
The Possible Role of Vitamin D in Suppressing Cytokine Storm in Covid-19 - pvsukale3
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20058578v4
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ttfkam
"Caution: Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been
certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical
practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media
as established information."

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throwwit
‘Suppressing’ might be a loaded term, as is implies cytokine storms are not
simply a complication of an unregulated immune system (Vitamin D deficit) to
begin with. Cause and effect need to be worded with baseline scenarios.

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wahern
> Conclusion Given that CRP is a surrogate marker for cytokine storm and is
> associated with Vit D deficiency, based on retrospective data and indirect
> evidence we see a possible role of Vit D in reducing complications
> attributed to unregulated inflammation and cytokine storm.

Yeah, that's a _huge_ stretch. Not only are low Vitamin D serum levels
associated with age as well as poor health in general, they also drop during
illness even in people who had healthy levels prior to illness. So even if
you're in the "vitamin D is a magic cure for everything" camp, the thesis is
predicated on a chain of so many dubious assumptions that the likelihood of it
being substantive seem astronomically thin. The proxy that vitamin D serum
levels provide is more likely to be a proxy for an answer that's already known
--this patient is very sick.

The pandemic has provided so many rich opportunities to publish that I guess
it's not surprising to see such a tenuously grounded theory put to print.

