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Just now, Don H. said:

My regular Dr (an internal medicine specialist) recommended D3 supplements to me years ago due to a family history of osteoporosis and my test results.  The stuff around coronavirus is very nice to know, but isn't why I started on D3.  I think the link between D3 and calcium uptake is well proven.

One of my former colleagues, a research fellow in what might be the leading company making soy protein isolates, was quite convinced after his extensive study of the literature that Omega fish oils had a beneficial effect on inflammation.  He was unambiguous in his conclusions that they were worth taking.  'Course, that was 10-15 years ago now and we probably know a lot more and I'm not up to date on the latest work.

Don,

Were it not for my Parkinsons id have been oblivious to D3 even now. Its a key part of my DIY regime.

Check out low dose aspirin (75mg) and DHA-EPA. They generate resolvins to resolve inflammation. https://www.jci.org/articles/view/97943

I take omega3s daily and low dose aspirin 2 to4 days week

Peter

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2 minutes ago, Peter Cobbold said:

...I take omega3s daily and low dose aspirin 2 to4 days week...

Me too, Peter.  The omega 3 due to my discussion with my colleague in the mid 2000s, and aspirin for much longer than that -- probably before its common use for heart/stroke were promoted.  My body seems to really like aspirin.  I don't always use low dose (80mg) either -- often it's a regular 325mg tablet, to my doctors' frustration.  But I know how I feel.

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2 minutes ago, Don H. said:

Me too, Peter.  The omega 3 due to my discussion with my colleague in the mid 2000s, and aspirin for much longer than that -- probably before its common use for heart/stroke were promoted.  My body seems to really like aspirin.  I don't always use low dose (80mg) either -- often it's a regular 325mg tablet, to my doctors' frustration.  But I know how I feel.

Don, to get resolvins the low dose is important as higher doses destroy the resolvins by extending the reaction sequence. It was in one of Serhan's earlier papers, he was very specific. Peter

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2 hours ago, PaulAnderson said:

I have a D3 page on the Apple news App saved on my iPad so have seen a fair number of articles querying whether there is anything to D3 in various publications.   Here’s a typical one in our own local newspaper.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/vitamin-d-keep-you-safe-18690173

Paul

Paul. News journalists are not the most informed sources of science topics. While the web is full of even less accurate rubbish there are blogs that are on the scientific money re D3 and immunity:

http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/09/

https://www.drbannonsblog.com/2020/09/vitamin-d-some-good-news.html

The campaign group to which I belong is producing a press release signed by international D3 and immunity expert researchers and clinicians. I will link to it on here as soon as it goes live.

The Martineau study gets lots of press attantion, here's whats wrong with it:  D3 doses were too low;  https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2618/rapid-responses

Peter

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Peter Cobbold said:

Paul. News journalists are not the most informed sources of science topics. While the web is full of even less accurate rubbish there are blogs that are on the scientific money re D3 and immunity:

http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/09/

https://www.drbannonsblog.com/2020/09/vitamin-d-some-good-news.html

The campaign group to which I belong is producing a press release signed by international D3 and immunity expert researchers and clinicians. I will link to it on here as soon as it goes live.

The Martineau study gets lots of press attantion, here's whats wrong with it:  D3 doses were too low;  https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2618/rapid-responses

Peter

 

 

 

link should be; https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2618/rr

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Dr Michael Holick PhD MD is world famous for his D3 research, he discovered the active hormone 1,25(OH)D in 1969. In this paper he shows that covid severity is reduced above a serum level of  25(OH)D of 30ng/ml. In european units that is 75nmol/L. The UK average is just below 50 nmol/L.

He explains the  paper in this video:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?type=supplementary&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0239799.s001

The paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239799

Peter

 

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Some of us are getting a bit bored by VitD evangelism.    Here's something new and important:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/25/science.abd4570     "Inborn errors of TLR3- and IRF7-dependent type I IFN immunity can underlie life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in patients with no prior severe infection."     Patients who suffer severe Covid are more likely to have a genetic inability to respond to infection by interferon secretion.

