Vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths
mdpi.com
mdpi.com
I got my blood run last month and my D3 is at 89mL (normal range is ~30-100 on my provider's test). While dietary supplementation is shown to be effective in studies, keep in mind that some experts believe sunlight generated D may be absorbed differently in ways that might matter, so getting some of both is ideal if possible. Sunlight supplementation scales with exposure duration * skin area * intensity, so less time can be partly offset with more area and/or peak time-of-day. Latitude, altitude and significant particulate air pollution can also matter. Also, be aware many common types of window glass in homes/autos as well as some sunblocks can reduce or block UV types which may contribute to the benefits.
Of course, the usual warnings about consulting your medical provider and more of a good thing is not always 'better' apply, so be careful not to over do it. Although rare, some people who have megadosed huge amounts over long time periods (usually many times 10k IU daily) have built up potentially problematic amounts of D3.
For instance, in a study on skateboarders in Hawaii who spent around 4 hours in the sun each day, 50% of participants were found deficient.
For anyone who is curious, the NIH's daily upper limit for adults of Vitamin D is 4000IU https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-Consumer/ . (I assume that mrandish already knows this, this is for others' benefit).
I should have included it as it's something people should know. As you likely already know, there is a lot of excellent research on this topic and, as is often found, there is a range of recommendations within a broader consensus of credible expert groups. Different govt agencies and relevant professional medical associations have released official guidelines in different nations and timeframes. Some find the 4k IU upper threshold may be somewhat too low based on more recent research data (a few, mostly older ones, are even lower than 4k).
All generally agree adverse consequences are rare and that it's not usually possible to get "too much" D from sunlight alone since it's naturally regulated in otherwise healthy people (but other non-D potential negatives from excess sun exposure still apply). Overdoing dietary supplementation is still possible since D can build up over time in the body if sustained supplementation dosing dramatically exceeds an individual's needs and natural clearing rate (which can vary based on age, mass, health condition, gender, complexion, ethnicity, some medications, etc). There are also a small number of individuals who seem to be unusually sensitive to sustained excess D supplementation but this also appears to be rare.
As always any substance, even H2O, can cause adverse reactions if consumed in substantial excess of a given individual's tolerance and clearing rate. Given the primary audience, I was assuming (perhaps naively), HN readers were more likely to actually do the necessary due diligence to verify and appropriately adapt any generalized advice for their context.
Regarding D3 dietary supplmentation in light of current CV19 concerns, I suggest everyone considering it as part of their risk mitigation approach still balance the likely benefits against the possible risks on an individual basis. IMHO, supplementing an otherwise healthy child would be unnecessary and likely inappropriate unless medically advised.
My mother is in her 90s, overweight, pre-diabetic and walks only with a cane. So, based on her weight, age, gender, conditions and elevated risk of serious harm from CV19, I suggested starting on a somewhat higher D3 dose and we've gradually tapered it down over months to avoid any excess buildup. As an additional precaution, I've also had her supplementing K2 because sustained excess D3 supplementation can effect the relative balance of these for her. I also took photos of the labels of her current supplementation (calcium, multi-vitamin, etc) and checked the literature for the combined total amounts for adverse potential interactions. All while keeping her gerontologist apprised at every step via email on what she's taking and our reasoning. To ensure she's taking the supplements correctly I check in with her specifically about the supplements every week. I also have taken over buying the supplements and have automatic subscriptions being delivered at the appropriate frequency as well as getting her a daily pill minder to help ensure she doesn't forget and miss a dose or double dose by accident. I'm also having a variety of healthier prepared hot meals that she enjoys delivered to her on a regular schedule to assist her in weight loss and sustaining a more balanced diet.
Hopefully, everyone exercises similar diligence as good health is only partly in our control, so we shouldn't leave that which can so easily be managed to chance. However, even positive steps toward good health must be balanced in light of individually unique risks, preferences, priorities and life satisfaction. There are some things she could be doing to be healthier but sometimes she makes a conscious choice to not adopt them. Simply being alive isn't always the same as living as happily as possible. It's her life and she should live it as she chooses (self-autonomy can be vital to happiness too). I try not to chide her on health choices but rather to ensure she's able to make fully informed choices (which sometimes includes the choice to not choose). There's a fine line between caring concern and being overbearing. I never want to slip into implying she bears a duty to live her life (or stay alive) for the benefit of those who love her. That means supporting her freedom to fully enjoy the few 'guilty little pleasures' that she chooses - especially in the twilight of a life so well-lived. Anything less wouldn't be returning the unconditional love she has given us.
> 1000 IU for children <1 year on enriched formula and 1500 IU for breastfed children older than 6 months, 3000 IU for children >1 year of age, and around 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter.
I guess the real question is whether you'll wish you had been taking vitamin D if you get Covid-19. While this could end up being placebo, there's some compelling evidence that you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
But in the study where it does not work, it's an oral supplement given after hospitalization. Oral vitamin D takes a while to elevate blood levels so the fact that such regimen doesn't work, doesn't prove much.
