Another good reason to take vitamin d

[LAJ12345]

Interestingly seems effective in children not adults but surely worth taking anyway.

who.int/elena/titles/commen...

“Discussion

Applicability of the results

Three of the reviews consistently showed a benefit of vitamin D supplementation for preventing respiratory tract infection mainly in children younger than 16 years (10–12). Two of the reviews also reported that the protective effect is observed only when single daily doses are used but not when bolus doses are given (10, 12). One review further showed that doses of 800 IU or less were protective of respiratory tract infections, but not higher doses (12). However, this protective role was not seen for pneumonia, as reported by Yakoob et al. (9) from only two trials.

It is important to note that most reviews reported significant heterogeneity, which may make the generalizability of the results difficult. This heterogeneity may be due to several reasons, including some publication bias, but also methodological issues, such as low numbers of trials, vitamin D supplementation regime used and heterogeneity of participants’ characteristics. With respect of vitamin D supplementation regime, these reviews showed that the size of the dose and the administration intervals might modify the effects of vitamin D supplementation on respiratory tract infections. Daily smaller doses were more effective than single large boluses of vitamin D. In fact, studies have shown that large boluses may in some cases increase the risk of adverse outcomes, such as increased risk of pneumonia, suppressed proliferative responses of peripheral blood monocytes, suppressed inflammation, and greater positive sputum cultures (13–16). With respect to participant’s characteristics, body mass index as well as baseline vitamin D status may modify the 25-hydroxyvitamin D response to vitamin D supplementation (15, 17, 18).

Implementation in settings with limited resources

Vitamin D supplementation for preventing respiratory tract infection is not routinely done. For this intervention to be effective, it should be done continuously, before the respiratory tract infection starts. This could be a major challenge in many under-resourced settings, as programme managers and policy-makers will have to plan for procurement of the preparation, storage, distribution, quality-control, and compliance assurance of vitamin D supplements for children on a routine basis. Failures in implementation of this intervention have been attributed in many instances to inadequate infrastructure and poor compliance, particularly in developing countries. Intermittent vitamin D supplementation would reduce some of these challenges, although results from these trials show that bolus doses are not effective. Future studies could evaluate the effectiveness of different dosing schemes on respiratory tract infections, such as once a week, which may be easier to implement.“

[LAJ12345]

Note large monthly doses like doctors seem to dish out might increase the risk of pneumonia so start with a low dose daily one before you get sick.

[park_bear]

According to each of the three systematic reviews cited on the page that you linked to, vitamin D is effective in reducing incidence of respiratory infections among adults. So this is a good find!

Also these reviews found that daily or weekly dosing was superior to large bolus dosing.

[LAJ12345 in reply to park_bear]

I also found n acetyl cysteine i.e. NAC helps thin mucus and helps liver detox I think.

I think this is another thing people are already taking. It’s in restore gold and Hardy’s den for example, and lots of other supplements formulations.

thelancet.com/pdfs/journals...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/197...

It seems to be selling out everywhere so I guess others have had the same thought. If you can’t buy it now but want it maybe it’s time to trial Hardy’s or restore gold! Hardy’s has vitamins and zinc too.

[park_bear in reply to LAJ12345]

Oh yes I do take NAC. I buy in bulk and compound my own capsules using 24% calcium hydroxide by weight to neutralize the acidity. It was found in a study published in PLOS to improve Parkinson's but that may be because they used it by IV.

[alexask]

theguardian.com/world/2020/...

I would probably think that given the poor girl is Asian, covers up and has just been through an English winter, unless she has been supplementing, her vitamin D levels would be very low. More evidence that you need to keep up vitamin D levels.