A new study was published yesterday, June 10th, and this is the first controlled study I’m aware of which evaluated the effect of vitamin D (co-administered with magnesium and vitamin B12), on older Covid-19 cases in a clinical environment.
The results were very positive: after adjusting for age, sex and co-morbidities, those receiving the above supplements ended up needing oxygen support therapies about 6.5 times less often than those in the control group.
Over Six times less often!! In a controlled trial!
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Note: I’ve just edited this diary, changing the title and bringing the above points front and center to make them more clearly visible, as I realized from the comments that many people weren’t getting that there was brand-new evidence supporting this. The rest of the article, below, is mostly the same as I’d first published it, with only a few edits for clarity.
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There’s a new article from the NY Times that finally addressed the connections between vitamin D and Covid-19 in the mainstream media. And it does present some compelling associations, such as this quote:
Another study published in the BMJ in 2017 reviewed data from 25 randomized trials and concluded that people assigned to take vitamin D had a 12 percent lower risk of developing respiratory tract infections compared to those given placebos. But the effect was greater among people who were classified as vitamin D deficient, with very low blood levels, below 25 nanomoles per liter (or 10 nanograms per milliliter): They saw their risk of contracting respiratory infections fall 70 percent when they supplemented with vitamin D.
Still, the Times article left out some very relevant and far more conclusive recent studies, which have given us much stronger evidence about this issue, including one study that was just published yesterday. The Times article also made a major blunder in its presentation of the recommended daily allowance, leaving out the fact that the RDA is about ten times lower than it ought to be.
Note, by the way, that the above study quoted by the Times came out before Covid-19 existed. The inference is still a powerful one: for anyone who currently happens to be deficient in Vitamin D, the risk of contracting respiratory infections can be reduced by around 70% if they can bring their body up to healthy Vitamin D levels. Covid-19 is known to be a respiratory infection, so the study seems to apply.
I’m drawing most of what follows from what I found to be a much better overview of all the Covid-19 / Vitamin D evidence put together by Karl Pfleger, at agingbiotech.info. It’s a one-page summary with loads of links to the best-available evidence, and at only one page, (and no pay walls!), I encourage all of you to read it in full... especially if you or someone you love has darker skin, or is getting along in their years, both of which decrease the skin’s natural ability to make enough vitamin D on its own. Both of these groups are known to be at higher risk of severe outcomes or even mortality with Covid-19, so if anything can improve the outcomes for these people, that would be especially valuable.
Many attribute the higher risks in these groups to what are called Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), but these things can take decades to correct, whereas under a doctor’s supervision, Vitamin-D deficiency can be quickly and very economically corrected.
Karl gives a quick summary of the evidence we now have, as follows:
There’s no reason not to fix low vitamin D & much evidence it could save many lives. Until the data becomes inconsistent with that possibility, fixing low D while getting more data must be prioritized.
The above is from the tersely written one-page summary. He spells it out a bit more in his full-length article:
Caution is warranted when considering data on new molecules or even abnormally high doses of natural substances, but rectifying a deficiency with known negative health consequences does not warrant caution. Curing well-known, widespread D deficiency should have been a public health priority for years, and early COVID-19 evidence suggests that it should now be prioritized even more highly. Criticism of the evidence base for mega-dosing D-sufficient patients should not dampen enthusiasm for widespread eradication of deficiency, for which the evidence is already compelling.
He then (in the one page summary) goes on to list 10 facts, 5 imperatives, and 5 “objections dismissed”, all with a great abundance of compelling scientific references. At the end of the page, he refers to his full article with a much more detailed discussion of all the relevant issues, so that anyone with more time can go quickly into a deeper exploration of it all. I think he’s done the world a great service with all his efforts.
While all of the facts listed are things that everyone should be aware of, the most convincing of them are the last two. These are the most significant omissions from the NY Times article, in my opinion, as they get at the heart of the issue: is vitamin D’s effect on Covid-19 the cause of the improved outcomes, or only correlated circumstantially with it?
