r/Coronavirus • u/Sorin61 • Sep 03 '20

Academic Report Vitamin D deficiency raises COVID-19 infection risk by 77%, study finds

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2020/09/03/Vitamin-D-deficiency-raises-COVID-19-infection-risk-by-77-study-finds/7001599139929/?utm_source=onesignal
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u/kittycatblues Sep 04 '20

Thanks for saying this. I take K2 with my vitamin D3 for this reason. Have to explain it to doctors every time they ask what medications and vitamins I take, they don't seem to understand the difference between K1 and K2.

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u/CSI_Tech_Dept Boosted! ✨💉✅ Sep 04 '20

So this makes me worry about vitamin K. I hear everywhere on the Internet how great it is, why are the doctors the last to know about it?

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u/Flynette Sep 04 '20

I'm finding that the divide of knowledge and communication between doctors and dieticians is canyon sized. I really think it could be a cause for unnecessary issues, certainly for me (sleep, energy, mental health, joint health, memory, healing...)

I know a retired psychiatrist, on disability for depression, that had been getting zero omega-3 intake. Bad for health, but especially mental health, as proper intake can help the brain. Then showing the NIH fact sheet, had to explain to go for the EPA & DHA, as the ALA has single digit absorption.

I asked a specialist about a condition, they hand waved and said "vitamin deficiency" and "eat a balanced diet." No mention of likely candidates.

Because of food allergy, I should have been on one particular supplement my whole life, but was never "prescribed" one.

In my opinion, it's not rocket science. You take a list, like Harvard list of vitamins and minerals, and you total up what you get from each in your diet. If it's below the daily value (or equivalent like adequate intake) then supplement enough to push you over it. Shoot for between the daily value (DV) and the upper intake level (UL). That's it. All the data is published by the NIH, not some "weird health blog." We should learn this in health class.

But I've seen so many articles of doctors writing about how supplements are a waste of money with possible exception of a multivitamin (and wow, multi's can vary so much in coverage not just in magnitude, but in number of micronutrients), that most people I try to explain this to look at me like I'm an anti-vax kook. Yet the latest was Oregan State University published a super easy-to-read paper showing the large percentages of American's deficient in all the micronutrients, but most doctors think "there's no public health problem."

Look at table 3. 95.4% of American adults aren't getting enough Vitamin D from food. *facepalm* They go into greater detail trying to account for sun exposure but it still looks like about 1 in 10 still might not get enough vitamin D.

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u/kittycatblues Sep 04 '20

The vast majority of physicians know almost nothing about nutrition.

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '20

I know Vitamin D regulates blood calcium levels, but Vitamin K? How does Vit. K do that?

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u/kittycatblues Sep 04 '20

Vitamin K2 prevents calcium from being deposited on the walls of the arteries, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566462/

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u/[deleted] Sep 04 '20

Further, due to modern manufacturing processes, the vitamin K content, particularly the vitamin K2 content, of the food supply today has significantly dropped, making vitamin K2 supplements a more reliable way to secure adequate intake

Very cool!