Acute Respiratory Infection
Post #1078
NOTE: This Substack post was inspired by a recent Substack by Jonathan Engler.
When researchers studied Influenza-like Illness, it turned out that, of the severe cases that went to the hospital, only one in seven of them were actually due to the flu. In 6 of every 7 cases, some other respiratory pathogen was responsible for the Influenza-like Illness (ILI):
The row marked as Hospitalized ILI shows that influenza contributed just one-seventh to the total incidence of Influenza-like Illness. This means that flu shots are not great “medicine” — because they have such a low chance of being able to prevent a hospitalization due to Influenza-like Illness.
But keeping your immune system strong with things like vitamin D can help prevent respiratory infections, as in this study in kids:
Though if a kid is over age 12, then the amount of vitamin D needed is over 800 IU per week — as the right side of the image above shows, with no big reduction from 400-800 IU per week (the middle of the 3 bars at right). But we take vitamin D to increase active vitamin D, sometimes called serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D (serum 25-OHD):
The odds ratio for high 25-OHD and respiratory infection was just 0.23, which indicates that, if the background rate of respiratory infection was 25%, then you get a risk reduction of 72% — i.e., the OR of 0.23 becomes a relative risk (RR) of 0.28 (cell F4 in the conversion table below):
But something that cuts respiratory infections by 72% should be something that is acknowledged by health authorities. Here are outcomes of 191 COVID patients, showing that D sufficiency and insufficiency (right two columns) — in contrast to flat-out deficiency (2nd column from left) — had no deaths and no mechanical ventilation:
While the D-deficient (2nd column from left) had mortality in 14 (7.3%) of 146 total — and they had mechanical ventilation in 20 (10.5%) out of 146 total — no deaths and no ventilation were found among the 45 people who were not deficient in vitamin D. The chance of finding no death among 45 people, when the rate is 7.3%, is just 0.033.
The binomial chance of finding no ventilation among 45 people, when the rate is 10.5%, is just 0.007 — a p-value that would be significant even at the 1% level. The absence of death and ventilation are each statistically significant. Health authorities should recognize and recommend vitamin D for us, because of these promising results.
The absence of a recommendation to boost vitamin D levels, at least in winter, is indicative of regulatory capture, as in where drug companies do not want people to know how they can remain well throughout the flu season, because it harms profits.
Reference
Taylor S, Lopez P, Weckx L, Borja-Tabora C, Ulloa-Gutierrez R, Lazcano-Ponce E, Kerdpanich A, Angel Rodriguez Weber M, Mascareñas de Los Santos A, Tinoco JC, Safadi MA, Lim FS, Hernandez-de Mezerville M, Faingezicht I, Cruz-Valdez A, Feng Y, Li P, Durviaux S, Haars G, Roy-Ghanta S, Vaughn DW, Nolan T. Respiratory viruses and influenza-like illness: Epidemiology and outcomes in children aged 6 months to 10 years in a multi-country population sample. J Infect. 2017 Jan;74(1):29-41. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2016.09.003. Epub 2016 Sep 22. PMID: 27667752; PMCID: PMC7112512. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7112512/
Tanase E, Marusca LM, Horhat FG, Susan M, Susan R, Horhat R, Dinu S, Dragomir TL, Tanasescu S. Assessing the Impact of Vitamin D Supplementation on Respiratory Infections in Children and Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study. Nutrients. 2024 Nov 19;16(22):3953. doi: 10.3390/nu16223953. PMID: 39599738; PMCID: PMC11597694. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11597694/
Rachman A, Rahmaniyah R, Khomeini A, Iriani A. The association between vitamin D deficiency and the clinical outcomes of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. F1000Res. 2024 Feb 5;12:394. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.132214.3. PMID: 38434628; PMCID: PMC10905025. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10905025/