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Report: Vitamin D Insufficiency is Prevalent in Severe COVID-19
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Vitamin D seems to be getting studied recently alot more in different context than Covid.
It has always been quite heavily studied. It just has not been studied very well. The studies done simply have not reached the quality or type actually required to tell us much at all. And what studies _have_ been done in any way usefully on it - have shown pretty much no benefit to "normal" people with normal lives and diets.
The research I have studied basically fails to support supplementation of Vitamin D in _most cases_. Including cardiovascular health, muscle skeleton health, general case mortality, Covid 19, or depression.
The problem is most of the studies on these are "Observational Studies" not causal. And they are split down the middle with some showing effect and some not. But when amalgamated into meta analysis - generally not.
Worse - the more double blind controlled studies which did show effects on things like, say, depression - actually used a supplementation level that was insanely high to get a tiny tiny result. The video you linked to for example recommended a supplementation level of 1000iu. A single study in 2008 on Vitamin D and depression used levels of 20-40000iu in order to result in only a tiny tiny reported affect on mood. And even then the only people who showed any benefit were the ones who were highly obese and highly depressed.
So basically if you are very obese and depressed to a clinically significant level and take an incredibly high dose of Vitamin D - you might be lucky and see a _tiny_ benefit. Joy! But actually when a 2014 systematic review of some studies was performed - even that tiny effect disappeared. No Joy after all!
So what about Covid? Well in September a study did suggest that people with a "likely deficient" status were 1.77 times more likely to test positive for Covid. This study was in 489 patients.
Sound promising? Well another study of 500,000 patients in the summer of 2020 showed no link, no benefit, no effect. Oh well.
But once again these studies were again all observational. That is bad. Very bad.
Randomized controlled studies related to Covid are coming out only now and some still under way. I look forward to the results but have not had the time in the last few months to sit down with them yet So if anything I say is yet out of date apologies of course. But until I see it, I will hold off.
But what I do know about is similar research done before Covid. For example there was a good meta analysis done on the role of Vitamin D in acute respiratory tract infections of other types. And it did show a positive effect of Vitamin D use. But with the usual caveat that the small effect was only very noticeable in patients who were _very_ deficient to start with. Once again - the average joe on the irish streets are probably not going to see much benefit. Let alone of insanely high intakes.
A final warning when looking at studies is to note that studies declaring "deficiency" tend to use levels not often seen in healthy people. So if you are ever reading a study or - god forbid - citing one to support the use of Vitamin D you should check before anything else what their definition of "deficient" actually is. In fact there seems to be no international - and in some cases national - consensus on what constitutes "low" in the first place. In fact three of the studies I mention above used 8 20 and 30 ng/ml. That means one study used a level nearly 400% higher than the other. The report in your video below used 20.
That is true of all studies of this nature. For example one of the _few_ studies the Bottled Water industry latched on to to convince people they need to drink stupid amounts of water every day (2 litres or some nonsense right?) used a bizarre level for dehydration in urine when studying children. A level that any pediatrician would scoff at I hope.
I am not skeptical for the sake of it. I would in fact love it if popping a little pill across the nation had ramifications for contraction of Covid and/or severity of symptoms. So I have no bias here. But the evidence is low for this. And even people who recommend it's use like Dr. Fauci rush to point out that dosing up from actual high deficiency is moderately useful - and he never wants to give the impression that dosing the average person will have any effect at all.
Not to mention all of that - too much of Vitamin D can actually hurt you. So dosing on it for no good reason is probably not a good move overall.That daily Vitamin D supplementation of 20-25µg/day should be recommended to the entire adult population as a public health measure
A pretty poor video unfortunately. The Dr (I do not know him, so I will just assume he actually is one) did not really go into discussing what "deficiency" means or what level is chosen or why. He just swallowed the "20" in the report wholesale. What levels each study uses. Or in fact _any_ of the contents of _any_ of the studies in the report he was doing the video about.
One problem is though that someone being a "Dr." does not mean they even know how to read / parse such studies. This is not the doctors fault. It's just a fact of the training many get. In the video the report used the word "known" and he got all excited about this. Oh well if they say "known" it must be true right
But some people - I think Ben Goldacre is one - have written about this problem in Doctor training.
But to give a random example of what I mean. The report he is reviewing cited a _single_ paper about a relationship between Vitamin D and depression in Adults. There are many papers out there. Even better there are systematic meta reviews combining and analyzing the results of those papers. So to cite a single paper for this is - well bad.
Even worse however is that single paper is not a great one. For example it was not a cross population study. It was a study _solely_ of people over 50. Not only that the study is solely relational. That is they observe low levels of Vitamin D in people with high levels of depression. That in _no way whatsoever_ suggests low Vitamin D in any way causes that depression. It also does not suggest it did not cause that depression. Basically - it tells us nothing useful at all.