There are enough "long hauler" cases where you still should, though.
There have been three RCT I know of. Another calcifediol study showed a big impact. An oral supplement study on hospitalized patients did not. Presumably because oral supplements take a while to change levels whereas calcifediol does not.
From the authors of one of the cited papers. I.e. if you are in generally poor health already, COVID-19 is more likely to kill you.
> The presence of fat in a meal with which a vitamin D-3 supplement is taken significantly enhances absorption of the supplement [1]
Edit: here is the article https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure...
Why?
I’m not saying the opposite is true, but there is evidence for a inverse relationship between respiratory infections and vitamin D levels. We should all believe things for reasons, what reason do you have for discounting the possibility?
Eldery can't produce it from sunlight either. This information doesn't help them.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/open-access-editors-r...
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/be...
I would treat this paper with, at most, the same skepticism as a preprint. Vitamin D supplementation is so easy and inexpensive, that if this correlation is truly that strong, I'd expect to see it in The Lancet or Nature or any one of the other mainstream journals.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24366006
I've been monitoring HN for Vitamin D info very closely.
(Can't find the HN discussion link at the moment, unfortunately -- it didn't point to that particular link!)
Worth noting that this RCT was for bolus supplementation of Vitamin D3 at some point in their hospital stay, and excluded patients already supplementing with D3.
This study stands in stark contrast to the earlier pilot out of Spain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096007602... -- though as noted, this was not D3 but rather Calcifediol (a D3 metabolite), and a much smaller study.
Proper Vitamin D level should be reached _before_ contact with the virus. Then the data would be valuable and helpful. Theirs data doesn't show much, imho.
If not much money or effort has been put into a 'treatment' you have reasons to sceptical, don't you think? It's like working in the financial services and someone is trying to sell you a $10 e-book that will make you rich in 1 year. It could do the trick but I bet you would be sceptical.
Testing/clinical trials usually cost a lot and even if the treatment it's not great, at least you have some hard data that you can rely on.
My routine these days? Magnesium, Vit D, and massaging TMJ joint.
Diet helps a lot too.
Cure cancer, no. Help various issues, often.
Later on I started hearing from many sources to try it for migraines.
Realized my migraines had been ebbing and worsening a lot. Got serous about taking it. About A 50% reduction In severity. Had multi hour ones 7 days a week. Can’t walk kind.
Dentist suggested a mouth guard for TMJ. I looked up videos on it. Found a massage one, found a bad trigger point. 3 days later it eased up. Poof migraines almost completely gone.
I tried basically everything.
Elimination diet to find troublesome foods, etc. Prism glasses, etc
Too much for here
I mean, there are cases of cancers that resolve on their own.
That’s why we don’t make medical decisions based off anecdotes.
Yes it could just disappear, but for some migraines are a chronic issue and the meds for it are preventative and not a cure.
I'm not sure if you've dealt with chronic illnesses but I can tell you from experience that a lot of us regularly attempt to come off our meds to see if anything has changed 'underneath' the drugs, as often the drugs have other side effects that make it hard to tell what's really going on.
It's highly likely then that the OP has indeed tested to see whether their migraines have just gone.
It's also odd when people defiantly state that we don't make medical decisions based on anecdotes when clearly all medical decisions were once anecdotes that were then tested for efficacy and became best practice.
The most clear recent example of medicine catching up with annecdoatal evodence for me is severe epileptic using diet manipulation to manage their condition when prescription medicine did little to nothing as a preventative.
10 minutes and I have a full blown migraine. (Lights)
If I’ve been solid with magnesium that time goes to an hour or two.
FL-41 lenses will add an hour to time as well.
Many other triggers, but light is the most consistent for me.
I'm arguing against the experience of anyone person being applicable to anyone other than that one person. That why we have the FDA and randomized controlled trials. There are so many confounding factors that unless you test a treatment under very strict conditions, there is a very good chance you observed is completely unrelated to the treatment. Hell, drug manufacturers run trials and fall into that trap all the time.
I wish people were allowed to just experiment with different solutions. Sign a paper saying that you take full responsibility and they're not obligated to treat you and that's it.
Some people live in areas that good doctors left a long time ago.
I've spent nearly 20 years getting better when that's supposed to be impossible. I've done so while dirt poor and even homeless for several years. What I've spent to get better is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions my condition is supposed to cost under conventional treatment while merely slowing your slow, gruesome, torturous death.
No one's interested and I've been thrown off of various forums over the years and been openly hated on and called a liar, teller of tall tales and insane.
No wants it because no one will get rich off of it. No one wants it because I'm a former homemaker, not a physician or scientist. And no doubt several other reasons, none of which I can really fathom.
The world basically agrees with you, turns a blind eye to any and all evidence to the contrary and actively tries to silence people like me.
