one thing they will lack will be sunshine and therefore vitamin D. Especially in February/March/April.

Blood tests from three studies have already proved that severe covid 19 patients are nearly 100% insufficient in vitamin D.

When will everybody get the message ?

1000s of studies referenced here:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3571484
dropbox.com/s/ka7h4fbi7xdz9s9/Covid-19%20and%20Vitamin%20D%20Information.pdf?dl=0
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/apt.15777
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3756814/
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/nutrients-11-02452.pdf
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28390266
ec.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/ec/7/12/EC-18-0184.xml
imj.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Optimisation-of-

From what I‘ve read, metabolic syndrome is more of a risk that obesity alone.

Sorry forgot to link to article

www.europeanscientist.com/en/article-of-the-week/covid-19-and-the-elephant-in-the-room/

@NotMyNigel

Obesity could be the overriding factor if ALL people in the northerm hemisphere were mostly obese and ALL people in the southern and equatorial regions were not obese.

Look at the world death per 1 million figures in equatorial and southern hemisphere, please name me one nation that has a death rate approaching the UK's:

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

The death rate difference is staggering. I live in a year round sunny nation. Population=70 million. Total deaths =51. Lots of chinese visitors over the last 5 months. Everybody's had the virus, including me and all my family

Blood tests from three studies have already proved that severe covid 19 patients are nearly 100% insufficient in vitamin D.

Perhaps these 19 patients had normal/good level of vit D before they got sick and it was the infection that cause the deficiency.

.