5/1/21 Op-Ed: Don’t Let COVID-19 Patients Die With Vitamin D Deficiency
— We can’t wait for perfect evidence
by Richard H. Carmona, MD, MPH, Vatsal G. Thakkar, MD, and John C. Umhau, MD, MPH January 5, 2021
Another one underneath (ie they are currently 1 and 2 on the Home page) is eyecatching
Op-Ed: Why I Refuse to Get the COVID Vaccine Right Now
— America’s vaccine rollout is widening socioeconomic and racial inequities
which is not by a vaccine hesitant but a Dr who thinks racial minority and disadvantaged groups should be higher up than…rich white doctors.
Despite these, the Medpagetoday organization is not very alternative-minded, I think. Further down the list at number 7 on the home page they attempt an almost rabid denunciation of America’s Frontline Doctors (who shot to world prominence with a pro-HCQ rally on Capitol Hill). https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90536
Wish I’d picked a less shouty subject headline…so I could shout over it… 
Two separate studies debunk theory that vitamin D supplements offer greater protection against Covid-19
The two studies are curiously broad-brush. One studied databases looking for genetic markers “…that would leave people predisposed to vitamin D deficiencies. They concluded that “vitamin D supplementation as a means of protecting against worsened Covid outcomes is not supported by genetic evidence,” they wrote in the study. “Other therapeutic or preventative… avenues should be given higher priority for Covid-19 randomized controlled trials.””
While any merit is dependent on the presumption that genetic markers would play a significant role in the efficacy of vitamin C, the strong conclusion is dependent on this being the only material factor! Whatever you do, DON’T do randomized Controlled Trials of Vitamin D.
No, NO. STOP! Protesting too much?
The second study is at country level, which ignores actual people becoming deficient and getting Covid, thereby ignoring important detail. Country level studies have been done before - and with strong results for Vit D - but these were initial, carried out before there were more detailed studies.
I note there is no identifying information given for the reader to see the studies for themselves.
This comment on the linked Independent article (a pure, headline-grabbing propaganda piece) is better than my reactive effort…
" The study behind this story doesn’t match what the article claims. It does not measure blood serum levels of vitamin D, or how vitamin D supplementation dosages affect blood levels of D, or how different dosages and blood levels affect covid response.
Instead, it looks at DNA - polygenic alleles that influence vitamin D metabolism. It is a purely genetic study.
So - it is NOT a study of vitamin D3 supplementation. It only found that people who have genome-wide polygenic alleles supporting naturally higher blood serum vitamin D levels didn’t fare any better than those who didn’t have that genetic structure. And then assumed, in a hand-wavey way, that their genetic study was relevant to supplementation.
The vitamin D supplementation doses that I have seen recommended for immune system boosting have been 3000IU to 5000IU. That’s 10 times the dosage in the free vitamin D3 that was given out in the UK. 5000IU is the upper safe limit for most adults.
There have not been any large, robust studies of vitamin D3 supplementation and the effect of different dosages on Covid yet. However, the small studies with sound methodologies which used daily dosages that are high but still within the safe range strongly suggest that vitamin D is likely to be useful in reducing the severity of covid.
Given that tentative set of findings, and the obvious deficiencies in the assumptions behind this genetic study, the “conclusions” of the paper should not influence anyone’s decision to supplement with vitamin D3.
This article is bad reporting. And it is misleading, which may adversely affect people’s health. The Independent needs to correct this."
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Generally, when you see reports of ‘studies’ which suddenly discover that some basic standby of good health that has been doing sterling work for decades is actually no use at all - and worst still, actually makes you ill or kills you - the first thing to do is ask: is the offending specific a big-profit-making proprietary item, or is it cheaply and universally available as a generic. Then ask, who are publicising this ‘hot new insight’?
When you score ‘no profit’, and ‘standard-issue Western mediawhores parrotting bad precis’s of bought-‘scientists’ unsubstantiated claims’ then you know the put-down is shite, and you can carry on using the specific safely, and with benefit, as previously. That, at any rate, is a bet on which I’d be prepared to stake, if not my great-grand-children’s lives, then certainly my own; as indeed I am, in this case. Sod the D libellers!
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Echo every word of that. I’ve spent a few minutes browsing Journals via University library search. The only recent articles are very clearly favourable towards Vit D supplementation and I’m fairly sure I’ve seen them linked here before (e.g. Ferrari). There’s a few editorial pieces, in The Lancet, that muddy the waters in predictable ways (and to be fair they’d come within the usual bounds of healthy scepticism).
Preprints are frequently press releases by another name.