COVID US deaths: 116,000 fewer if everyone had been taking Vitamin D – Campbell transcript Nov 2022

Association between vitamin D supplementation and COVID-19 infection and mortality

Sci Rep. 2022 Nov 12;12(1):19397 doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-24053-4.
Jason B Gibbons 1 2 , Edward C Norton 3 4 5 , Jeffrey S McCullough 5 , David O Meltzer 6 , Jill Lavigne 7 8 , Virginia C Fiedler 9 , Robert D Gibbons 6 10

Vitamin D deficiency has long been associated with reduced immune function that can lead to viral infection. Several studies have shown that Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increases the risk of infection with COVID-19. However, it is unknown if treatment with Vitamin D can reduce the associated risk of COVID-19 infection, which is the focus of this study.
In the population of US veterans, we show that Vitamin D2 and D3 fills were associated with reductions in COVID-19 infection of 28% and 20%, respectively [(

• D3 Hazard Ratio (HR) = 0.80, [[95% CI 0.77, 0.83]),
• D2 HR = 0.72, [[95% CI 0.65, 0.79]].

Mortality within 30-days of COVID-19 infection was similarly

• 33% lower with Vitamin D3 and
• 25% lower with D2

(D3 HR = 0.67, [95% CI 0.59, 0.75]; D2 HR = 0.75, [95% CI 0.55, 1.04]).
We also find that after controlling for vitamin D blood levels, veterans receiving higher dosages of Vitamin D obtained greater benefits from supplementation than veterans receiving lower dosages.
Veterans with Vitamin D blood levels between 0 and 19 ng/ml exhibited the largest decrease in COVID-19 infection following supplementation.
Black veterans received greater associated COVID-19 risk reductions with supplementation than White veterans. As a safe, widely available, and affordable treatment, Vitamin D may help to reduce the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 Download the PDF from Vitamin D Life

116,0000 fewer US deaths if everyone had supplemented with enough D

Clipped from Discussion
Baseline vitamin D serum levels and cumulative dosage also moderated the effect of vitamin D3 treatment. Specifically, patients with lower serum levels receiving higher dosages of vitamin D3 experienced the greatest associated reduction in infection. In response to these findings, physicians might consider regularly prescribing vitamin D3 to patients with deficient levels to protect them against COVID-19 infection and related mortality. The 50,000 IU dosage may be especially beneficial.
When we extrapolate our results for vitamin D3 supplementation to the entire US population in 2020, there would have been approximately 4 million fewer COVID-19 cases and 116,000 deaths avoided.

We calculated these values by applying our estimated 20% average reduction in infection and 33% reduction in mortality after infection for vitamin D3 to a total of 19,860,000 cases and 351,999 deaths through 2020 29. In the VA, there have been 343,094 cases and 14,981 known deaths through 10/2/2021. Applying our estimates to the VA, where there would be 69,000 fewer cases and 4900 fewer deaths between March 2020 and October 202130. These the actual cause of death. However, many deaths immediately following COVID-19 infection are likely to be at least partially related.

Note: even fewer deaths avoided since those with high Vitamin D would have been less infectious

Dose size options: 20, 40, 100, 125, 200, 250, 400, 500, 800, 1000, 2000, 5000, 8000, and 50,000 IU

Study does not indicate dosing duration (days, weeks, months, etc,)

Study does not indicate if the 50,000 IU dose was D3 or D2

Study does not indicate how many 50,000 IU doses were prescribed

Previous studies indicate >80% reduction if take many 50,000 IU Vitamin D3 capsules

Dr. Campbell discusses the study: video and transcript

19 minute Video Nov 17
0:00:01.8 Well, warm welcome to today's video. Today we're going to be talking about a treatment which a large-scale study and many large-scale studies have shown is safe and effective, reducing the chances of getting infected with COVID-19 and we believe other viruses from other studies as well by 20%-28%, and reducing the chances of death in those infected with COVID-19 by 33% and there are other studies show that this treatment is probably effective against a wide range of viruses. We're talking about vitamin D, an efficacious, safe and effective treatment. Now, of course we want to talk about the data so we're going to be looking at this paper here. This is from Scientific Reports, it's part of the Nature group. This is the whole study here. Obviously you can download the PDF. I'll give the link of course. So let's get straight down to it. Scientific Reports from the journal Nature, very prestigious journal. Association between vitamin D supplementation, COVID-19 infection and mortality. Now the authors here work in universities such as Johns Hopkins University of Michigan, National Bureau of Economic Research, University of Chicago, Veterans Affair, all very prestigious stuff. And in the paper they say this.

