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Vitamin D is necessary for proper immune function. Most people in Britain don't have enough.
A very credible study found that taking vitamin D supplements helps protect against acute respiratory infections including colds and flu "...and could have major implications for public health policy".
COVID-19 is an acute respiratory infection.
What am I missing?
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Until you provided the paper, quite a lot.
It's a meta analysis, which is good as it brings together the results of lots of trials. Publishing caveat: only positive results are published. Very few negative results are. So as the authors say, there may be a huge negative study out there but they haven't seen the results. But they think their analysis is robust enough.The greatest benefit is in those with really low (guessing malnutrition levels?) And those taking a weekly dose. Theres no point banging it down now and hoping it'llprovide some benefit.
It's not a vaccine. It shouldn't be pushed as "this is protective" by people on here. Evidence suggests it might be a good thing, from this trial, in areas of malnutrition (which could include the UK true) but there are conflicting data out there in the subject area.
Is it ethical to suggest taking vitamin d will protect you from a cough or cold? Perhaps not.
Is it ethical to suggest, based on this analysis (and not a randomised clinical trial) that vitamin d will protect you from covid 19? Probably not.Will there be any harm in taking it? Only if you take too much (which is quite a lot).
Is it ethical to suggest a randomised clinical trial of taking vitamin d during covid 19? Probably not.
What about another clinical trial?
Quite probably. How would you do it?
I don't even. What?
edit: unless this is really very dry and more than likely i've missed the joke.