THEY KNEW IT: D-DEFICIENCY FACILITATES FRACTURES AND NUMEROUS PATHOLOGIES
In 2011, C. Aranow, in the Journal of Investigative Medicine explained that vitamin D, produced in the skin when exposed to the sun, modulates the immune response to illness. Even before the discovery of vitamin D, it "has been used (unknowingly) to treat infections such as tuberculosis before the advent of effective antibiotics. Tuberculosis patients were sent to sanatoriums where treatment included exposure to sunlight which was thought to directly kill the tuberculosis.” Administration of vitamin D results in a decrease in influenza cases by 43%. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21527855/
Names used for vitamin D are cholecalciferol, 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25 (OH)D.
On the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, A. Fabbri, M. Infante, and C. Ricordi of the University of Rome and of Miami University explain the normalizing effect of vitamin D: "Innate immune responses represent the initial host defense against invading pathogens… Vitamin D deficiency represents a global pandemic... vitamin D plays an important role in respiratory homeostasis… directly affecting the replication of respiratory viruses... clinical studies showed that lower serum vitamin D levels are associated with respiratory tract infections, including epidemic influenza... In a recent editorial in the British Medical Journal... different researchers have proposed vitamin D deficiency as a putative risk factor, among others, for novel coronavirus infections." https://www.europeanreview.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/4048-4052.pdf
In 2018, the Association of Medical Endocrinologists (AME) and the Italian section of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists observe that vitamin D deficiency is associated with certain forms of cancer, diabetes and autoimmune diseases: "A correlation is reported between maternal vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml) and gestational diabetes... preterm birth and pediatric asthma complications appear less frequent in pregnant women whose levels of 25 (OH)D are greater than 40 ng/ml... for cancer prevention... serum 25(OH)D levels between 36 and 48 ng/mL are reportedly associated with favorable outcomes. For the improvement of endpoints such as bone mineral density (BMD), lower extremity function, dental health, incident falls, fractures, hypertension and admission to nursing home, the most appropriate serum 25(OH)D level is described as greater than 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986426/
In 20l6, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, K. Cashman et al. examine the results of studies on 50,000 people in different countries, concluding that “the vitamin D deficiency evident in Europe has reached levels of concern, such as to require action from a public health point of view.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5527850/
In 2017, the study of A. Martineau et al. appeared in the British Medical Journal, under the title “Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections.” The study looks at data from 25 studies, randomised and placebo-controlled, on almost 11,000 subjects aged 0 to 95 years. Conclusions: "Vitamin D supplementation was safe and it protected against acute respiratory infections overall.” Vitamin D supplements lower viral replication rates, reduce inflammation, stimulate the immune system, and result in infections decreasing by 70%, for those who were very D-deficient, at a level below 10 ng/ml. Such success is lacking when vitamin D is given in bolus form, in large monthly doses. https://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6583
WHO DOCTORS, IMPATIENT AFTER YEARS OF DOUBT AND DELAY
At the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) they admit the importance of vitamin D: "Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to respiratory infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and bronchiolitis. Pneumonia ... is the leading cause of death in children worldwide ... Some studies have suggested that vitamin D supplementation can decrease the frequency and severity of respiratory infections among children; however, further research is needed before specific recommendations can be made.” https://www.who.int/elena/titles/vitamind_pneumonia_children/en/
Back in 2011, the WHO had published a report under the title “Vitamin D supplementation and respiratory infections in children”. Their conclusion was that "vitamin D deficiency in children has been strongly associated with risk of acute lower respiratory tract infections in a number of settings… During the winter months… acute lower respiratory infections are more frequent in children and adults. Vitamin D is thought to play an important role in immune system regulation, and can potentially protect against infections... vitamin D supplementation appears to reduce the incidence of and adverse outcomes from these conditions... reducing all cause mortality.”
The unnamed authors of the WHO report try to promote the D, and offer in evidence 34 articles from medical publications; they do not appear pleased, when they note that "the recommended daily dose for children is still in debate." https://www.who.int/elena/titles/bbc/vitamind_pneumonia_children/en/
The debate is in the medical press, between the stodgy American IOM, the Institute of Medicine, now called the National Academy of Medicine and the brash and very international Endocrine Society, founded in 1916. In 1997, the IOM set the minimum recommended level of Vitamin D3 at 12ng/ml. In 2010 the IOM created the category of insufficiency, between deficiency (less than 12) and sufficiency (more than 20). In doing so, it raised the level without admitting error in the 1997 assessment. The Endocrine Society insists on a minimum of 30ng/ml, while recommending up to 100ng/ml for better health.
OLIGARCHS AND PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS IN COMPETITION WITH CHEAP SIMPLICITY
The Secretary General of the WHO moves between Geneva and Davos, communing with important philanthropists. Good guys like like the 9 new vaccine billionaires created in 2020, who can be counted on to offer gloriously paid positions to ministers of health and bureaucrats who had showed sympathy to their needs. That, and the public-private partnerships promoted by the WHO, explain everything.