Example of YouTube saying they will ban vit. c videos using the "misinformation" label: https://twitter.com/i/status/1252676099169038337
Vit. c is known to be a potent immune booster. So this is a real head scratcher.
The "misinformation" people are battling is about a) unsubstantiated health claims and b) the fact that supplement manufacturers don't need to provide any evidence or follow any regulations regarding what's actually in the supplements. That means they can say they're selling e.g. Vitamin C but it's just sugar.
John Oliver has a good video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU
Crude I stopped eating for a month to kill it off. (Not intentional)
Worked great. Don’t recommend.
Yes, there is. You could have done a quick search on Google Scholar to confirm this, example:
A mathematical model showing the potential of vitamin c to boost the innate immune response
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anuraag_Bukkuri/publica...
Vitamins: Key Role Players in Boosting Up Immune Response-A Mini Review
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jazib_Irfan/publication...
Use of vitamin C as an immunostimulant. Effect on growth, nutritional quality, and immune response of Labeo rohita (Ham.)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10695-007-9184-...
> the "misinformation" people are battling is about a) unsubstantiated health claims
That "substantiation" requires a $2 billion payout to the FDA to certify.
> the fact that supplement manufacturers don't need to provide any evidence or follow any regulations regarding what's actually in the supplements.
Obviously you have no idea what you are talking about.
[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2021436 [2] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/10/16/th...
Prescription drugs need a prescription because they have potentially dangerous side effects. Often you don’t get a wanted effect without potential side effects.
OTC drugs are usually extremely cheap (hence why you could think the medical community dislikes cheap medication). The fact that you don’t need a medical professional to get them makes them a target for the alternative medicine crowd.
In the end it’s also the fault of patients for simply asking for simple cures. My doctor uses every occasion to tell me that I should do more sports, but that would mean that I would actually need to put effort in my health.
Or, more likely, someone just decided they should be prescription only. Why are melatonin, gabapentin, piracetam prescription only? Paracetamol will kill you in the right dosage, yet it's OTC. Hell, you can overdose on vitamins and minerals/metals, too.
It's like a game for the industry, at the expense of a minority who have to suffer from only having access to bad doctors.
It's best to have journals that are owned by the community, but these take time to grow into venues that administrators respect: we can publish some work there, but it's not enough for building a competitive academic CV.
Considering this article: it's just a comment, and to me it looks like something an expert can easily tear apart. A well-established researcher wouldn't publish such a comment in an MDPI journal (as one of the other comments suggests).
> Although results of an observational study, such as this one, need to be interpreted with caution, as done by the authors [1], due to the potential of residual confounding or reverse causality (i.e., vitamin D insufficiency resulting from poor health status at baseline rather than vice versa),
You need a control group with vitamin D deficiency but no other health issues to prove the hypothesis. They are just stating there's a correlation worth looking into.
Almost half of Americans are vitamin D deficient, a lot more if you are Black or Hispanic: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-deficiency-sy...
Vitamin D is very cheap, and it takes a lot to overdose: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
Up until a very short time ago, humans spent most of their time outside, and sunscreen did not exist. Now we spend nearly all our time inside, and many of us wear sunscreen whenever it's really sunny.
And there's a serious correlation between low vitamin D levels and COVID-19 fatalities.
We haven't proved causation yet, and we might never, but given the previous three points, there's every good reason to take vitamin D.
I see this in infosec all the time. People think, for example, "I'm running antivirus software; I'm safe," which they'll use to justify all sorts of risky behavior that could (and sometimes does) lead to a security breach. They don't understand that antivirus software only reduces the risk of a security breach, never eliminating it, and it only works on certain kinds of attack vectors.
The same goes for vitamin D. Sure, lots of people are deficient, and the current evidence-based medical consensus is that people who are deficient should supplement. And maybe there's a weak correlation with COVID-19 infection/mortality risk, but people who aren't experts might misinterpret that and think they should hang out with their buddies in the sunshine or something equally risky while we're in the middle of a pandemic, instead of following the other bits of the current evidence-based medical consensus, which tells us to stay away from one another and to wear masks over our mouths and noses, which we know will greatly reduce virus transmission rates.
Spending time with people outdoors, especially in sunshine, is not risky, and for regions with serious outbreaks is an ideal way of finding compromise between keeping people isolated when indoors and allowing people some much needed social interaction.
I'm from Melbourne Australia which is just coming out of one of the longest/strictest lockdowns in the world, and all the evidence has been that letting people have some social interaction in the outdoors is beneficial to people's mental health and not a contributor to viral spread.
The outbreak was painstakingly contact-traced, transmission patterns modeled in great detail.
The transmissions were indoors; initially in workplaces and homes, then it tore through aged care homes.
Transmission outdoors just wasn't a factor. The government still imposed limits on how much outdoor interaction could happen, and mandated masks after things got bad, but the number of outdoor transmissions didn't change; it was always insignificant. Indoor contact was clearly the driver.
