Vit-D and COVID19 update: big review (Benskin) peer reviewed; tide turning?

[kpfleger]

For months I updated my review of evidence that low D worsens C19. Is the tide starting to turn? (As it did for masks.) Hopeful signs lately. And time to go back to other things. So here's a sign-off update:

Benskin's great review: www.researchgate.net/publication/342976453_A_Basic_Review_of_the_Preliminary_Evidence_that_Covid-19_Risk_and_Severity_is_Increased_in_Vitamin_D_Deficiency is I'm told peer reviewed & accepted. Been in review a while so some stuff out-of-date: Shouldn't include withdrawn Indonesian study & Jun-16 cut-off misses important Israel study & others, but author gets criticism of bad studies right, notes the mistake in setting RDA & has great comprehensive review of early mechanism papers & group-level association studies.

There's been suspicion the D+C19 relationship is explicitly suppressed by various forces. I'm not going to dig into that. I hope someone does someday. Will those on the correct side be rewarded & naysayers/suppressors judged by history?

Despite antipathy, recent weeks have seen many more mechanism papers & other reviews plus a change in media tone. Eg "There has been a clear shift in recent weeks towards putting a greater emphasis on the role of vitamin D in public health messaging." www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/vitamin-d-keep-you-safe-18690173

Vit D now the top trending clinical topic on Medscape: reference.medscape.com/viewarticle/933781

I've been updating my review & 1pager as studies come out but will now stop paying close attention to get back to work on aging bio. No idea if I've helped with D/C19, but mostly out of my hands now. Happy to make updates to my 1pager agingbiotech.info/vitamindcovid19facts for important items if contacted.

Aging is an even bigger risk factor for C19 than low D, just less easily modified but not immutable. More in my Tweet'ed version of this message: twitter.com/KarlPfleger/status/1293679019716558848

[AlchemistCamp]

> There's been suspicion the D+C19 relationship is explicitly suppressed by various forces.

Why would anyone want to suppress that kind of information?

[kpfleger]

Some point the figure at big pharma. I've no evidence of any foul play, but the pharma industry would lose money if a large fraction of their revenue comes from drugs to treat conditions that are at least in part the consequence of inadequate vitamin D.

There seems to be more to it than that. Probably partially lack of belief that anything so simple, cheap, and easy could be such a help. I believe a similar skepticism surrounded mask use (and still does for a minority of folks).

And lack of the medical system (notably doctors) receiving much training in micronutrients.

And some amount of conservatism on the part of the bodies that do things like set RDAs. The IoM (now NAM) in the US was clearly being very conservative in its setting of the UL and its refusal to up the RDA when its statistical mistake in setting it was pointed out. And in the UK the recent NICE study was super-conservative (some would say narrow-minded) to only consider peer reviewed & published studies when it did a rapid review of D for C19 evidence.

But all this is just wild speculation to give you some idea since you asked. I would love to read the behind the scenes expose someday. Meantime I'm limiting myself to the evidence not looking into the conspiracy theories.