Dr. Erik Hermstad Covid-19 vitamin D opening plan.

[ElizabethB]

From his twitter, eHermstad.

"Nationally, we should be mass testing vitamin D levels. Those who are insufficient or deficient quarantine and treat until level is ~35. Those who have normal levels and no major risk factors return to activities with proper infection control practices.  Check D and release."

"Please prove me wrong. What percentage of your admitted (ICU or floor) patients under, say 70 years old, with no other obvious risk factors have vitamin D levels over 30?Bueller?...Bueller?"

He is an Emergency Physician in Colorado who is surveying his patients' vitamin D levels.

 

Maybe Sweden could test it out for us, I think vitamin D will help but I don't personally want to be a guinea pig.

 

I do think we should do mass vitamin D awareness and perhaps testing, many people don't realize how many people are deficient and how helpful vitamin D is.

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by ElizabethB

[Pen]

2 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

From his twitter, eHermstad.

"Nationally, we should be mass testing vitamin D levels. Those who are insufficient or deficient quarantine and treat until level is ~35. Those who have normal levels and no major risk factors return to activities with proper infection control practices.  Check D and release."

"Please prove me wrong. What percentage of your admitted (ICU or floor) patients under, say 70 years old, with no other obvious risk factors have vitamin D levels over 30?Bueller?...Bueller?"

He is an Emergency Physician in Colorado who is surveying his patients' vitamin D levels.

 

Maybe Sweden could test it out for us, I think vitamin D will help but I don't personally want to be a guinea pig.

 

I do think we should do mass vitamin D awareness and perhaps testing, many people don't realize how many people are deficient and how helpful vitamin D is.

 

 

 

 

I think vitamin D will help and people should not be deficient or insufficient regardless of CV19.  It is involved in so very many aspects of health! 

And I think we need excellent Vitamin D level testing of various categories of CV19 infected, severely ill, Asymptomatic etc to get more information on how much help it is for CV19.  I’d love to know in cases like couples in same little stateroom on cruise ship where one got sick, one did not even become positive for virus what their D levels were. 

  It would be very nice if Sweden would check, but I think we need to do our own testing. 

 I don’t think it is going to be magic in and of itself if all Social Distancing etc suddenly ends. (I think there would be less trouble in Brazil if D were the only factor,  less sure about Ecuador, though 🤷‍♀️ Though, Maybe even in Brazil at end of summer there are lots of Vitamin D deficient or insufficient people? 🤷‍♀️  Old closed in people, indoors business people, clothes and sunscreen wearing people, dark skinned people who aren’t out enough to make enough?  Idk. )

  I expect Vitamin D is likely necessary, but not alone sufficient to protect against CV19. 

But What does he mean by “proper infection control practices”? 

And what/who  is “Bueller”?

[ElizabethB]

5 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

But What does he mean by “proper infection control practices”? 

And what/who  is “Bueller”?

I would think infection control practices would be masks, spacing, disinfecting, etc.

Bueller is from Ferris Bueller's day off.  The classroom scene, the dry professor asks, "Bueller, Bueller, anyone?"

 

[BlsdMama]

Vitamin D is sexy right now. Will it help the immune compromised? I’ve been reading some believe glutathione helps and should, therefore take glutathione and NAC. Truth is, all would help. We are woefully deficient in providing our bodies healthy sun exposure and real food. 

[Ausmumof3]

“Researchers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation Trust and the University of East Anglia in England compared the average vitamin D levels of 20 European countries with COVID-19 mortality rates — and found “significant relationships” between vitamin D levels and the number of deaths caused by this infection.

The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, notes sun-starved “Nordic” countries are among the most at risk, reports the New York Post.

“We believe that we can advise vitamin D supplementation to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection,” the researchers wrote.”

I put this in the giant thread but it’s probably relevant here as well

[Ausmumof3]

Also I love that what someone was doing here in this board is something that scientists are looking at as well.  You guys are the best 

[Pen]

43 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

Vitamin D is sexy right now. Will it help the immune compromised? I’ve been reading some believe glutathione helps and should, therefore take glutathione and NAC. Truth is, all would help. We are woefully deficient in providing our bodies healthy sun exposure and real food. 