To be fair, the facts here probably don’t contradict your point much; severe restrictions were imposed, and adhered to by our largely compliant population, including significant limits on outdoor contact (exercise with only one person outside one's household for up to one hour per day) and requirements for distancing and mask-wearing.
Incidentally, Melbourne is the only large city in Australia that has cool/dark winters and a high incidence of Vitamin D deficiency, and was the only city to have a major covid outbreak. The other (warmer/sunnier/higher Vit D) cities didn’t limit outdoor contact at all, and had no trouble preventing outbreaks.
As TFA says, it "may" account for it. Or may not. You need a control group with D (but no other) deficiency to upgrade from "may" to "does".
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...
Firewall is the perfect term. Everyone knows the industry is ripe to be turned upside down in the absense of a public option. What surprises me is that Walmart and Amazon still haven't attacked it head-on.
e.g. privatemdlabs.com (I'm not recommending this site - just giving it as an example. Though I have used it before without issue, there may be other companies providing better/more competitive services in this field)
Every 6 months or so, you donate blood and as part of the process you get run-of-the-mill bloodwork report emailed to you a few days later.
You'd have to make sure you weren't creating an incentive for sick people to donate blood just for the lab work, but otherwise it seems like it would be an excellent perk for donating blood.
I would definitely be more incentivized to give blood if it gave me a run down of various nutrients just from a curiosity point of view.
E.g. what are my selenium levels compared to the general population?
And second that, would happily donate in exchange for curiousity-fulfilling bloodwork.
I said that isn't a problem places where medical lab work already has no cost, as no one would be incentivized to donate blood just to receive lab work.
Not sure where this got lost along the way since this is one of two comments effectively replying to the same misunderstanding.
I'm guessing this may not be economically feasible though. Additionally, you have the issue that people who can't afford health insurance would be literally selling their body for healthcare. Strictly speaking, it might be better than the alternative, but it's still not good that it's even necessary to consider something like this.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that simple bloodwork would be disallowed from other sources and this could be a good incentive.
The US recently removed the block for this on:
• people who were stationed with the military or lived on a base in Europe from 1980-1996, and
• people who lived in Europe for five years or more from 1980 to the present, except for two exceptions. Those are people who lived in Ireland or France for 5 years or more cumulatively from 1980-2001, and people who lived in the UK for 3 months or more cumulatively from 1980-1996.
Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Finland and the Czech Republic have similar rules, according to Wikipedia.
That's not actually true. There are some restrictions if you're a man who has sex with men, but you're certainly not permanently barred from giving blood.
cf. https://nybloodcenter.org/donate-blood/become-donor/can-i-do...
This is a weird way of phrasing it. More accurate would be: You may not donate if you are a man who has sex with men. The only way to donate is to 1) stop having sex with other men and 2) wait 3 months.
I'd say "you can't donate blood if you're gay" is a pretty close approximation.
As an approximation, yes. But that also includes bi-men, as well as women who have sex with bi men.
As such, your formulation also lacks precision, something you took me to task for (despite my link to actual data) in the previous sentence of your post.
Personally I think it's a dumb restriction given the advances in blood testing, but I don't run a blood donor program.
That said, those who deal with blood and blood products to be given to other humans tend to apply broad filters for donor acceptance. Note all the other restrictions in the the link I posted.
While extensive blood testing is the norm these days and the sensitivity of such testing is much better than it used to be, I imagine that being so picky about donors is much more about maintaining the integrity of the blood supply than being biased against any particular group -- even if it might seem that way.
Especially since the lack of screening/testing in the past caused a huge amount of suffering and death[0], including my own brother in-law, and through his exposure to tainted blood products, my sister as well.
Please note that such tragedies (with Hepatitis, HIV and other blood-borne diseases) are most certainly not the fault of donors.
Understanding the history[1] of these issues provides a lot of context (as it does for most things we do) for what we do today WRT the blood supply
For a sense of scale a total of 177 people have died of vCJD, out of a UK population of approx 60,000,000
Imagine, the UK would adapt this rule.
About every third ad i see on instagram is for some startup’s health measurement test.
Being familiar with what tests I need to run and what the acceptable ranges are, there is literally no reason for me to go through the doctor appointment firewall anymore.
Around/after Thanksgiving, many of the online test mongers discount tests heavily, so it's not a bad idea to stock up for the year on lab work orders, as they don't expire.
Most online providers give you the choice of labs to use.
There's a lively debate around various cancer screening initiatives, which often don't have any good evidence that they overall do more good than harm. The same mechanisms are true for lots of other medical tests.
Ultimately a medical test should be treated like any other medical intervention: Only do it if you have scientific evidence that it helps the patient.
By all means, I'd rather have that data on myself than not. But I can see why the doctors wouldn't be too crazy about it.
The whole system is set up to fix things after they go wrong, not to prevent them in the first place.
