This in the Daily Mail this morning
dailymail.co.uk/health/arti...
One of the side effects of this might be panic buying and Vit D disappearing off the shelves. Hope this doesn't happen.
John Campbell was talking yesterday about dogs and even rats being trained to sniff out COVID-19. Seems like a brilliant idea, they can detect it several days before a person gets symptoms. Wonder how long they take to train.
And how will people react to being sniffed by a rat!! Wouldn't bother me!
This would be wonderful if it were confirmed as there's been this kind of news once before and it was soon refuted. The previous studies led NICE in the UK to make a statement that taking vitamin D will not help either with the prevention or the treatment of Covid-19.
Form what I could glean, it might well be that those who catch and suffer worse with Covid-19 are "low" in vitamin D, but for reasons other than that they're not eating enough of the vitamin in their diets (or taking as a supplement). It seems likely (from earlier work) that the link with vitamin D levels is complex and that some other medical or genetic issue had reduced their vitamin D levels, predisposing them to a poor Covid-19 outcome. Also, it was shown that to get the vitamin blood levels up to the required level needed extremely high daily doses of the vitamin, far in excess of the recommended daily intake, and potentially toxic.
Let's hope NICE looks again and finds that this latest claim holds up.
Steve
Last June this was in the Telegraph
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0...
Yesterday they said this
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0...
Well done for finding those. It suggests that the quality of journalism at the good old Telegraph isn’t what it was.
I tend to suspect the new claims regarding taking extra vitamin D, myself, given what was published before this new Boston university study (except that Vitamin D does indeed seem to be “low” in those prone to Covid - although I gather that measuring it meaningfully also seems difficult).
Still - we live in hope in these darkened times. We bought a year’s supply when the last lot of news came out but then stopped taking it when NICE refuted it so categorically. It also seemed to cause indigestion!
Steve
Try taking it with magnesium. But then I seem to remember you are against that too. Well good luck with your confidence in NICE. They are also the ones who recommend that millions of healthy people take statins on the evidence of trials conducted by manufacturers who refuse categorically to let anyone see their full data.
Oh, I’m not against anything that works - even if by placebo, but yes, I do trust to science to give us the facts of the matter as best as they can be found out.
NICE review the scientific evidence only. Sometimes their conclusions are questionable and maybe even politically driven - but I’m hardly qualified to question them.
I’ve read a very great deal on the use of Vitamin D and haven’t formed a view that it is needed in the quantities Holick recommended. It’s difficult for me to accept that a decent natural diet won’t fulfill our micro-nutrient requirement and especially that lab-produced mega doses are helpful out safe - but I know you feel differently.
Steve
There is very little vit D in diet. The only significant quantities are in oily fish, egg yolks and liver. Any in dairy products relies on the cows being raised traditionally not shut up in indoor facilities. How many people in the UK eat the amount of oily fish that is consumed in Scandinavia? As I pointed out we evolved to make it in our skins from sun exposure and we evolved in Africa. The evolution of pale skin is probably a response to less sun exposure as people populated areas further away from the equator. Holick himself recommends that the ideal way to get vit D is from sun exposure and his book contains very useful tables for amounts of sun exposure needed to make adequate levels of vit D depending on skin type , time of day and season. BUT he points out that it is impossible to make vitD in much of the northern hemisphere from mid September to mid April and in order to make enough to see people through the winter you have to do whole body sunbathing regularly. Old skin makes one third that of young skin. Holick reckons to take nearly 3000 iu in summer and says there is no danger in taking 5000iu every day year round. What all the serious vitD researchers recommend is that dosing should be individual to bring people up to and then maintain at a level that protects their overall health . And that level is way above what is considered adequate in the UK. No wonder BAME people were dying at twice the rate of white people. They have even worse levels of deficiency as the sun available in the UK is not enough to provoke vit D production in melanin rich skin. And don't say it's all because they are poor and discriminated against. It started with well paid consultant docs .
Have you ever actually had your vit D levels tested to verify your belief that a natural decent diet is sufficient? Maybe you are a naturist?
"so cheap no big firm is promoting it"-that says it all.
