Study: Vitamin D won’t limit risk, severity of Covid-19
news.cornell.edu
news.cornell.edu
" But further investigation was needed because observational studies couldn’t establish a causal link between blood vitamin D levels and COVID-19. The challenge in establishing a causal link arises because blood vitamin D levels are influenced by multiple factors including genetics, exposure to sunlight, diet and supplements, and are associated with other risk factors for COVID-19, the researchers said.
“We were trying to get at the part of the variation in vitamin D that’s genetic and leave aside the rest to see whether or not there’s an association with the risk of getting COVID-19,” Cassano said. “And when we do it that way, we find no association, and that’s telling.”"
This was covered in early access here: https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/kzy3bb/no_evidence...
> Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of serum vitamin D levels identified genetic variants that are robustly associated with serum vitamin D status in different populations and ancestries.
Edit: thanks for both the replies below. I just wanted to answer the question about whether genetic markers are predictive, but I see now that leaving it at just that would be misleading.
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I'll honestly never understand how studies like this make front page or top headlines in mainstream news. Even if vitamin D didn't make a difference with covid outcomes, it's still a vitamin many countries are widely deficient in and can only serve to improve many peoples health.
I feel like I've seen more social media posts claiming to show vitamin D isn't effective vs cv19 than the opposite, which is alarming to me. The body of evidence that shows vitamin D working is substantially larger than the studies showing the opposite - and honestly this is a vital vitamin either way! Get your vitamin D levels up people*! It feels like this shouldn't be controversial, but deficiency in first-world countries and posts like these make me wonder.
* obviously it's possible to overdose but that window is incredibly large - you're far more likely to be hurting from too little vitD than too much
this image summarizes the intent of my post pretty cleanly https://i.imgur.com/ySVX5y0.png for a nice tl;dr;
Yet when you see studies of Vitamin D they never seem to use the higher level. They seem to stick rigidly to the lower bone health level. Unsurprisingly they see no effect. My own little test[0] showed that inadequacy very easily creeps up on you.
Where is the Randomised Control Test on incidence of respiratory diseases with those people held above the 75-100 nmol/L hypothesis level?
It's deeply frustrating at the lack of actual solid science experiments that goes on in this area. It appears to be a heavy dose of inferred statistics topped off with a heavy layer of credentials, and hope that nobody asks the awkward questions.
[0] https://new-wayland.com/blog/onward-to-100-nmol-update-2/
Yes. See
'Why the IOM recommendations for vitamin D are deficient' authored by two of the committee members who drafted the first IOM recommendation in 1997 @ https://asbmr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jbmr....
Drinking water is good for health, breathing clean air is good, taking Vitamin-D is good but none of these have evidence as a cure for covid-19 specifically.
I imagine your other points could be preventative as well and I would also highly recommend breathing clean air when possible and staying hydrated. I know that might sound silly to read, but simple measures to boost your own immune system really are far more powerful than society seems to give them credit for.
What has been especially odd to me is the grotesque pleasure certain people (even a few on HN) have taken when studies have appeared to show limited efficacy. Why would you be happy that a treatment doesn't work, especially one that's so affordable and readily available?
The common theme seems to be "you can't treat yourself".
The reason this rises to the top is because this is just one more way otherize the outgroup. As can be seen in a number of the other comments in this HN thread.
Nutrition research is junk science so I expect this sort of thing by now.
brb gonna eat some elk meat and take a sauna to protect me against covid.
I'm sure you have evidence for this in the populations effected most.
> Sure there are outliers. Healthy people can have complications. That's with any virus though.
That's a neat way to exclude any contradictory data from affecting your assumption.
"Is she using the Peloton I sent her?"
"She's lying face-down in bed, trying to get her SpO2 levels up"
"Oh, so she just wants a quick fix. Got it. SMH"
Healthy people get COVID too, and you can't cure a lot of health problems with exercise.
Now that has to be tongue and cheek.
Exercise is widely accepted as preventing health problems.
Claim: Exercise and taking care of yourself makes you healthier, more resilient.
HN: First, prove your existence by citing sources I find agreeable. Otherwise I'm entitled to assert that this is all imaginary, without citing sources!
Sure if it was widely distributed that it prevents it 100% there would probably be a 5-10% spike in gym memberships or peloton ordering, but no. But even that spike would probably die off in 1 or 2 months. It will go back to it's "settled" behavior.