I am honestly completely shocked that we haven't seen governments and the media increasing people's awareness of this issue.
Same, and in the UK at least we got this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55108613
I remember this back from April and lots of evidence back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCSXNGc7pfs
https://www.longdom.org/open-access/the-skin-melanin-an-inhi...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4272394/
To give balance to reinforce that i'm purely speaking from a scientific-rational viewpoint, in Australia the government is trying to discourage people from being in the sun at all due to Australia (primarily european ethnic) having one of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world, due to also not being suited to their natural environment.
https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/types-of-cancer... "the incidence of skin cancer is one of the highest in the world, two to three times the rates in Canada, the US and the UK."
The USA approach is quite different though - pills for everyone! Buy your vitamin D plastic chips and watch the stock market go up!
> People with dark skin, such as those of African, African-Caribbean or south Asian origin, will need to spend longer in the sun to produce the same amount of vitamin D as someone with lighter skin.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/how-to-get-vitamin...
However, given the vastly higher death rates among people with darker skin, it should be shouted from the rooftops.
Unfortunately, this would put into question the narrative that anything but systemic racism may be to blame.
Furthermore, pointing out that people with darker skin are not adapted to live up north could easily be misconstrued as an anti-immigration stance.
“Far-right quacks are pushing unproven treatment for COVID” makes for a juicy headline.
So, who wants to be the first to put their reputation on the line?
True. That can easily happen. Reason enough to not push that angle, at least not directly. There are other ways of phrasing that.
Besides, for humans, there's no longer such a thing as "being adapted" to the environment, at least not in that limited sense. This is not an Earth versus Mars thing, it's just a matter of latitude.
If natural abilities were such a big factor, we wouldn't need clothes in Norway or Canada to survive in those places, in winter. But we do. Plus heating.
Humans are not "adapted" to live in all environments on Earth, at least not without tools, which includes clothing. So, if your skin is light and you are in an area with high insolation, cover up more and try to spend less time in the sun. Add some sunscreen too. If the skin is darker, do the opposite. Add some supplements as needed. Done. Adapted to the environment.
Of course that's a highly uncharitable representation of what you propose, but you would have to expect that kind of treatment.
This is just not true and sounds like some weird dog whistle:
https://ambulance.libguides.com/c.php?g=677734&p=4854430
From there is the following study which concludes “ Greater risk of severe COVID-19 in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations is not explained by cardiometabolic, socioeconomic or behavioural factors, or by 25(OH)-vitamin D status” — so part of the reason this viewpoint isn’t getting more traction is simply that it doesn’t seem to be true
https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/42/3/451/5859581
In conclusion: “race realism” requires you to ignore the actual scientific data, as usual.
The reason is that it's too sensitive. Look at the massive argument and tension that was generated just from someone pointing out that certain skin types are not suited to certain environments (melanin skin to north europe, non-melanin skin to australia) - nobody who values their political or academia career will want to touch this one, so the problem will get worse and worse, silently. It could even end up impacting educational and career outcomes in certain parts of the population that would appear to be racial characteristics because the science impacting those traits is a forbidden subject... which ironically makes people more racist.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52894225
“Socio-economic inequality means we're more likely to catch the virus, while our biology means we're more likely to die”
Literally just the first link that 10s of Googling found.
> from someone point internet out that certain skin types are not suited to certain environments
That’s because this is a crassly overloaded dog whistle statement.
“Ethnic minorities should supplement Vitamin D in winter” and “pale people should wear sunscreen in Australia” are in no way controversial or sensitive statements in science or academia or in the media. Trying to morph those into an argument that black people “aren’t suited for” Northern Europe is the racist, non-scientific bullshit people lose their positions for.
People always make up random excuses like
"Japan locked down more" No they didn't. In fact they've been practically unlocked since June.
"Japan doesn't test as much" That wouldn't hide a raise in the death rate overall.
"Japanese people wear masks" Restaurants, coffeeshops, and bars are full (yes, they are) and those people are not wearing masks. They do wear them elsewhere (trains, busses, stores, outside...)
In any case, that Asians are of "Greater Risk of severe COVID-19" doesn't seem to fit the facts at least in Japan.
“Asian” in the UK generally means South Asian. Either way you are arguing with the data collected in a study by stating a series of observations about a different country.
“The problem” is more likely to be the existence of studies finding low vitamin D in African people who live in African countries and American native people who live in America, making your theory that people should live where they came from pretty suspect as a solution.
As a public health message, “black people need to be careful about sunburn” has presumably been considered more important than “black people have low vitamin D”, because of the widespread false belief that people with dark skin are immune to skin cancer.
What is my skin type? Skin types that are more sensitive to ultraviolet (UV) radiation burn more quickly and are at a greater risk of skin cancer.
All skin types can be damaged by too much UV radiation. Skin types that are more sensitive to UV radiation burn more quickly and are at a greater risk of skin cancer.
