Coronavirus and Vitamin D

[OstrichRunning]

This is interesting. A study just published suggests higher levels of Vitamin D might help prevent it getting critical
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vitamin-d-death-rate-covid-19-patient-dublin-liverpool-study-a9508726.html

here's a link to the study itself

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apt.15777#.XrSGiYuLoKk.twitter

"Declaration of personal interests: JMR is Co‐Editor of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics and with the University of Liverpool and Provexis UK, holds a patent for use of a soluble fibre preparation as maintenance therapy for Crohn's disease plus a patent for its use in antibiotic‐associated diarrhoea. Patent also held with the University of Liverpool and others in relation to use of modified heparins in cancer therapy. SS has received speaker fees from MSD, Actavis, Abbvie, Dr Falk pharmaceuticals, Shire and received educational grants from MSD, Abbvie, Actavis and is an advisory board member for Abbvie, Dr Falk pharmaceutics and Vifor pharmaceuticals. EL and RAK have no conflicts to declare."

so the cure for the disease is just to go outside? If true, that would be a life saver for the tourism / hotel / airline industry, as holidays would be safe to take again. Even just going to the pub for lunchtime in the summer, and that could help them to stay alive financially a lot.

Also, might that explain why places like Africa and India haven't been devastated by covid - does the current modelling successfully predict / match the results we are seeing in those places at all?

Thanks for the link OP.
There have been a few threads on here over the past few weeks discussing this topic.
Seem like more and more is being officially studied on it now which is good.
Hopefully one other good thing to come out of this, along with the importance of not being obese, having a poor diet, lack of exercise for the lungs will be more of an awareness of Vitamin D.

Thanks @fedupfrida, hadn't seen those threads.

@jhj67, I think it's more that the study suggests that having good levels of vitamin D might reduce the risk of a patient getting critically ill, rather than a cure as such. But that in itself would be a great improvement on current understanding. You're right, the study does discuss the findings as a possible explanation for the lower death rates in hotter regions.

The 'conflicts of interest' of those involved hardly negate the findings.

@OstrichRunning

Thanks for this.
The deaths/million vs latitude graph is a clear indication that the virus is not hitting equatorial and S hemisphere regions in the same way.

A similar UK study had also been produced by looking at evidence from the mean population per latitude.
Link here:
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20087965v1

Also six blood serum studies around the world have shown that nearly all severe covid 19 patients have vitamin D3 deficiency.
Links here:

mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/5/1359/htm
medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20079376v1 …
medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20075838v1 …
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3585561 …
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3571484 …

I've read elsewhere that you need to take vitamin K in conjunction with vitamin D, otherwise it's not safe. I don't have have scientific evidence to back that up - just suggesting that people research whether that's true before starting to take vitamin D supplements

so the cure for the disease is just to go outside? If true

This is interesting. Testing vitamin D levels and providing supplements is common in many health care systems across the world, including those in some of the hottest regions. This clinical practice predated Covid.

Interesting article about vitamin d and its interactions with other vitamins
www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d

i dont think you need to take vitamin K, i know of plenty of people prescribed vitamin d on its own.

Some people swallow the book on this sort of thing and have focussed on it for weeks on here. There are all sorts of lifestyle changes we could be making, I wouldnt just focus on vitamin d.

You could also say what about taking daily aspirin to stop blood clots as it's also been proven a lot of covid deaths have been down to blood clotting on the lungs etc.in reality, I think we should just all have a good diet and go for daily exercise outside, which is pretty good standard advice, rather than follow advice to pill pop vitamins.

www.irishtimes.com/news/health/coronavirus-adults-should-take-vitamin-d-researchers-say-1.4250588

This is an article from The Irish Times today.

''The Government should immediately change recommendations for vitamin D supplements as a matter of urgency by urging all adults to take them during the coronavirus pandemic, according to scientists at Trinity College Dublin.''

And another from the Independent:

''Dr Eamon Laird and Professor Rose Anne Kenny, who co-authored the paper, found vitamin D can help support the immune system through a number of pathways involved in fighting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.After analysing more than 20 years’ worth of European data on vitamin D, and comparing it with current statistics on Covid-19, the researchers showed that the highest infection and death rates had been recorded among those populations with low vitamin D concentrations.''

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-vitamin-d-death-rate-covid-19-patient-dublin-liverpool-study-a9508726.html

Luckily the studies mentioned on munsnet are now being quoted in the national media. They are certainly not mentioned by Public Health England, the NHS or SAGE.

I was prescribed these monthly Vvitamin D shots once and the doctor didn't mention needing vitamin K as well.

It definitely seems like a positive development to me.