At. All.
And the "Dr" making the video mentioned none of that. Not even obliquely let alone directly.
There was also a reference to some international studies. There is another small problem with that. Well relatively small but still quite significant. In places like the US vitamins are poorly regulated. Meaning it is hard to impossible to know what you're getting when you use them. So when a study looks at the effect of Vitamin D on one thing or another - it is important to check if the researchers provided the Vitamin D or were the subjects using any old over the counter product? Because studying the effect of any chemical without controlling the standard or purity of chemical used is - well useless.0 -
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Johnboy1951 wrote: »For those who might wish to read the report
https://www.rte.ie/documents/news/2021/04/2021-04-07-report-on-addressing-vitamin-d-deficiency-as-a-public-health-measure-in-ireland-en.pdf
and a transcript of the public examination of the topic
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/joint_committee_on_health/2021-02-23/debate/mul@/main.pdf
and for further insight I suggest viewing this
https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/joint_committee_on_health/2021-02-23/debate/mul@/main.pdf
.
And a video about it...a second one I think to follow...if your high risk and havn't already get your vit D sorted via your GP or pharmacist if your one of the majority of Irish people who are deficient...do it asap
NOTE: do definetly talk to the doctor first t if on heart/hypertension meds especially if taking high doses of zinc which many are doing ar the moment along with vit d/c/selenuim/quercitin etc As zinc may interfer with the meds.
Apologies Wada just saw text link..aahh well important so will leave above .0 -
Slam-dunk.
Thankfully actual studies are a little more controlled and comprehensive than this But yes it generally does seem to take very badly run experiments in order to come up with anything that suggests Vitamin D supplementation helpful for all but some real outlier cases.
There does seem to be a lot of emotion around this one vitamin though compared to most other supplementation. People for whatever reason seem to really really really want it to be some kind of magic cure all. From heart issues to skeletal issues to depression to covid. The claims made about it make it sound like some kind of miracle. When in fact taking such supplements seem to do pretty much nothing at all.0 -
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Deleted User wrote: »It has always been quite heavily studied. It just has not been studied very well. The studies done simply have not reached the quality or type actually required to tell us much at all. And what studies _have_ been done in any way usefully on it - have shown pretty much no benefit to "normal" people with normal lives and diets.
The research I have studied basically fails to support supplementation of Vitamin D in _most cases_. Including cardiovascular health, muscle skeleton health, general case mortality, Covid 19, or depression.
The problem is most of the studies on these are "Observational Studies" not causal. And they are split down the middle with some showing effect and some not. But when amalgamated into meta analysis - generally not.
Worse - the more double blind controlled studies which did show effects on things like, say, depression - actually used a supplementation level that was insanely high to get a tiny tiny result. The video you linked to for example recommended a supplementation level of 1000iu. A single study in 2008 on Vitamin D and depression used levels of 20-40000iu in order to result in only a tiny tiny reported affect on mood. And even then the only people who showed any benefit were the ones who were highly obese and highly depressed.
So basically if you are very obese and depressed to a clinically significant level and take an incredibly high dose of Vitamin D - you might be lucky and see a _tiny_ benefit. Joy! But actually when a 2014 systematic review of some studies was performed - even that tiny effect disappeared. No Joy after all!
So what about Covid? Well in September a study did suggest that people with a "likely deficient" status were 1.77 times more likely to test positive for Covid. This study was in 489 patients.
Sound promising? Well another study of 500,000 patients in the summer of 2020 showed no link, no benefit, no effect. Oh well.
But once again these studies were again all observational. That is bad. Very bad.
Randomized controlled studies related to Covid are coming out only now and some still under way. I look forward to the results but have not had the time in the last few months to sit down with them yet So if anything I say is yet out of date apologies of course. But until I see it, I will hold off.
But what I do know about is similar research done before Covid. For example there was a good meta analysis done on the role of Vitamin D in acute respiratory tract infections of other types. And it did show a positive effect of Vitamin D use. But with the usual caveat that the small effect was only very noticeable in patients who were _very_ deficient to start with. Once again - the average joe on the irish streets are probably not going to see much benefit. Let alone of insanely high intakes.
A final warning when looking at studies is to note that studies declaring "deficiency" tend to use levels not often seen in healthy people. So if you are ever reading a study or - god forbid - citing one to support the use of Vitamin D you should check before anything else what their definition of "deficient" actually is. In fact there seems to be no international - and in some cases national - consensus on what constitutes "low" in the first place. In fact three of the studies I mention above used 8 20 and 30 ng/ml. That means one study used a level nearly 400% higher than the other. The report in your video below used 20.
That is true of all studies of this nature. For example one of the _few_ studies the Bottled Water industry latched on to to convince people they need to drink stupid amounts of water every day (2 litres or some nonsense right?) used a bizarre level for dehydration in urine when studying children. A level that any pediatrician would scoff at I hope.