0:01:17.6 Vitamin D deficiency is associated with reduced immune function. Basically that's not a point for discussion, they just state that. And deficiency can lead to viral infection, COVID and other viruses. Now as winter comes along we're exposed to all sorts of viruses. So personally I'm taking 4,000 units of vitamin D a day with some vitamin K2, 100 micrograms of vitamin K2 and intend to do so until I get some sunshine. chuckle So basically all winter I plan to take that amount. Good to get your levels checked if your doctor will do it. Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty getting mine to do it. Vitamin D deficiency associated with increased risk of COVID-19.

0:01:57.6 But what about a treatment and what about prognosis? Well, to be fair, to look at a treatment this is a problem here. To work out whether a treatment's efficacious, we need the random double-blind control trials. But this does tell us quite a lot about the prognosis. Why is no one doing randomized double-blind control trials on vitamin D? Could it be because you can't make any money out of it because it's not patentable because you can get it anywhere?

189,000 people prescribed with some amount of Vitamin D3 before COVID infection

0:02:21.8 A cynic might think so. This is the population of US veterans and they give them D2 and D3. Now you get a lot of questions on the difference between D2 and D3. Basically, most of the evidence shows that you can metabolize D3 more quickly but vitamin D2 can also be metabolized. So my supplement is D3 but it probably doesn't make too much difference. When your sun is exposed to ultraviolet light, it makes D3. D2 tends to come from mushrooms. So personally I take D3 and we actually will see that D3 is probably slightly better in a minute. But both are probably efficacious, but personally D3 is the one probably to go for. Association and reductions of infections. Now, after applying all restrictions the numbers here, they had 223,000 people supplemented with the vitamin D. Great number. That was D3. 34,000 supplemented with D2. Also fine. And 400,000 untreated patients. So they've got a nice big study group. So that's the D3 study group there. That's the controls there. Fantastic size. You can compare data from those, data with those and get some pretty significant results. Retrospective cohort study. Looking back at large cohorts for whom data was available.

0:03:43.9 People that supplemented before and during the pandemic versus untreated controls. One to one matches. Very nice piece of statistics by their statisticians to do this. And the treatments that were given, D2, D3 and the activated form calcifediol. Now, basically it takes a couple of weeks for the liver to fully metabolize vitamin D that we take. So you're not going to get full benefits unless you take calcifediol early. So this is very much about a prevention and preventing increasing severity of disease and preventing death. But best to take it before you get the infection as a long-term sort of treatment is the best thing to do a long-term supplement, if you're not getting the sun which most of us don't. Now D3... Sorry, Veterans Administration Corporate Data Warehouse is where this came from so they've got lots and lots of data there and the data was available. And again they're saying couple of months to get full response, couple of weeks to get a good response. But this is something we need to be taking longer term over winter when we are simply not producing it in the sun. At least where I live you certainly don't produce any.

0:04:56.7 And not much prospect of it producing it in the north of England in the immediate future. Well, the next six or seven months really. D3 cohort, COVID-19 rates for the treated group 2.66% of those followed up. COVID-19 rates for the untreated group, 3.3%, very large numbers. Remember we're talking about a couple hundred thousand people here. So nice reduction. D3, 20% reduction in infections, D2, 28% reduction in infections. This doesn't mean D2 is better because as we'll see in a minute D3 is better at preventing death. And I think we can basically say we're in the 20s of percents there for both. So both pretty effective but D3 is the one we normally take. But mortality, interesting.

33% less likely to die if take any amount of vitamin D - Why are not people told about this?

0:05:41.0 Infections ending in mortality within 30 days. The D3 group treated the fatality rate there was 0.23%, untreated 0.35%. That means vitamin D is associated with a 33% mortality reduction. Now that's a hazard ratio of 67%. So yes 67%, you're less likely to get it compared to 100% if you're not treated. So 33% reduction in mortality rate. My question is why aren't the Prime Minister and the Chief Scientific Officer and the Chief Medical Officer standing side-by-side on the television, telling people to take this safe and effective treatment that costs essentially nothing? According to this article here from these prestigious medical academics all over the United States, because we want it to be safe and effective.