AND https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/09/23/science.abd4585  "101 of 987 patients with life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia had neutralizing IgG auto-Abs against IFN-ω [interferon]"   Those with severe disease had previous autoimmune response that stops any interferon they produce from working.

The next Q is, what is the significance of this for BAME people?   Both papers are multi-author, from multiple centres but in Europe and the US, so there must have been BAME patients in the study.      The first mentioned the "ethnic heterogeneity" of their cohorts, so there may have been a difference, but they did not comment.  The second listed the ancestries of their patients, who had PCA studied, and were from Europe, North Africa, Sub-Sahara, Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and South America.    The distribution suggests a bias away from BAME, but the authors said that a much larger study was required to determine this.

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John,  

The results you cite are in line with emerging evidence that  antibody responses ( of adaptive system) to the virus can themselves injurious if they target the virus' receptor binding  domain:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-covid-discovery-children-vaccines-treatments.html

In other words antibodies generated against the virus may not all be beneficial and can be injurious. There are implications for vaccine safety.

The anti-IFN antibodies in your cited papers may have been pre-existing before virus infection, auto-antibodies. That would indeed impair anti-viral responses. As would the loss of function mutations. Both papers point to the desirability of avoiding the need for antibody defences. That is feasible by ensuring D3 is high enough to activate innate immunity that does not involve antibodies.

Holick shows that adequate D3 eliminates testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 using the standard RT-PCR test. Bearing in mind the exquisite sensitivity of PCR that is an amazing finding. This promotion of innate immune defences comes first, the antibody defences are slower and secondary. It appears to me that the advantage of having decent D3 is its promotion of first line, innate defences ( eg cathelicidin and other AMPs, and epithelial integrity) is it destroys the virus extracelluarly in the fluid bathing mucosa without inducing antibodies.

Black Africans and SE Asians have lower 25(OH)D3 than caucasian populations. I would look for autoimmunity to IFN resulting from that; perhaps a failed innate response to an environmental trigger.

Peter

 

 

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3 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

Some of us are getting a bit bored by VitD evangelism.   

 

Hi John,

if you do not like what a learned friend has to say then do not read it. But, do not sway others by your stupidity.

Perhaps logging onto the NICE site might cheer you up as they don't get it either.

Yesterday I posted on a local forum in Hayes about the possible good that D3 may have with our significant black community.  Some snide little sh*t immediately posted that he was geting a bit cheesed off with people posting what I posted on social media.

So I replied apologising for possibly saving somebodies life. I then contacted the site moderators and asked to be removed from such a bigoted site. Free speech apparently isn;t allowed.

My removal was confirmed this morning. There was also a post from a local saying to the snide that if he didn;t like what he read then don't read it in future. Sadly I couldn't thank him.  

 

Roger

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Gents everyone is entitled to a view on reviewing the evidence. Johns comments, as a retired medical practitioner are perfectly valid.
Roger your comment is unnecessary and I find insulting. 

Iain

 

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12 minutes ago, RogerH said:

Hi John,

if you do not like what a learned friend has to say then do not read it. But, do not sway others by your stupidity.

Perhaps logging onto the NICE site might cheer you up as they don't get it either.

Yesterday I posted on a local forum in Hayes about the possible good that D3 may have with our significant black community.  Some snide little sh*t immediately posted that he was geting a bit cheesed off with people posting what I posted on social media.

So I replied apologising for possibly saving somebodies life. I then contacted the site moderators and asked to be removed from such a bigoted site. Free speech apparently isn;t allowed.

My removal was confirmed this morning. There was also a post from a local saying to the snide that if he didn;t like what he read then don't read it in future. Sadly I couldn't thank him.  

 

Roger

Hi Roger, John has his view, I have mine, so no worries.

It is unusual for a 'lay' audience to see scinece results playing out in real time, in the raw. So I hope the followers of this thread realise that they are seeing how science gradually reaches an understanding: ie knowledge. It is far from a smooth organised process, lots of arguments.