@TabbyMumz why would anyone not 'pop' a specific vitamin tablet if there's increasingly strong evidence it might help you avoid getting dangerously I'll from Covid19? Especially if within the safe limits there are no adverse effects and it also has other health benefits No one is saying anything about taking a bunch of random supplements, this is pretty specific information

That's why no one is recommending baby aspirin - there's not any evidence on that re Covid (that I know of anyway).

*ill

I’ve been taking D3 with K, as the K helps to absorb the D3 and I also take magnesium ( but stopped the magnesium until I get my blood pressure monitor as I’m on HIgh BP meds and magnesium with the meds can make it too low)

I’m also taking B vitamins but the lowest dose I should take.

There is a member on here that was very knowledgeable and good in her advice, maybe she will chime in.

If it was as simple as this, I don’t understand why the government advice hasn’t mentioned it.

Great to see more and more evidence and research on this. Why governments are not picking this up I don’t know.

You can’t get vitamin D from a good diet and most people don’t sit in the sun without cream and expose enough skin.

I was part of a study of vitamin D and breast cancer. This area is very interesting.

This has been suggested as a reason why BAME have been more badly affected. As the sun in the UK isn’t that strong.
Vitamin K is often suggested in conjunction as it can protect the arteries as it helps balance the calcium

There was another thread on this and I asked why we humans seem so poorly designed at absorbing vitamin d naturally and was told it's because we don't spend enough time outdoors naked eating mushrooms - basically because of how our lifestyles have changed. I'm not entirely convinced by this and think there are still unanswered questions. Perhaps taking a vitamin d supplement (and maybe vitamin k too) is the best thing to do, but I feel like we don't know enough yet.

You don't have to sunbathe, just go out for about 20 minutes from 11-3 midday in short sleeves, without sunblock.
jhj67 it's not a cure but it's an important factor in maintaining a strong immune system, which fights off viruses (and bacteria).
Other factors are - a healthy varied diet ie mostly unprocessed foods, not too much alcohol, exercise and plenty of sleep.
Personally I've never taken vitamin supplements but I always get a lot of sunlight and eat a lot of fruit and veg etc. I've started taking a zinc and vit C, and will top up my vit D with a supplement when I can get some.

"@TabbyMumzwhy would anyone not 'pop' a specific vitamin tablet if there's increasingly strong evidence it might help you avoid getting dangerously I'll from Covid19? "
Because firstly you dont know if you are deficient, and secondly you can just as easily top up from eating eggs, fish etc and getting sunlight every day. That will get into your system quicker than a vitamin pill I'm sure. Vitamin pills usually upset my stomach so would rather stick to sunlight.

"That's why no one is recommending baby aspirin - there's not any evidence on that re Covid (that I know of anyway)."

Theres tons of evidence, it's all over the internet. American medics spotted lots of their covid patients were dying of blood clots in the lungs and started treating them with thrombosis drugs. Theres as many papers on this as there is about vitamin d.

Re K and D together....

they work in synergy. K does not in fact ensure D is absorbed. It ensures the calcium which IS absorbed with D, goes to the right place, ie your bones not your arteries (hello calcified arteries).

The thing is you can get enough K from your diet (depending of your diet of course) but not D because D is not actually a vitamin but a hormone your body produces itself via sunlight on the skin. Calling it a vitamin is confusing because people assume you can eat it but you can only get tiny amounts from food. Our bodies are not designed to be indoors so much.

It is absolutely true that our modern lives mean most people - especially those living at certain latitudes - just do not get enough sunlight.

We were also sold the lie about sun and skin cancer (along with other lies like ‘all fats are bad’) in the 80s/90s. We were told to slather on sun cream at all costs. Yes sun cream is very important but getting sun on your skin is equally so.

Back to K..... if you eat like our ancestors you’ll have no problem getting K and will not need to supplement. It’s abundant in egg yolk, liver, grass fed butter and hard cheeses (note: all the things we were told were so bad for us a couple of decades ago....at around the time that heart disease, type 2, obesity started to really take off.

As I’m on a rant, those foods are not to be avoided. Those foods are practically superfoods which have many health benefits. It’s precisely because we don’t eat like our hunter gatherer ancestors that we have the health disaster we have today.

Ok rant over. I’m passionate about natural health and just could cry that people aren’t educated on this stuff. We’ve lost all sense of how to eat and live for the best health possible. Our schools/the government ram their academic agenda onto our kids and us and life skills are ignored. How to be healthy is not taught ☹️

Apparently Zinc and vit C defencies have been noted as well. I read of a doctor in the US who was giving all his covid -19 patients stat doses of zinc and vit C and D, as standard treatment.

It's even been reported that covid has caused multiple additional deaths by stroke in younger people, which is caused by blood clots!! And when you go for a covid test they ask if you are on blood thinners.
My point is that people are really focusing on vitamin d as being a life saver, when there are lots of other issues with covid that doesnt get the same amount of press.