People with naturally very dark skin (usually skin type V or VI) still need to take care in the sun even though they may rarely, if ever, get sunburnt. The larger amount of melanin in very dark skin provides natural protection from UV radiation. This means the risk of skin cancer is lower.
Eye damage can occur regardless of skin type. High levels of UV radiation have also been linked to harmful effects on the immune system.
Vitamin D deficiency may be a greater health concern for people with naturally very dark skin, as it is more difficult for people with this skin type to make vitamin D.
Why us? Most Australians (and Kiwis) have the wrong type of skin for their environment. Basically, through migration, our two countries have been populated by many people with fair skin whose ancestors come from much less sunny climates. Lack of protective pigmentation leaves skin cells especially vulnerable to the DNA-damaging rays from the sun.
During human evolution, our early hominid ancestors in Africa lost their covering of body hair and developed pigmented skins, presumably as protection against the harsh tropical sun. With subsequent migration out of Africa into Europe, the protective benefits of dark skin became less important for survival and were likely a hindrance to effective vitamin D production. There was selective pressure for less pigmented skin with more distance from the equator.
In contrast, those who migrated out of Africa to Asia, Australia and the islands of Melanesia were constantly exposed to sunlight. So they retained their protective pigmentation. This explains why the recent European migrants to the Americas and Oceania arrived in the “new worlds” with skin types poorly suited to their new environments. This was in stark contrast to the well-adapted skin of the indigenous inhabitants.
https://theconversation.com/why-does-australia-have-so-much-...
It's unclear why an Australian site would be going into the question of who is "suited to" live in the UK.
The indigenous population of Australia is dark-skinned and has access to all the sun it needs in order to stay Vitamin-D sufficient.
Coincidentally, the COVID-19 mortality rates in Australia are low as well, though some might prefer to chalk that up to the strict lockdowns.
More or less anything that can have a positive effect on your health can have a negative effect if done wrong. If something has no possible negative effects it probably doesn’t do anything at all.
Sun Lamps may be a better option for the at risk group.
It is. It is not like other 'vitamins' and shouldn't even be called that way. It's a hormone. It is fat soluble, it will linger for quite a while.
> even though we know that it has effectively zero risk
Not true. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/taking-too-mu...
Most people don't consistently take it in high doses for it to become a serious problem. It doesn't mean it's without risks.
The fact that it hasn't been picked up by journalists and public health officials should rather be reason for you to be skeptical of early research cherry-picked by random programmers on the internet... the same people that were blowing up HN with hydroxychloroquine stories just a few months ago.
Most of the people I've seen mentioning it recently have been medical and scientists on other sites.
That's why you see things like the Iraq war everyday on tv and then never again. People are still blowing themselves up over there. There is always a bigger story with a greater theme that uses daily news stories to paint a broader picture.
People who seek out truth themselves are more likely to find it.
People like the cure-all narrative, especially when even reasonable folk believe it has merit.
But how much sunlight do you need in order to saturate your vitamin D production? If I'm indoors in a room with a lot of windows all day, is that good enough?
So I'm now curious whether it's really Vitamin D deficiency that's causing the poor outcomes, or some racial socioeconomic factor that Vitamin D is simply a marker for.
This observation makes me more confident Vitamin D plays a role.
In any event, good to review studies for potential issues like this.
You'd be surprised. There might not be a lot of black people but Heidelberg is a university town and rather diverse. 27% are ethnic minorities, though only maybe 1% are black (4% Asian, 4% Russian/CIS, 3% southern Europe, 3% Turkey, 2% US-American, 2% Latin American, 2% Polish, 2% ex-Yugoslav)
Isn't Africa doing surprisingly well?
Yeah, so this is a notable bit of nuance. Black people in Africa likely tend to get a bit more sun exposure compared to Black people in northern territories e.g. Europe, US, etc., so it wouldn't surprise me if Vitamin D deficiencies among Black people in the US and Europe are much more prevalent.
https://www.cooperinstitute.org/2019/09/24/african-americans...
Wouldn't surprise me if the same is true in southern India or other territories where melanin (genetic or otherwise) tracks with sun exposure.
Africa has dramatically lower rates of obesity, a younger population, less asthma, less air conditioning, and as a sibling comment notes, the people get more sun exposure, hence Vitamin D.
Everything we know to track with high mortality, Africa has less of. They also have very little testing, so the infection rate is unknown and somewhat irrelevant, since few people are ending up in hospitals and dying.
I've always wanted to ask someone personally: why is the fact that African nations haven't been overrun by COVID-19 surprising?
I mean, I live here and I'm certainly very pleased that we've had such positive outcomes. But the constant tone of surprise from foreigners was funny at first but is now mildly annoying if I'm being honest; not you, obviously, but I've read one too many op-eds that seem somewhat upset that we aren't dying in droves.