I am not surprised at the antagonism you experienced. I think the BAME communties see covid as revealing the many social and economic disadvantages thay  have long suffered. So anything that points to another explanation eg D3 they see as detracting from their campaign. Hence the vitriol you experienced. I once emailed the Runnymede Trusr director re D3 and never got a reply. The evidence  that BAME NHS doctors, who can hardly claim social and economic disadvantege, are especially prone to death from COVID has been pointed out by Dr Grimes: http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/04/vitamin-d-and-doctors-in-uk-dying-from.html

His latest blog-post hints at dark anti-D3 forces at play: http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2020/09/

At some point quite soon some other government desiring to exit the pandemic will mandate decent-sized D3 supplements and the cat will be exiting the bag. Good science always comes out on top

Peter

 

 

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Peter,

have you seen?  https://m.guardian.ng/features/pineapple-cure-for-covid-19/amp/

A little overblown perhaps but interesting properties of bromelain.

Another site reports :-

Today BBC World News reports most Nigerians believe the pandemic is a hoax possibly because so few people have died (1103 to date). Like here, most people testing positive are asymptomatic but locals are suspicious because healthcare workers get bonuses for every case they find. As one might expect their diet is very different to ours and they eat way more fresh fruit and veggies than we do. Pineapple production is the main source of income for many farmers but local markets are also flooded with low-cost imports making this tropical plant one of the most popular fruits in the country.

That’s why this new study from the University of Nebraska is so interesting.  Researchers discovered the bromelain in pineapples not only inhibits the ACE2 receptor but also degrades the spike protein on the virus.  


Study authors report “For the first time, our results demonstrate that bromelain - isolated from pineapple stem and used as a dietary supplement - can inhibit (the Coronavirus) infection by targeting all three host ACE-2 and TMPRSS2, and (Coronavirus) S-proteins.”

 

Alan

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1 hour ago, iain said:

Gents everyone is entitled to a view on reviewing the evidence. Johns comments, as a retired medical practitioner are perfectly valid.
Roger your comment is unnecessary and I find insulting. 

Iain

 

Hi Iain,

I found John's opening line also insulting. So does that make everybody even.

 

Roger

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28 minutes ago, barkerwilliams said:

Peter,

have you seen?  https://m.guardian.ng/features/pineapple-cure-for-covid-19/amp/

A little overblown perhaps but interesting properties of bromelain.

Another site reports :-

Today BBC World News reports most Nigerians believe the pandemic is a hoax possibly because so few people have died (1103 to date). Like here, most people testing positive are asymptomatic but locals are suspicious because healthcare workers get bonuses for every case they find. As one might expect their diet is very different to ours and they eat way more fresh fruit and veggies than we do. Pineapple production is the main source of income for many farmers but local markets are also flooded with low-cost imports making this tropical plant one of the most popular fruits in the country.

That’s why this new study from the University of Nebraska is so interesting.  Researchers discovered the bromelain in pineapples not only inhibits the ACE2 receptor but also degrades the spike protein on the virus.  


Study authors report “For the first time, our results demonstrate that bromelain - isolated from pineapple stem and used as a dietary supplement - can inhibit (the Coronavirus) infection by targeting all three host ACE-2 and TMPRSS2, and (Coronavirus) S-proteins.”

 

Alan

Fascinating !  Many proposed neutraceuticasl fail to cross the gut wall so in vitro studies are often no use therapeutically But bioavailability of bromelain looks OK. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bharat_Kwatra2/publication/337745347_A_REVIEW_ON_POTENTIAL_PROPERTIES_AND_THERAPEUTIC_APPLICATIONS_OF_BROMELAIN/links/5de819cea6fdcc2837067265/A-REVIEW-ON-POTENTIAL-PROPERTIES-AND-THERAPEUTIC-APPLICATIONS-OF-BROMELAIN.pdf

-but its in the stems of pineapples - maybe not so much in  the fruit ???

