Thursday, May 21, 2020

Sunny Months

Casting Light,​

​ As we enter the 2 sunniest months of the year, vitamin-D levels will rise for people who let the sun shine on their skin. It's good to avoid burns, so start modestly, maybe 15 minutes per side, even less if you are very fair and it is midday.​
How much sun equals 5000 units of vitamin-D? That's a question that pops up, and it sure depends on a lot of factors of your skin, overcast, sun angle, time of day, how much skin is getting the sun and how long each session. Almost every American or US resident I test is low unless supplementing or working outdoors every day.
I have gotten some more vitamin-D vs viral illness articles, some redundant, with links and excerpts, to share around.

Low vitamin D levels could explain why African Americans and even African immigrants in Sweden appear to be disproportionately hard-hit by the coronavirus, regardless of socio-economic factors, researchers have suggested.
Vitamin D can protect against getting a severe case of COVID-19, a group of Swedish researchers and doctors have suggested in an article in the medical magazine Läkartidningen.

 British Medical Journal, BMJ had this in April, speculating that vitamin-D supplementation “could be a game changer”.

To reduce the risk of infection, it is recommended that people at risk of influenza and/or COVID-19 consider taking 10,000 IU/d of vitamin D3 for a few weeks to rapidly raise 25(OH)D concentrations, followed by 5000 IU/d. The goal should be to raise 25(OH)D concentrations above 40–60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L). For treatment of people who become infected with COVID-19, higher vitamin D3 doses might be useful. Randomized controlled trials and large population studies should be conducted to evaluate these recommendations. 

The NIH had this out last month, with the same dosing advice:
Evidence supporting the role of vitamin D in reducing risk of COVID-19 includes that the outbreak occurred in winter, a time when 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentrations are lowest; that the number of cases in the Southern Hemisphere near the end of summer are low; that vitamin D deficiency has been found to contribute to acute respiratory distress syndrome; and that case-fatality rates increase with age and with chronic disease comorbidity, both of which are associated with lower 25(OH)D concentration. To reduce the risk of infection, it is recommended that people at risk of influenza and/or COVID-19 consider taking 10,000 IU/d of vitamin D3 for a few weeks to rapidly raise 25(OH)D concentrations, followed by 5000 IU/d. The goal should be to raise 25(OH)D concentrations above 40-60 ng/mL (100-150 nmol/L). For treatment of people who become infected with COVID-19, higher vitamin D3 doses might be useful. 

 A researcher from the University of Southeastern Philippines evaluated the vitamin D blood levels of 212 people diagnosed with COVID-19 and found the blood level of vitamin D was lowest in those in critical condition and highest in those with a milder infection. The conclusion of his paper, not peer-reviewed, is that supplements ''could possibly improve clinical outcomes of patients infected with COVID-19."
[Of the 212 cases of COVID-19, majority had ordinary clinical outcome. Mean serum 25(OH)D level was 23.8 ng/ml. Serum 25(OH)D level was lowest in critical cases, but highest in mild cases. Serum 25(OH)D levels were statistically significant among clinical outcomes. Majority had insufficient Vitamin D status, most of them were not severe. Vitamin D status is significantly associated with clinical outcomes. A multinomial logistic regression analysis reported that for each standard deviation increase in serum 25(OH)D, the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a severe outcome were approximately 7.94 times (OR=0.126, p<0.001) while interestingly, the odds of having a mild clinical outcome rather than a critical outcome were approximately 19.61 times (OR=0.051, p<0.001). The results suggest that an increase in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could either improve clinical outcomes or mitigate worst (severe to critical) outcomes, while a decrease in serum 25(OH)D level in the body could worsen clinical outcomes of COVID-2019 patients.] 

Researchers from the U.K. evaluated the average vitamin D levels and the number of COVID-19 cases, as well as the death rates, across 20 European countries. Countries with low average vitamin D blood levels in the population had higher numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, says study leader Petre Cristian Ilie, MD, PhD, research and innovation director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Foundation Trust in King's Lynn, U.K.   

 Irish researchers analyzed European population studies and vitamin D levels, finding countries with high rates of vitamin D deficiency also had higher death rates from COVID-19. Those researchers asked the government to raise the vitamin D recommendations.    