 

Trying out how to reply without it sounding like medical advice.  🤷‍♀️

Yes.  If suboptimal on Vitamin D, it is extremely important.  

For example, Some/many people with autoimmunity who have tried it find that they can go into remission/avoid flares by maintaining a high (high optimal, not high dangerous) Vitamin D level.   (I use Vitamin D among other things to manage my own AI. NAC is one of the “among other things” too. ) 

Thank you for mentioning NAC /glutathione.(and real food, sunshine.  We could add clean potable water, fresh air, exercise...)

That’s a good example of why I think good vitamin D level is necessary, but not in itself alone sufficient, for severe CV19 prevention.  If someone gets up to optimal level on Vitamin D, but is deficient in something else like glutathione (but could be other things too), I think they are still likely to have CV19 problems if / when they catch it. 

Otoh, I think if everything else is good, but Vitamin D is low, they are still likely to have CV19 problems.  

I emphasized Vitamin D starting fairly early in the long thread, however, because so very very many people do have deficient, insufficient, low Vitamin D status these days.  There are many other things that would also be a problem if low, but that are much much less likely to be low. And or that would be much harder to figure out and solve, at all, or safely, or cost effectively.

Either with food, supplements, or sunshine, low vitamin D is probably a problem that can be solved for most people, and lower than optimal Vitamin D level is a problem for ? 50% ish  of people?  More in wintertime? 

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Pen

[ElizabethB]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

“Researchers at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation Trust and the University of East Anglia in England compared the average vitamin D levels of 20 European countries with COVID-19 mortality rates — and found “significant relationships” between vitamin D levels and the number of deaths caused by this infection.

The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, notes sun-starved “Nordic” countries are among the most at risk, reports the New York Post.

“We believe that we can advise vitamin D supplementation to protect against SARS-CoV2 infection,” the researchers wrote.”

I put this in the giant thread but it’s probably relevant here as well

I made a similar graph with a few more countries.  I also found, interestingly, that France has very low vitamin D levels in the north, 43 nmol/L vs. 80 nmol/L in the south.  Most of France's Covid-19 deaths are in the north.

[Scarlett]

I think it is possible that higher Vit d levels corresponds to overall better health thus better resistance.....so just boosting Vit D might not be the cure all.....but really I have no real knowledge. Myself as an example....I think of myself as healthy.....I am not overweight, I have never smoked, not diabetic, no high blood pressure—BUT my Vit D level has been as low as 17.  The Only other thing I have going on is AFib, currently managed without meds.  
 

I also never get the flu and never get a flu shot.  I am starting to wonder if I have some sort of natural immunity to it.  But the covid19 is not the flu and I sure don’t want to be a test patient....so I am doing all I can to not get it.  And it is making life different for sure., 

[Scarlett]

https://www.sciencealert.com/covid-deaths-are-being-linked-with-vitamin-d-deficiency-here-s-what-that-means
 

I know nothing about this source. 

[ElizabethB]

15 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

I think it is possible that higher Vit d levels corresponds to overall better health thus better resistance.....so just boosting Vit D might not be the cure all.....but really I have no real knowledge. Myself as an example....I think of myself as healthy.....I am not overweight, I have never smoked, not diabetic, no high blood pressure—BUT my Vit D level has been as low as 17.  The Only other thing I have going on is AFib, currently managed without meds.  
 

I also never get the flu and never get a flu shot.  I am starting to wonder if I have some sort of natural immunity to it.  But the covid19 is not the flu and I sure don’t want to be a test patient....so I am doing all I can to not get it.  And it is making life different for sure., 

I have a LinkedIn article with a ton of vitamin D correlations if you are interested. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vitamin-d-covid-correlations-keep-coming-liz-brown/

The Covid specific vitamin D studies are all correlational.  But, there was a meta study of 11,000+ patients reported in the British Medical Journal where they supplemented people or placebo and then compared their rate and serverity of getting respiratory diseases, daily and weekly but not single large dosing of vitamin D decreased the percentage of people who got respiratory diseases and reduced their severity for those who got it, with the largest effects for those lowest in vitamin D at the start. 

BJM study: https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583

Easier to read article about the BJM study: https://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/blog/detail/blog/2019/05/14/can-vitamin-d-ward-off-acute-respiratory-tract-infections