Nigerian women  have a pretty good 25(OH)D compared with Chicago counterparts, and close to the 'safe' level described by Holick:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3980939/

I'm not a fan of xenobiotics but in a pandemic nothing should be thrown out of court.

Peter

 

 

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6 hours ago, RogerH said:

Hi Iain,

I found John's opening line also insulting. So does that make everybody even.

 

Roger

I don’t think so.

OED definition of evangelical “wanting very much to persuade people to accept your views and opinions”

A perfectly acceptable turn of phrase in this instance on both counts.

Iain

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/26/how-to-know-if-you-have-a-vitamin-d-deficiency.html

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golly, never thought I'd see Roger get cranky at anything. 
Obviously he's pretty impressed with the info that Peter has been providing us with.
To me Peter has been using a slightly evangelical approach to get his message across on the benefits he sees from Vit D3. Especially earlier on, no one else was even mentioning it as a possible benefit, so I was happy that he pushed the message.
Personally I'm relying on the Oz sun to provide me with enough of it, my bald head ups my dose quite a bit, and the quick action by Australian medical/administrative authorities has limited the effects of the Covid virus over here. Victoria is doing the worst of our States. here in the ACT we haven't had a case for ages. With Sommer y commin in we should be even better off, and our Vit D levels will also be higher.
To me, until we get a  a decent vaccine the risk will still be there, but one of the beauties of Peter's advice is that it 'fails safe'. Even if someone comes up with an experiment that says it makes no difference to Covid, the high dose hasn't hurt you and probably helped your body in other ways anyway. (We were in the UK in1976, plenty of sunshine and Vit D around that year.)
Governmental management in many countries including the UK (and US) hasn't looked too good from afar, wish you all the best for the coming winter. I'd be heavily into the vit D tablets myself.

I'll get out of your way now.

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Oh, dear!    My post was more to introduce another aspect of Covid research, than to run down the VitD thing.     The interferon deficiency or depletion idea has not achieved the depth of evidence, either way, yet but deserves more work, when VitD is, by now, something you believe in or not.

Sorry you felt insulted, Roger, wasn't meant as such.

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Many papers have today picked up on D3 and questions are being asked by Tory MPs of DoHealth. There's a decent chance the job of widening knowledge of the science has been done. So a summary of the state of the art is appropriate. Here are four D3 experts talking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UzpvtRqleY

All are members of the campaign group so followers of this thread will recognise much of the information.

To me Gruff Davies' causal analysis approach, a version of AI, shows the future: it avoids the need for RCTs for D3 and can be extended to the host of D3-implicated diseases. As Rufus concludes D3 is for life.

This thread has covered almost all that needs to be said, and I am winding down posting. Job pretty much done.

Might I thank you all for feedback.

Stay safe

Peter

 

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6 hours ago, little jim said:

golly, never thought I'd see Roger get cranky at anything. 
Obviously he's pretty impressed with the info that Peter has been providing us with.
To me Peter has been using a slightly evangelical approach to get his message across on the benefits he sees from Vit D3. Especially earlier on, no one else was even mentioning it as a possible benefit, so I was happy that he pushed the message.
Personally I'm relying on the Oz sun to provide me with enough of it, my bald head ups my dose quite a bit, and the quick action by Australian medical/administrative authorities has limited the effects of the Covid virus over here. Victoria is doing the worst of our States. here in the ACT we haven't had a case for ages. With Sommer y commin in we should be even better off, and our Vit D levels will also be higher.
To me, until we get a  a decent vaccine the risk will still be there, but one of the beauties of Peter's advice is that it 'fails safe'. Even if someone comes up with an experiment that says it makes no difference to Covid, the high dose hasn't hurt you and probably helped your body in other ways anyway. (We were in the UK in1976, plenty of sunshine and Vit D around that year.)
Governmental management in many countries including the UK (and US) hasn't looked too good from afar, wish you all the best for the coming winter. I'd be heavily into the vit D tablets myself.

I'll get out of your way now.