0:06:38.9 Let's go on. Probability that this... So P equals 0.001, only one chance in a thousand this arose by chance. This is a very significant result. Why is this not being taken up and shouted about all over the place?

0:06:57.4 Very strange. I mean, other treatments and preventative strategies are being well publicized. This one is not. It's up to you to publicize this. Vitamin D2, 25% lower apparently but that wasn't a significant result. So the D3 shows the significant reduction in the likelihood of dying for people that have the infections. Now, veterans who received higher doses of vitamin D obtained greater benefits from supplementation than veterans receiving lower dose. In other words, there is a dose-specific response. People on higher doses did better. Of course, the people that did the worst were those on the lowest doses and the people that got the greatest benefit were on the lowest doses. So in other words, some vitamin D is one heck of a lot better than no vitamin D over winter, we could argue from this study. And I'll argue pretty convincingly in my view. So vitamin D levels is the lowest, 0-19 ng/ml did worst, but they exhibited the largest increase, the large side of the largest decrease in COVID-19 infection and mortality.

0:08:10.8 They had the biggest increase in benefit because the had most decrease in infection and mortality following supplementation. So this is particularly important, it's important for everyone but it's particularly important on those with the lowest levels of vitamin D, and we'll be looking at some of those people shortly, who those people are. Now, they looked at different blood levels 0-19 ng/ml, 20-39 and over 40. If you want that in the English unit, the English unit is micromoles per liter, you just multiply those figures by 2.5. And they also found retrospectively they had people taking 20 units, 40 units as you can see, all different, 250 units, 1000 units, 5000 units, 8000 units and 50,000 units a day. So they had the full spread of people they were supplementing over these 400,000 or so individuals that qualified for the study. This is an impressive piece of work. I'm completely convinced by this. Black veterans receive greatest association COVID-19 risk reductions and I think you know why that is now. Dark-colored skin produces vitamin D more slowly. People with dark-colored skins at least in the United States have... Well and everywhere, really, virtually everywhere, have lower levels of vitamin D because they don't make the sun... In the sunshine, they don't make the vitamin D as quickly. They would need more body surface, area skin exposed for longer to make the same amount.

0:09:43.5 So particularly important for Black veterans in the United States to consider vitamin D supplementation to reduce the risk of this and from other studies we know other viral infections. So White veterans would make a little more vitamin D, so the Black veterans benefited most. And direct quote "As a safe, widely available, and affordable treatment, vitamin D may help to reduce the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic." Simple statement from the authors, and as I keep saying we know from other studies that this is effective against other respiratory viruses. Now, is it effective against other viruses all over the body? I think there's good evidence that it could be because vitamin D receptors are in all of the white blood cells. So there's a whole range of white blood cells that protect us from disease in different ways. Vitamin D receptors are found in all of those cells. It's an immunomodulator. So if the immune system is inadequate, it bunks it up, it increases the immune response. If the immune system is overstimulated and we get the inflammatory side effects, it brings it down. It's an immunomodulator. And because of the way this is working through the white blood cells, I think this will work for all viral infections.

0:10:52.9 Again, this should be tested via randomized double-blind control trials but no one's doing them because there's no money in it and we need to make money from randomized or blind-control trials. Strange but true, I believe.

0:11:11.4 More background. Vitamin D deficiency affects half of the US population. Again, they're not arguing that. The authors simply state that. Just think about that. Half of the population of the United States is deficient in vitamin D. Half. Simply stated as a fact by the authors. Increased rates in people with darker skins unfortunately who have done worse as we often know in many places. Risk factors reduced on exposure. People living in high latitudes in winter or indeed low latitudes if you live in the south of New Zealand or something. Nursing home residents who tragically did very badly in the pandemic. Healthcare workers who work inside a lot of the time. Populations with low levels of vitamin D have also experienced higher rates of COVID-19. Again, simply stated as facts. Now, they did point out a new mechanism. Vitamin D is needed to allow T helper cells to control and reduce interferon gamma. Now this interferon gamma is a cytokine produced by these T helper cells. Now, you might have heard of the T helper lymphocytes because it's the T helper lymphocytes that are affected by the human immunodeficiency virus, and you get a deficiency of the T helper cells, they can't help the immune system so tragically these patients develop a wide range of infections.