I am not skeptical for the sake of it. I would in fact love it if popping a little pill across the nation had ramifications for contraction of Covid and/or severity of symptoms. So I have no bias here. But the evidence is low for this. And even people who recommend it's use like Dr. Fauci rush to point out that dosing up from actual high deficiency is moderately useful - and he never wants to give the impression that dosing the average person will have any effect at all.
Not to mention all of that - too much of Vitamin D can actually hurt you. So dosing on it for no good reason is probably not a good move overall.
A pretty poor video unfortunately. The Dr (I do not know him, so I will just assume he actually is one) did not really go into discussing what "deficiency" means or what level is chosen or why. He just swallowed the "20" in the report wholesale. What levels each study uses. Or in fact _any_ of the contents of _any_ of the studies in the report he was doing the video about.
One problem is though that someone being a "Dr." does not mean they even know how to read / parse such studies. This is not the doctors fault. It's just a fact of the training many get. In the video the report used the word "known" and he got all excited about this. Oh well if they say "known" it must be true right But some people - I think Ben Goldacre is one - have written about this problem in Doctor training.
But to give a random example of what I mean. The report he is reviewing cited a _single_ paper about a relationship between Vitamin D and depression in Adults. There are many papers out there. Even better there are systematic meta reviews combining and analyzing the results of those papers. So to cite a single paper for this is - well bad.
Even worse however is that single paper is not a great one. For example it was not a cross population study. It was a study _solely_ of people over 50. Not only that the study is solely relational. That is they observe low levels of Vitamin D in people with high levels of depression. That in _no way whatsoever_ suggests low Vitamin D in any way causes that depression. It also does not suggest it did not cause that depression. Basically - it tells us nothing useful at all.
At. All.
And the "Dr" making the video mentioned none of that. Not even obliquely let alone directly.
There was also a reference to some international studies. There is another small problem with that. Well relatively small but still quite significant. In places like the US vitamins are poorly regulated. Meaning it is hard to impossible to know what you're getting when you use them. So when a study looks at the effect of Vitamin D on one thing or another - it is important to check if the researchers provided the Vitamin D or were the subjects using any old over the counter product? Because studying the effect of any chemical without controlling the standard or purity of chemical used is - well useless.
I have been bedbound for nearly 10 years and after taking vitamin D I am able to walk in the park....and I know other people that were very sick for having low vitamin D0 -
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Deleted User wrote: »Fair enough. I didn't link the thing. Here is the thing: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/what-chrismasterjohn-does/2016/06/21/who-i-am/
Hmmm the second I opened that link it popped up a message trying to sell me "Cliff notes" on vitamins and minerals. A few minutes later it tried to entice me into a "free" course he offers. Color me skeptical. Anyway the link you posted above might be the wrong one as I do not see it mentioning what you said it does?
I know his name already I think. I think last September he was posting on twitter the rather grand claim that Vitamin D "almost abolishes ICU Risk for covid" or something similar. Because of a single tiny study of a whopping 75 people.
The study of course had nothing to do with supplementation however. Rather it was looking at the effect of giving high dose Calcifediol to hospitalized patients of Covid. Which - while interesting - is not really applicable to any conversation about general dietry supplements. Interesting too is that regardless of whether they gave Calcifediol to a patient or not - it seems they did not bother to at any point measure the levels of Vitamin D in the patients before or after.
But it is a study that will certainly appeal to a guy in the business of running a website selling Vitamin related courses and materials.0 -
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Deleted User wrote: »Hmmm the second I opened that link it popped up a message trying to sell me "Cliff notes" on vitamins and minerals. A few minutes later it tried to entice me into a "free" course he offers. Color me skeptical. Anyway the link you posted above might be the wrong one as I do not see it mentioning what you said it does?
I know his name already I think. I think last September he was posting on twitter the rather grand claim that Vitamin D "almost abolishes ICU Risk for covid" or something similar. Because of a single tiny study of a whopping 75 people.
The study of course had nothing to do with supplementation however. Rather it was looking at the effect of giving high dose Calcifediol to hospitalized patients of Covid. Which - while interesting - is not really applicable to any conversation about general dietry supplements. Interesting too is that regardless of whether they gave Calcifediol to a patient or not - it seems they did not bother to at any point measure the levels of Vitamin D in the patients before or after.
But it is a study that will certainly appeal to a guy in the business of running a website selling Vitamin related courses and materials.
Yep, wrong link. Here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/my-response-to-rhonda-patrick-on-vitamin-d-and-covid-19
Edit: FYI, I have no idea what that guy is selling or not. I linked him because his position was that vitamin D did NOT help with Covid and should therefore not be supplemented, and over the year he has changed his mind. He linked the studies that lead him to change his mind.0 -
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![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG72xGd0W0M
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