The recommended daily doses are wrong by a factor of 10. Somewhere I have read an explanation of this ( it was due to a faulty calculation way back in the 20th century) but I can't remember where. Holick is one of the foremost vit D researchers in the world for the past 40 years and has written a book called " The Vitamin D Solution " which is essential reading for those interested in the benefits of vit D.. What Holick and the other leading vit D researchers are saying has NOT been refuted. Their research is solid. The problem is that a huge number of RCT trials of vit D supplementation are badly conducted. Their main problem is that they stick to a one size fits all dosage often far too small ie within or just above the RDVs . They then find no benefit. There are trials where much larger doses have been used or where dosing is individualised so that a set blood level is reached - these do show benefit and just as important no toxicity. If you are taking NICE's last statement on vit D and covid as any kind of refutation you are mistaken. Their choice of data was biased. I would recommend you to read the comments of Dr David Grimes on his blog re NICE's nonsense. Since their statement there have been many other studies showing the same thing- a strong correlation between low vit D and poor covid outcomes. More importantly there has been the RCT at Reina Sofia University Hospital in Cordoba showing an amazing benefit of Calcifediol as treatment in covid patients. NICE 's statement was plain wrong especially as at the time they made it no RCT using vit D as a treatment for covid had yet reported and the studies they picked for use of vit D to prevent other respiratory viral complications were not representative . Toxicity is again a red herring. It is not the dose of vit D that promotes toxicity but the blood level. A spell of full body exposure to midday sun for half an hour can generate 5, 000-15,000 iu depending on skin tone. Enormous doses of vit D can be taken in order to raise levels quickly. I ( and thousands of other French men and women ) have taken ampoules of 200,000iu or 400,000iu with no toxicity whatsover. Toxicity only occurs once the blood level reaches over a certain point. Here in France this is set at 100ng/l . Holick and colleagues have conducted experiments taking very large doses of vit D till blood levels above 100ng /l are reached and have found very little toxicity below 150ng/l. If you are interested to read about it D trials go to vitamindwiki. It is virtually imposible to get enough vit D from diet alone without eating huge amounts of oily fish. We are designed to make it from sun exposure and various factors over the past 50 years have lead to widespread deficiency because this is not happening. One of the factors is the propaganda from dermatologists ( backed by sun screen manufacturers ) that the sun is our enemy. One of the interesting bits of data from the research in this article was that those who had very high vit D levels 40ng/l + had the least risk of a bad covid outcome . It has been shown that Masai herdsmen leading their traditional lives have an average of 49ng/l. Holick himself and the other vit D researchers actually recommend 40ng/l as the minimum level for overall good health. The UK level for sufficiency as endorsed by SACN and NICE is 50nmol/l (20ng/l) . And most people don't even attain that!
Dear Auriculaire
I am a bit concerned as to what you are quoting
50nmol/l is 20 micrograms/l not ng/l, and both NICE and SACN quote figures in microgram/l - that's 1000 times what you are quoting as the NICE figure for UK sufficiency.
Just saying..
You are correct. On my blood test results both measurements are given and the mcg is expressed with the Greek symbol. Nevertheless for some reason the levels in America and Europe are often written as ng/l. I do not know why this is . I think it must be a mistake and should be ng/ml. This is used in the Holick study .The conversion formula is to multiply this by 2and1/2 to get the nmol value. No matter how it is expressed the level for sufficiency in the UK is way below that for most of the rest of Europe. On my vit D blood test results the norms for sufficiency , insufficiency and frank deficiency for France are given and 50nmol / l is classed as insufficient. Suffiency starts at 75nmol/l.
The conversion factor only applies for Vitamin D of course, other compounds whether vitamins or other supplements will have different conversion factors. And it only works for nmol/l to micrograms/l or ng/ml. otherwise the conversion as originally written would mean you were taking helium 
Agree that UK is only starting to push for higher Vit D levels - rickets is still present even at very low numbers in the UK. and I find that horror among health professionals is frequently expressed about other supplements (towards patients).
I'm not saying all supplements have equal validity mind you, but consider it's up to the individual what depth of research they do before taking anything.
Unfortunately one of the consequences of pushing breast feeding has been vitD deficiency in some infants and rickets . A breast fed infant can only get vit D from their mothers milk if the mother has a sufficient supply . Rickets was taken far more seriously 60 years ago. Growing up in dull and rainy Lancashire I remember being sent for UVB lamp treatment and dosed with disgusting cod liver oil every day. The district nurse had detected a hint of bandiness in my legs. I'm sure it was genetic but no chances were taken.
I recall having cod liver oil as well (don't recall being the slightest bit bandy) even after we moved back south from Scotland. I still shudder just thinking about the taste - yuk!
And we were a lot more active/outside I think than present youngsters (cringes, waiting for avalanche of examples of fit healthy outside loving youngsters of today)
People in general spend less time outdoors. Cars, office jobs, TV, computers. We evolved to get our Vit D from the sun. People used to live in villages, grow their own food before the Industrial Revolution, Enclosures Act and all that. There was no glass in windows to stop the uv radiation getting in.
On the other hand we can get Vit D tablets and drops and they are just as good. Wonder what our ancestors would have thought of that.
The sun has other benefits - it kills germs, UVA generates nitric oxide which is good for blood pressure, wound healing is accelerated by sunlight. Living too much indoors is not good for us. I love being outside -in summer I can't stand being indoors . So my house is a pigsty. It has to wait for rainy weather to get cleaned.
This is what Dr David Grimes is saying 6th July
drdavidgrimes.com/2020/07/c...
Yesterday the Daily Mail article said “What's more, those with particularly high vitamin D levels - 40 ng/mL - were at the lowest risk of death, with just 6.3 percent of that group dying.”
Backed up by the Telegraph. All a bit late for some people.
Quite. The vit D researchers like Holick, Grant and Cannell have been recommending a minimum of 40ng/ml for years . God knows when the likes of SACN and NICE will catch up. SACN's recommendations for intake are purely to prevent rickets and osteomalacia. They pay no attention whatsoever to immune function or other roles of vit D in metabolism. Grimes is very proactive in trying to raise the vit D levels of hid BAME patients.
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