Hi Jim,  Tks for the plaudits.  ACT is at 35deg south while I am at 53 north. Add in the tilt of the earths axis of rotation (23 deg) and we see the sun is much higher in the sky and lets much more UVB to reach the ground at ACT. Nina Jablonski's TED talk sums it up with a NASA map.

Peter

 

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Don't stop working Peter, your campaign to bring this to the attention of the public, politicians and health professionals is gaining momentum.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-treatment-vitamin-d-deficiency-risk-a4556891.html

Mick

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Yes, keep up the good work Peter. Any time there's new information, please pass it on to us.

Holick in his video suggests to take 2000IU/d and more for obese. (Shame the Evening Standard regurgitate the NHS 400IU.) However, he also mentions 55ng/ml for optimum benefit (135nmol/L) which I can't see in the paper. It seems to me that the 2000IU is a watered down figure, perhaps so it's not too much more than the 600/800IU recommended in the States and more likely to be taken seriously by nay-sayers? Certainly it's way less than the 6000IU claimed for Fauci. Another thing to consider is that all of the USA except Alaska is further south than we are in Blighty, so perhaps he is taking that into account when suggesting 2000IU?

Cheers, Richard

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Mick, Richard,   OK I'll keep posting snippets as they appear in emails I get from the D3 group. It may appear to be evangelism but in fact it is the steady recruitment of new data that is essential for establishing validity.

Dose is indeed where the newspapers have failed us. 400 or 800 is the figure arrived at by NICE-SACN for bone health (rickets, osteomalacia) as they have no big RCTs for flu or covid that meet their criteria. When the breadth of D3 science is embraced  we need to accomodate the following to arrive at the correct dose;

1 the dose needed to reach 100 nmol/L serum 25(OH)D can vary with individuals. A range of 2000 to 4000 is a ballpark figure.

2 100 nmol/L was  shown by Schwalfenberg to protect most of his pts from seasonal 'flu. Holick found  rather less 75  nmol/L minimised PCR positivity in covid.

3. 25(OH)D gets used up during an infection with a report of a 20 nmol/L fall. From this we should be aware that a bout of flu will lower 25(OH) and if then followed by covid.... the ICU beckons.

4 When blood immune cells are tested for their response to a bolus of D3 in young healthy individuals ( I guess med students in Finland where the wrok was done) they fell inot  three groups: low, medium and high responders. Being a low responder with minimal 25(OH) looks to be a bad idea. The concept of personalised "D3 response index" is mooted.

5. The physiological 25(OH) is between 100 and 150 nmol/L needing around 2000 to 4000 IUpd to acheive. It is defined by natural-living Maasai, maternal 25(OH) needed to avoid supplementation of neonates, and 25(OH) needed to just minimise PTH level in an individual.

6 Age reduces uptake of D3 from gut. Elderly in care homes are notorious  for being  very low indeed.

7. The ca 50,000 IU emergency boluses of D3 (Cordoba and Schwalfenberg 'hammer) will rapidly ( 1 to 2 days) raise 25(OH)D, but we dont yet know by how much. But well worth knowing as the procedure works in the real world

8 Safety of 4000 IU pd is accpted by PHE and IoM.

None of the above is embraced by current NICE-SACN advice as shown by a junior minister in DoHSC replies to MP questions.

Several years ago the panel of scientists advising the IoM were polled in confidence and their average daily dose was 5300 IU.

I take 4000 now (10,000 was too much) as do most of the family oldies, the youngsters i/c teenagers 2000. I hope thay will stcik with it life-long, the health benefits are likely profound. Humans have not yet evolved to live at our latitudes without supplementing to restore our physiology.  And that is what the virus is exploiting.

Peter

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What do you make of the content of this review Peter. Lots to digest. Not least Horlick being in the pocket of manufacturers of D3 supplements. I  careless whether he discloses his interests, from personal experience attending medical seminars in the States, the dollar rules the pen!

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/26/how-to-know-if-you-have-a-vitamin-d-deficiency.html

Iain

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