0:12:29.3 So you need just the right amount of this interferon gamma but if there's a lack of vitamin D, it seems that you produce too much of this and you get overstimulation because it's a pro-inflammatory cytokine. So a lot of that was just interesting, just a mechanism or another mechanism of action. These associated reductions in risk are substantial and justify more significant exploration and confirmation using RCTs. Again, who's going to pay for them? This is particularly important given the high rates of vitamin D deficiency in the US population and COVID-19, and I would add a whole range of other respiratory viral infections which other studies show efficacy of vitamin D levels against. So it's really hard to argue against this. Extrapolation from vitamin D have it been under the whole country. In 2020 there would be 4 million fewer cases. Of course, that's a bit misleading because... Well, it's not misleading, it's just that we weren't testing in early 2020 so we're not so sure.

4 million fewer COVID cases in US if everyone had taken a little vitamin D

0:13:35.3 But anyway they're saying 4 million fewer cases which is accurate based on their data. And look at this, 116,000 deaths could have been avoided. Now, that is definitive data, I think, because we do know for a fact there was 351,999 actual deaths in the year. This could have been prevented with this safe and effective treatment. Tragically, it wasn't. Given our findings, the absence of side effects or the absence of severe side effects, a few people can't take vitamin D but most people are fine with it.

0:14:09.9 The widespread availability and low cost of D3 vitamin D presents a unique opportunity. Again, direct words from the author, unique opportunity to reduce the spread and severity of COVID-19 pandemic. So, there you go. I think this is definitive and I'm not going to do it in detail now but we have looked at quite a few other studies that have shown this works against other respiratory viral infections. And of course, when do we produce the least vitamin D? In winter.

0:14:37.4 When do we get most viral infections? In winter. Now, personally I take some K2 with my vitamin D. The form in my vitamin D supplement is called MK-7 which is a form of vitamin K2. And now the supplement because I'm taking 100 micrograms per day, we don't actually know what the best dose is but the reason I take 100 micrograms per day with my 4000 units of vitamin D is that if you take natto, which is the fermented soya beans that's eaten in huge amounts in Japan for example, 100 g of that contains 1000 micrograms of vitamin K2, indicating that 1000 micrograms don't seem to do natto eaters in Japan any harm.

0:15:24.4 And of course in Japan they did very well during the pandemic and they have remarkably low rates of osteoporosis as well. Because what the vitamin K2 is doing, so the vitamin D will liberate some calcium. The calcium is just in the blood, it can go into the soft tissues like in the the arterial system causing hardening of the arteries which of course we don't want. So what the vitamin K2 does is take the liberated calcium and it puts it into the bones where we want it and keeps it out of the soft tissues where we don't want it. It sequesters calcium in bones and takes calcium out of tissues which of course is a win-win situation. When you look at the huge amount of morbidity we have with osteoporosis in the West and K2 basically, but why isn't it used? Why is K2 not used for this extensively? Probably because it's not patentable, but it isn't. Seems a great tragedy to me. So vitamin K2 is made from bacterial activity. We don't make it ourselves, animals don't make it, it's bacterial activity. So if a cow eats grass, there's bacterial activity in the cows gut that produces the K2 that will go into the milk and cheese.

0:16:42.7 So it's always best to have grass-fed meat, milk and cheese if you can get it apart from being more humane to allow cows to live in a more natural environment. Cheese typically contains 50 micrograms per 100 g. So to me personally I take 100 micrograms 'cause it seems reasonable based on that, although larger doses from the Japanese experience would appear to be safe. But that's personal, I can't tell you what to take but that's what I take. 100 micrograms of vitamin K2 with 4000 international units of vitamin D3 is what I take personally.

UK GPs paid bonuses to give COVID vaccinations

0:17:27.4 Safe and effective treatments. Now at the moment, GPs in the UK are being incentivized to give COVID vaccines. If they give one during a home visit, they get £30. So if you're on a home visit I guess you could put one in and get an extra £30. Standard reimbursement to what's called primary care networks which money gets passed to GPs, it's £15 per shot. And of course it doesn't take too long to give an injection, so £15 per couple of minutes' work.