Even at that, using intensive care unit counts as the metric worth paying attention to in a public health crisis seems rather off; public health is and should be the domain of the community, not of the hospitals. To be fair, "how likely are people to do what they're supposed to to protect their communities" is far trickier to measure than just counting hospital beds.
Also, if the vitamin D angle holds, Africa is probably pretty well positioned on that front. I would REALLY like to see COVID ICU numbers in regions with a significant marine/fish diet versus others.
(Although, imho, nutritional science is largely opinionated guess work with no basis in reality but an incredible ability to sell books off it).
Although, speaking of which, it seems nearly certain to me that there could be an interaction between malaria [antibodies] and SARS-CoV2, but very few people indeed seem interested in researching that. Oh well
Serious question: I thought the African-America community in America was affected by COVID-19 disproportionately due to blacks being more likely to be having comorbidities. Is that not the case?
Only on America. You say it like it's the case in the whole world.
Sunlight gives us vitamin D and nitric oxide (which improves blood flow and reduces hypertension). Vitamin D is crucial for the functioning of our immune systems, and the 1000IU dosage of many supplements is laughably small. A light skinned person in a singlet standing outside at noon for 30 minutes will produce between 10,000IU and 20,000IU in their skin. I would recommend supplementing 5,000IU vitamin D while also getting some exposure in the morning or afternoon (but avoiding the sun when it is high in the sky).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11362-2 "The 293 nm LED was best suited for evaluating its effectiveness for producing vitamin D in human skin due to the shorter exposure time"
I tried looking for that manufacturer/diode but it seems it is not commercially available.
By now we should be able to buy a cheap lamp at any store maybe it would save some lives.
This is bad advice at high latitudes or in winter time. In those situations the highest sun should be sought.
EPIC series of studies suggests dosage of 2000-3000 IU for all cause lowest mortality. (Europe, regardless of diet. Caucasian.)
pretty much whole Europe and whole India is vitamin D deficient, if you check actual studies, so no, unless you spend whole day naked in sun you won't get anywhere close to sufficient amount
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6060930/#:~:tex....
But given the risks of supplementing vitamin D are about as close to zero as you can get it seems likely it’s worth the gamble that it’s a causal link.
If you’re right, various severely beneficial health effects and potentially protection from one cause of death. If you’re wrong... fewer beneficial health effects?
I never did ask him what he expected the vitamin D to do for me.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/
Thanks for downvoting!
From my anecdotal experience people in Southern Europe spend a lot more time outside (in parts of Spain you can still go to the beach now, where I live there is snow on the ground...), and older people seem more active and able to live independent lives (i.e. not in a care home).
Of course this doesn't mean Vitamin D isn't at play. The one thing this pandemic has taught me is it seems there is very little we know about how it works :-) Maybe production from sun exposure in older people drops greatly, so the difference in sun exposure has little effect on overall Vitamin D levels.
> At latitudes below 37ᵒN, UVB radiation is sufficient for year round vitamin D synthesis. At higher latitude, vitamin D is not synthesised during the winter months. In the UK, sunlight-induced vitamin D synthesis is only effective between late March/early April and September and not from October onwards throughout the winter months.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/at-risk-groups-to-receive...
It was a very regular occurrence to hear the warnings on the news in the morning that it was cold enough to get frostbite on exposed skin in under a minute...
Noon is the best time, unless you're near the equator.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6060930/#:~:tex....
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/139966/belgian-researc...
"Vitamin D Status in Hospitalized Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Infection"
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/cl...
You have a single factor highly correlated with low vitamin D serum concentrations, ACE2 expression, and comorbidities associated with covid-19 mortality.
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.25.20237776
It's disappointing that most public health agencies have taken a defeatist approach and focused exclusively on preventing disease transmission. No matter what precautions we take a lot of people are still going to get infected so there should be equal focus on practical steps that everyone can take to improve their survival odds.
For instance, if you're deficient, you need more.
If you're older you need more.
If you have a darker skin color you need more.
It's fairly hard to get toxicity (still to be avoided).
I take 50k IU per week and is good enough for me. Fat soluble so don't need it every day. But, don't take my advice on specifics...
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...
There is not complete consensus, but a lot of the large deltas are due to Vitamin D being fat soluble - if you are deficient, you can take far higher doses for a while and they will be stored in your liver. But if you continue to do so once you are at good levels, it can do damage:
"Hypercalcemia, in turn, can lead to nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness, neuropsychiatric disturbances, pain, loss of appetite, dehydration, polyuria, excessive thirst, and kidney stones."
That paper's recommendations are 600IU RDA, and that it is safe to take up to 4000IU without supervision of a doctor (i.e. regular blood tests to make sure you're not overshooting recommended blood concentration).
This paper suggests up to 10000IU is safe:
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-vitamin-d-is-t...
and that "A daily intake ranging from 40,000–100,000 IU (1000–2500 micrograms), for one to several months, has been shown to cause toxicity in humans" (with several case reports).