The oligarchs are in deadly competition with vitamin D and with cheap effective prophylactics and cures. That explains the fact that the WHO refuses to declare a minimum vitamin D requirement, not even even the absurdly low level of vitamin D proposed by the IOM. The WHO directors count on being justly rewarded for that. Lowering the prevalence of respiratory infections is not a desirable eventuality for pharmaceutical companies, unless achieved using medications still under patent protection.
The WHO does not challenge a number of factors that tie survival to vitamin D status:
a. vitamin D deficiency ("VD-") due to lifestyle and diet, is common.
b. such VD- is prevalent among old folks and common among the young.
c. dark-skin, is inefficient at producing vitamin D.
d. VD- has a negative effect on general health and on respiratory infections in particular.
e. VD- is related to Covid-19 outcome.
As long as the D-debate continues, ministers of health are pleased to wait. Some particuarly obedient ministers of health, in Italy and in India, are pleased to reject Vitamin D supplementation and to advertise the imaginary threat of vitamin D toxicity.
COVID-19 misinformation
A preprint of a journal article from Indonesia purporting to show beneficial effect of vitamin D for COVID-19 received went viral across social media, and was cited several times in in mainstream academic literature, including in a recommendation from NICE. Subsequent investigation, however, found none of the authors seemed to be known of at the hospitals listed as their affiliations, suggesting the paper was entirely fraudulent.[341]
Why file a fake study with fake authors with a medical journal? Possible motives: a. To harm the editor of the journal.
b. To harm the pretended writers of the study,
c. To arrange for charges to be made that a certain cure is worthless.
Hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and vitamin D were all targeted in such scams. The papers seemed to have been written in such a manner to make it easy to spot the problem. The Surgisphere study on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was instrumental in the collapse of HCQ treatment in the US and In the electoral loss of President Trump. Necessarily, it led to the withdrawal of the Surgisphere April 2020 study on ivermectin.
The Algazzar study seemed arranged to be spotted as plagiarism and for repeating previously reported case. It was used in the attempt, by a writer of The Guardian, to invalidate a major study by BIRD-Group, the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group.
Vitamins
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, vitamin C was the subject of more FDA warning letters than any other quack treatment for COVID-19.[338]
In February 2020, claims that Vitamin D pills could help prevent COVID-19 circulated on social media in Thailand.[339]
Totally irrelevant "evidence".
We know that FDA and WHO and medical societies do not have sympathy for vitamins, unless they be expensive products prescribed by MD's and sold in pharmacies. Why should any warning letters from the FDA be seen as evidence against the value of vitamin C?
I am not claiming that vitamin C will save us from covid, but certainly the opinion of the FDA is irrelevant on the matter.
The mention of Thai chatter about vitamin D is one more example of Western arrogance. Wikipedia editors are saying, "See here what kind of nonsense those ignorant Asians believe, vitamins! Ha, they think that vitamins will save them!"
Of course, it was not only by vitamin D alone, that Thailand saved itself from following Western countries in their collapse under the early varieties of SARS-CoV-2. It was the rational behaviour of the government, which gave clear and evidence-based directives, as opposed to the Western practice of issuing confused faith-based contradictory orders.
In May 2020, the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, while noting that "current advice is that the whole population of the UK should take vitamin D supplements to prevent vitamin D deficiency", found "no clinical evidence that vitamin D supplements are beneficial in preventing or treating COVID-19".[340]
This organization represents medical wokeness and Anglo cultural relativism in Europe; it also delivers appropriate disinformation on Covid-19.
See article entitled "Is it safe for patients with COVID-19 to fast during the holy month of Ramadan?" Note that fasting, in this case, includes water. The conclusion: "We found no specific studies looking at fasting in the context of COVID-19. There is no evidence to suggest an adverse effect from fasting during the Covid-19 pandemic on asymptomatic healthy individuals who have previously fasted safely. However, patients with fever and prolonged illness secondary to Covid-19 can become severely dehydrated and are at risk of sudden acute deterioration."
I must say that the Muslim doctors who wrote this awful piece are sensible people, who do their best, and advise well their poor patients, telling them to break the fast, if they don't feel well.
My problem is just with the woke Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. How can they tolerate publishing such nonsense as: "Whilst dehydration during the fast is expected, whether fasting leads to chronic dehydration is unclear17... The link between dehydration and outcome in COVID-19 infection is still emerging."
No problem, if you have an easy case of covid, no problem with just a bit of dehydration, no big deal, drinking nothing between dawn and sunset, in the summer, even in Northern countries--between 4am and 10 pm? A big meal just before dawn, followed by a whole day without water? No problem, God be with you!
Why would these woke jerks at CEBM offer the imprimatur of Western medicine to self-harming in the Muslim world?
"Hitting one's head with a hammer, is done carefully, with appropriately blunt padded ceremonial hammer. If done with moderation, does the traditional practice have negative survival opportunities? We cannot give a definite answer as yet, pending double blind self-hammering trials."