Perhaps should pay doctors to prescribe Vitamin D

0:18:00.2 I wouldn't do it myself. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable doing that, but £15 for a procedure that you can carry out 10 times an hour easily I would have thought, yeah I'm up for that kind of money. Why aren't we incentivising GPs to go around with bottles of vitamin D3? We could give them £30 if they give a course of vitamin D3 to patients with K2 to patients at home. We could give them £15 if they do it in the GP surgery. Every time they give them a bottle of vitamin D because we know vitamin D is safe and effective. And the new contracts apparently the money per vaccine is going down to a mere £12.58. So okay, we could lower it to £12.58 per tub of vitamin D3 given out, which would seem reasonable to me. Now Lawrence has worked me out, I'm afraid I've got it here. Guys, this is Lawrence. "I've heard that John Campbell is in the pocket of Big Overhead Projector Lobby." Got me, Lawrence. Compromised by Big Overhead Projector Lobby. And as if you need any proof, that's what I'm using now to look at this.

0:19:17.3 "Rumour has it, he has accepted tens of dollars of under the table expenses." Well, I don't think it quite runs into the tens but a few cents maybe. "Anyone else noticed he always seems to have an endless supply of A4 paper and fountain pens?" Mia Cooper can't argue with that. So yeah, Big Overhead Projector Lobby, very important for the YouTube videos you watch or whatever videos you watch or wherever you get your information to make sure they are not in the pocket of any lobby. Thank you for watching.

See also Vitamin D Life

- - Prevent a COVID death: 9 dollars of Vitamin D or 900,000 dollars of vaccine - Aug 2023

115 pages of studies, analysis, data

38+ Virus pages are RCTs

This list is automatically updated

Vitamin D Life - 43 studies in both categories Virus and Intervention

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3X more likely to die of COVID if low Vitamin D (999,179 people) March 2021

COVID-19 mortality 3X more likely if low vitamin D (999,179 people) – meta-analysis March 29, 2021

22+ Virus pages have TRANSCRIPTS

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9 Studies have found that 50 ng of Vitamin D realy fights COVID

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4,000 IU gets half of adults to 40 ng/ml

(Same dose of vitamin D for everyone is virtually impossible - Dec 2015|- Dose/response from 36 studies

solid line = mean response (50% above, 50% below)
Lower dashed line = 97.5% will have achieved the level

Vitamin D Life – COVID-19 treated by Vitamin D - studies, reports, videos

As of March 31, 2024, the Vitamin D Life COVID page had:  trial results,   meta-analyses and reviews,   Mortality studies   see related:   Governments,   HealthProblems,   Hospitals,  Dark Skins,   All 26 COVID risk factors are associated with low Vit D,   Fight COVID-19 with 50K Vit D weekly   Vaccines   Take lots of Vitamin D at first signs of COVID   166 COVID Clinical Trials using Vitamin D (Aug 2023)   Prevent a COVID death: 9 dollars of Vitamin D or 900,000 dollars of vaccine - Aug 2023
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Study was also reviewed by:

Dr Alex Kennerly Vasquez - Nov 18, 2022

URl_
A new study published in the open-access peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports (2022 November*) shows us anew what we have already known:
1. WE COULD HAVE AVOIDED MILLIONS OF COVID INFECTIONS: Vitamin D supplementation provides protection against Covid infections; we could have avoided 4 million American COVID-19 cases if American politicians and medical organizations had implemented vitamin D supplementation; obviously more worldwide cases would have been prevented if this vitamin D supplementation had been implemented globally
2. Vitamin D supplementation provides protection against Covid deaths; 116,000 American deaths could have been avoided with low-cost low-risk multiple-benefit vitamin D supplementation, especially at 50,000 IU per day
3. Vitamin D supplementation is safe, easy, inexpensive, and essentially without risks and drug interactions

I had already summarized the antiviral benefits of vitamin D in MARCH OF 2020 at the very start of the “global pandemic”—the data was available at least since March 2020 when I reviewed antiviral nutrition
—if not 2017 (Martineau et al, BMJ)
—if not 2014 when I published Antiviral Nutrition
—if not 2004 when I published the vitamin D paradigm shift

Study and Campbell review was described by GrassrootsHealth Dec 2, 2022

GrassrootsHealth

2 minute Video on the study concerned about why was the public not told years ago - Nov 20, 2022

Father Calvin Robinson    YouTube    _
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