Fact number 9 gives reference to a very recently (June 5th) published study which used a causal inference model to show convincingly that vitamin D’s effect on the outcome severity of Covid-19 cases is causal, and not just a correlated observation. Outcome severity is of course far more important than the likelihood of infection.
Here’s a quote from the abstract of that article:
We then used a causal inference framework to distinguish correlation from cause using observational data with a hypothetico-deductive method of proof. We constructed two contrasting directed acyclic graph (DAG) models, one causal and one acausal with respect to vitamin D and COVID-19 severity, allowing us to make 19 verifiable and falsifiable predictions for each.
Results: Our analysis confirmed a striking correlation between COVID-19 severity and latitude, and ruled out the temporal spread of infection as an explanation. We compared observed severity for 239 locations with our contrasting model. In the causal model, 16 predictions matched observed data and 3 predictions were untestable; in the acausal model, 14 predictions strongly contradicted observed data, 2 appeared to contradict data, and 3 were untestable.
In fact number ten, Karl lists an even more compelling controlled trial on older subjects being treated with Covid-19, with the conclusion that after adjusting for age, sex and co-morbidities, those receiving Vitamin D, Magnesium and B12 ended up needing oxygen support therapies about 6.5 times less often.
Six and a half times less often!! In a controlled trial!
Here’s a quote from the conclusions of the article. Note that “DMB combination” is a reference to the combination of Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12.
DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supports further larger randomized control trials to ascertain the full benefit of DMB in ameliorating COVID-19 severity.
I’d call that compelling evidence indeed. With this much evidence out, it seems to me that it would now be negligent NOT to start putting these insights into action, especially when you consider this evidence in the context of the current pandemic, combined with a worldwide and national (US) prevalence of deficiency in Vitamin D (fact #3), a Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin D that’s ten times lower than it ought to be (fact #4), and more.
Among the imperatives, Karl urges that:
- Hospitals and doctors should test the vitamin D blood levels of all COVID-19 positive patients, and raise them to at least 30ng/ml
- Governments should prioritize eradicating Vitamin D deficiency (<30ng/ml) as a top priority for controlling the pandemic, in addition to social distancing and wearing masks.
- All government agencies should increase all recommendations (RDA, DV, DRI...) to 4000 IU of D3.
Again, I urge all of you to read Karl’s one page summary, or if you have the time and interest for it, the full article. I’d especially recommend that you read these if you’re involved in any way with looking after the health of others, especially Covid-19 patients.
A few quick disclosures:
- I’m not a doctor, nor was I trained in medicine; my background is in science & engineering.
- Karl Pfleger, the author of the main article I’m citing, also has no degree in medicine, although he’s worked in biotech for four years, and has followed the science relating nutrition & lifestyle to long-term health for 2 decades. In reading his papers, it’s evident to me that he’s learned a lot on the job.
- It is possible to take too much supplemental Vitamin D, just like almost anything else we can put into our bodies, and no one is recommending that you do. However, it’s safer than many people make it out to be. Nineteen international organizations say that 4000 IU/day is a safe dose, and the Endocrine Society argues that up to 10,000 IU/day is safe.
Because I’m not a doctor, nor trained in a health-related field, I’d appreciate some feedback from people who are. Have I deeply misunderstood something? Left something out, that should have been included?
Considering that we’re still in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and millions of people have just attended political rallies and perhaps (but hopefully not) gotten teargassed because of it, I think it’s urgent to get this information out there, as quickly as we can manage it.
I think this information could save some lives, and that’s worth doing.
I hope you’ll help me spread this message.
Friday, Jun 12, 2020 · 5:21:28 AM +00:00
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Alfred D Newman
Update:
A few of the most-recent studies referenced by this diary, and also by the papers authored by Karl Pfleger, are preprints and have not yet been certified by peer review. They report new medical research that has yet to be evaluated or accepted by the medical community. It’s possible that the information found in these new studies may be found to be erroneous.