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

"Delatron

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.

Of course you get enough from a good diet and sunshine, that's why loads of people have sufficient vit d!!!!

This is why people shouldn't wear suncream all the time in the uk. Some people are putting on factor 50!!!

Plus there is evidence that when autopsies were taken of covid patients, they found more blood clots than pneumonia.

My midwife was mentioning this yesterday. She added that pregnant women are appearing to be less affected than the general population, and surmised it may be because many take Vitamin D tablets.

People from a BAME background tend to have a harder time absorbing Vitamin D from the sun - so she said, and I've heard this before.

She also wondered whether children have been less badly affected because they tend to be outside more!

Certainly interesting anyway. Glad baby has forced me to take my supplements!

Completely agree @fedupfrida

I agree. Health is never a one vitamin issue.
Holistic is always the way to go. Also a lot of vitamins and minerals (as well as phytonutrients which we get from fruit and veg) work in synergy with each other.

C and Zinc are amazing immune boosters but it is SO much easier to get those from diet generally. I know they trialled Vit C infusions in China at the start of the outbreak with good outcomes.

Like I said before the confusing thing about D is it’s not actually a vitamin but a hormone.
And it’s true that there is a huge problem with deficiency in our country (as well as in Spain and Italy where having a tan is seen as very lower class). I don’t think anyone is singularly focusing on it as a cure-all but just trying to raise awareness.

Leave your mushrooms in sunlight for a bit, not in the fridge. Really.

@Tabbymumz you've misunderstood what @delatron meant, she was saying that people can't get enough vitamin D from food, and in addition, most people don't get enough from the sun.

I’m sorry but no we can’t get enough D from food (unless you are an Inuit and you live on oily fish?).

This is taken from the NHS;

“How do we get vitamin D?

Our body creates vitamin D from direct sunlight on our skin when we're outdoors. From about late March/early April to the end of September, most people should be able to get all the vitamin D we need from sunlight.

We also get some vitamin D from a small number of foods, including oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines, as well as red meat and eggs.”

One of the big problems is that not many people eat oily fish today and even if they eat the recommended twice weekly amount it’s still impossible to get all your requirements from food alone.

I’ll link the nhs guidance below to help:

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/how-to-get-vitamin-d-from-sunlight/

@TabbyMumz

The OP is suggesting that a shortage in vitd is causing some of the more severe cases of covid.

You keep mentioning blood clots. Why?
Blood clots inc stroke are a consequence in some of the most severe cases.

With all this shocking data about the true death toll in the UK's care home (Sky report at 8pm I think). What would have happened if the UK Gov had decided to mass administer our elderly. I've just seen this new report from Slovenia to the British Medical Journal:

www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1820/rr

In Slovenia we have low covid-19 mortality rate, 47 per million population, compared to UK with 433 per million population.More than half of all deaths in Slovenia were from fragile elderly in nursing homes. One month ago, in spite of the fact that there are still no clear clinical data on the relation between vitamin D and covid-19, Slovenian medical community managed to agree to advice all medical doctors to supplement vitamin D in fragile patients in nursing homes, covid-19 patients in hospitals and healthcare workers, especially in covid-19 units. We believe that common sense approach in Slovenia regarding vitamin D supplementation was an important measure for low covid-19 morbidity and mortality in addition to other measures, e.g. social distancing and mandatory use of face masks in the community.

The UK has now gone up to 482 deaths per million.

"You keep mentioning blood clots. Why?
Blood clots inc stroke are a consequence in some of the most severe cases."

Theres been quite a high number of cases where there has been clots, not just a few.
Two reasons...firstly its bloody important and noone seems to know about it....and secondly it's an example that there are lots and lots of different aspects of covid that we could be preventing, such as taking an aspirin a day, but everyone focuses on vitamin d as if it's the holy grail. It's not!!!

This is why I always let me and my kids get a light tan in the summer, there’s so many benefits to vitamin D. Quite protective of MS too.

I'm addition it's important to have adequate magnesium. People have managed to improve vitamin d levels from spending time in the sun, simply by supplementing magnesium.
My daughter was d deficient at the end of last summer, despite spending a lot of time outdoors whenever the weather allows it.

Blood clots are a consequence NOT a cause of covid.

tabbymumz

I asked why we humans seem so poorly designed at absorbing vitamin d naturally

We evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, where the sun is much stronger. White skin is an adaption to moving to northern climes - it helps, but in conjunction with the indoor lifestyle, still leaves many of us with inadequate vit D levels. The darker your skin, the more likely your are to have low vit D levels.

Yup. I very rarely suncream my kids. Very happy with that decision right now. The suncream industry has A LOT to answer for.

"Blood clots are a consequence NOT a cause of covid."
Lack of vitamin d isnt a cause either. Having good vitamin d doesnt stop you catching it. It stops it affecting your lungs too badly.

tabbymumz

I’ve read about this but this graph says different . Reports of bame being hit worse is not what the graph suggests

@fedupfrida

Ok I got my vitamins that get absorbed mixed up, but I knew it had something to do with something needing to be absorbed

Thank you for clearing it up

That’s great about what they did in care homes in Slovenia. Be great if we could actually be forward thinking and proactive here.

A huge percentage of this country is vitamin D deficient. An frail person in a care home who doesn’t get out much is likely to be even more so. We can’t get this vitamin in enough quantities in our diets.

This virus also hit us just coming out of winter when most people are deficient.

@hoxtonbabe you're very welcome, easily done, I'm just impressed that other people know about this stuff. In real life, I feel like the freak who reads about actual nutrition

Vit d does make sense because
Bame people more affected (ie its elderly white but younger bame)

• it's even asian and black getting kawasaki
• scandinavian countries - supplimenrlt and fortify but also its hitting the somalis there. They also have less air polluntion which blocks the sun
• pregnancy and women yes supplements in pg but also interacts with progrsterone
• vit d also has an affect on ... Clotting!
• lombary is black on the air pollution chart and obviously other areas include capital cities
• affects asthma
• overweight people need more

Someone did a paper on it last sept or so and proposed uk should fortify flour as it would be cheaper 12p than not to.

Im not sure it is why kids are ok but also they said kawasaki kids were overweight. But also dont most people use formula and that will have some in. And if bf you are meant to supplement.

But childrens vitamins dont even have the recommended 10micro'g.

Also theres a petition on change i think fir gov to give it to some groups.
I think it needs to be fortified though as the supply worldwide is going to really struggle soon!
Can they up the production- knowing our gov countries will start to hang onto it and we wont be able to get any.

My Gp recommended me take vit d 3 all through the winter, spring and autumn
We had been on a two week sunshine holiday to Tenerife when they went into lockdown.
I think the fact we were choc full of Vit d meant none of us ( 8 people) flying home to different airports on 4 planes On 4 different days that were crammed as was the airport meant none of us came Down with it.
One lady is very poorly with bad heart and lungs and no spleen. Yet none of us were infected and none of our families have been. All of us were over the age of 65, one of us was 86

Frida..if you knew what I spent on supplements, I’d have to kill you 😂