Apparently Dr. Fauci takes 6000IU per day. https://vitamindwiki.com/Dr.+Fauci+takes+6%2C000+IU+of+Vitam...
While these are different, 4000IU, 6000IU, and 10000IU are well within an order of magnitude as upper limits of what you can tolerate without side effects ("upper limits" being more than RDA, but won't cause a separate medical problem)
I've seen some studies say that 5000IU or 10000IU is safe, differ a little bit about the normal RDA, but there's a ton of similar ranges.
https://nutritionfacts.org/2011/09/12/dr-gregers-2011-optimu...
Transmissability scales with disease severity; further, to a certain extent you could argue that making every disease a mild case would be the same as ending the disease (because oh no, you got a cold). Vitamin D supplementation, at about $10 every 3 months per person, would reduce that by 96%
Meanwhile, the best vaccine being developed is claiming a 90% efficacy rate. Which means that if 100 people get exposed to covid, but they are all vaccinated, only 90 of them wouldn't get sick.
Vitamin D turns 100 cases into 4 cases. Vaccine turns 100 cases into 10 cases. Vitamin D is ridiculously cheap. Vaccine development is not. But when the time comes, I'm going to use both.
The one-page "paper" doesn't even mention stats for control group and what it does mention is completely inconclusive.
BTW most people in the world who are quarantining have Vit D insufficiency/deficiency right now.
PS.: just get your daily 15 min of sun to be safe.
1. Leave a video up published by a non-scientific person which has possibly harmful claims.
2. Take the video down, get decried for censorship, avoid spreading what we know is a problem right now: misinformation.
I leave option 3, policing content out of the picture. People mistake what is happening now as policing but really it's avoiding policing what they are doing now.
I am absolutely not on the side of just anyone with credentials being able to soapbox on platforms that don't want to spread misinformation whether it is or it isn't officially designated misinformation - better safe than sorry. I feel like I know the difference between band of fringe persons with Doctor in their name who have a controversial underdog belief and the official scientific sources for information.
Possibly true if you yourself had credentials. If not, don't be so sure.
The funny problem with this one is that your local "official" memo is different from a local official memo 50, 500 and 5000 miles away.
Do you believe you are at the locus of the best science? I have medical experts in my family all over the world... They disagree.
They also agree though that the media is leading everyone (including politicians) around like puppets. I.e. they can see nonsense in the media being spouted, because they are experts.
Why not just be transparent in there actions. Add an icon to thing they deem offensive to there ethics. Dump it from the Main page algorithm feed. And make the icon clickable to a page where it shows why you added they censored or tagged the content. People need to see this stuff go down in real-time and why it happens. But leave free speech intact.
Or make everyone pay for it then they can do whatever they want. Disappear anything Lol
At least when the government tries to police something we can grab onto it, debate it as a matter of policy, and there's a process to change that policy. With private companies trying to do the work of the government (if that really is the case, and whatever their reasons - fear of formal regulation, etc), it's far harder to manage. I'd rather have a clear conversation about the government's ability to censor speech than have a few oligarchs working as shadow censors on behalf of the government.
Potential legal issues aside, the PR nightmare that would come from this if it turns out they've tried to suppress information that would have saved lives is going to be very ugly. Right now they're a spoiled kid eating whatever cookies they want because no one has ever told them no. Whether the stomach ache, rotting teeth, or parental wrath comes first remains to be seen but there will at some point be consequences for this overreach into areas they have no domain knowledge. They of course will act shocked that there is blowback and that their ever expanding intrusion into everyone's lives through information control ends up causing them harm.
EDIT: Why does HN have these downvote trolls? I was a bio major and was trained to critically analyze studies just like this. Skepticism is part of science. Why would you downvote my comment?!
I'm not a professional and this is just me spouting ideas, but I wonder if this is one reason why America is so hard hit compared to Asia. Americans generally commute by car, stay in a massive building complex all day for work, and go home and stay inside. In Asia, a huge proportion of people commute by foot, train (which involves walking to the station), or scooter. Then they walk to a grocery store or restaurant to get some food. I wonder if those minutes of continuous sun exposure add up and lighten the severity of it.
The theory that makes the most sense to me is that East Asia has had exposure to past viruses that were similar in nature but less lethal.
> Tatsuhiko Kodama of the University of Tokyo said preliminary studies show that Japanese people’s immune systems tend to react to the novel coronavirus as though they had previous exposure, and notes that there are centuries of history of coronaviruses emerging from East Asia.[1]
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/researchers-ponder-why-...
Some examples for Thailand are included in this paper[1]. One study said this: "Soontrapa et al. [15] evaluated vitamin D status in a younger group of premenopausal women found the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency to be 77.8%, which was as high as the rate found in elderly Thai women living in nursing homes."
There is lots of sun in Thailand, but people avoid it as much as possible, staying indoors and applying lots of sunscreen if they must go out.