Coronavirus - is low vitamin D a factor - vitamin D and respiratory conditions

[R.B.]

Hi StephN - many thanks

Trying with others to get studies done

This is the sort of thing I muted as a starter as ideas

• Test all COVID-19 patients in hospital/s at a given point in time for Vit D and follow results
• Take finger prick samples at same time as COVID test – follow through on all positives and an equal number of controls
• A study using Vit D clinically – test for low vit d – where low supplement maybe say 60,000iu followed by 2-4000iu a day – whatever the ethics people would suggest (if successful then various larger boluses could be tried to try and improve but let us go for lowest common denominator) As alternative to above try 1,25 active form based on result in Yang, J,. Zhang, H., Xu, Z. (2016) Effect of Vitamin D on ACE2 and Vitamin D receptor expression in rats with LPS-induced acute lung injury. DOI: 10.3760/cma.j.issn.1671-0282.2016.12.016 (1,25 is used in kidney patients so issues surrounding usage will be well understood by nephrologists and is transferable)

Not expensive - finger-prick based lab based tests - £30 retail on Amazon - patient records already kept etc - do and analyze data 3-4 weeks later

Finding people who want to / can do them - failed so far despite 2 months + of trying - Ted from here https://vitamindwiki.com/ with supporters is also struggling

It makes no sense that getting research into vit D and COVID-19 is so difficult, because the implications are huge.

I have even written to the Vatican and Archbishop of Canterbury because sadly Nuns are being very severely impacted.

I have re-graphed data yesterday including using deaths per million and the possible correlations still hold.

[StephN]

Thanks, We live in western Washington State, early in the spread in the USA. Have hardly been out since the end of January! Our state was the first to shut down. We are making good progress in beating the predictions by vastly lowering the caseload! There has been so much emphasis on being ready for patient number spikes, getting equipment and protection gear for health workers and looking at how to deal with so many deaths. Now the schools are closed until June 19.

The University of Washington is busy researching on several fronts. Don't know if you could interest anyone in the Vitamin D piece. Anyone in the UK research community remotely interested?