This WebMD article has some of the above summaries and links:
​Sweden, with voluntary social distancing, had the highest per-capita death rate this past week, edging out the UK.
Will this be good in the long term, letting the virus spread in the sunny summer months, instead of the dark winter?
Will Sweden have a lower final per-capita death rate when this is all over in 2-3 years?
There's not much to do but wait, take vitamin-D and eat fresh fruits and vegetables, is there?​

​There has been mass censorship of medical education and discussion of human clinical trial data about hydroxychloroquine. 4 out of 73 of the COVID-19 updates on MedCram,  have been banned from YouTube for analysis of Forbidden-Medical-Knowledge targeted specifically to doctors and med students.​
YouTube censors video in which medical doctors said hydroxychloroquine might help treat COVID-19
The company said the video was 'dangerous' before putting it back up again.
​  ​One of the doctors interviewed in the video, William O'Neill, tells Attkisson, also a Just the News contributor, that there is "some value" to hydroxychloroquine and "it has to be tested."
​  ​O'Neill, a cardiologist in Detroit, has prescribed the drug to multiple patients and "saw improvement in all of them," Attkisson reported.
 ​  ​At the Henry Ford Health System, where O'Neill works, officials are working with hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir. The doctor said the media campaign against the drug, which began around the time President Trump first started touting it, has left patients "scared to use the drug without any scientifically valid concern."
​  ​"We've talked with our colleagues at the University of Minnesota who are doing a similar study, and at the University of Washington," he said. "We've treated 400 patients and haven't seen a single adverse event. And what's happening is because of this fake news and fake science, the true scientific efforts are being harmed because people now are so worried that they don't want to enroll in the trials."  

570 Workers Test Positive For COVID At Tyson Plant In North Carolina  
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/570-workers-test-positive-covid-tyson-plant-north-carolina  

Permanent job losses are likely to be a feature of the eventual U.S. recovery, according to University of Chicago research, which estimates that 42% of recently unemployed workers will not return to their jobs amid the “profound” shock stemming from coronavirus lockdowns.

Another Bank Bailout Under Cover of a Virus​ , Ellen Brown
​  ​When the Dodd Frank Act was passed in 2010, President Obama triumphantly declared, “No more bailouts!” But what the Act actually said was that the next time the banks failed, they would be subject to “bail ins” – the funds of their creditors, including their large depositors, would be tapped to cover their bad loans.
But bail-ins were tried in Europe, and the results were disastrous. ​ 
​  Many economists in the US and Europe argued that the next time the banks failed, they should be nationalized – taken over by the government as public utilities. But that opportunity was lost when, in September 2019 and again in March 2020, Wall Street banks were quietly bailed out from a liquidity crisis in the repo market that could otherwise have bankrupted them.​..
​  “The justification of private profit,” said President Franklin Roosevelt in a 1938 address, “is private risk.” Banking has now been made virtually risk-free, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States and its people. The American people are therefore entitled to share in the benefits and the profits. Banking needs to be made a public utility.​..
​...​During the Great Depression, more than one-third of all private US banks were closed due to bank runs.
​  ​But President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933, was skeptical about insuring bank deposits. He warned, “We do not wish to make the United States Government liable for the mistakes and errors of individual banks, and put a premium on unsound banking in the future.” 
​  ​The government had a viable public alternative, a US postal banking system established in 1911. Postal banks became especially popular during the Depression, because they were backed by the US government.​..
...by March the Fed was making $1 trillion per day available in overnight loans. The central bank was backstopping the whole repo market, including the hedge funds, an untenable situation.
​  ​In March 2020, under cover of a national crisis, the Fed therefore flung the doors open to its discount window, where only banks could borrow. Previously, banks were reluctant to apply there because the interest was at a penalty rate and carried a stigma, signaling that the bank must be in distress. But that concern was eliminated when the Fed announced in a March 15 press release that the interest rate had been dropped to 0.25% (virtually zero). The reserve requirement was also eliminated, the capital requirement was relaxed, and all banks in good standing were offered loans of up to 90 days, “renewable on a daily basis.” The loans could be continually rolled over, and no strings were attached to this interest-free money – no obligation to lend to small businesses, reduce credit card rates, or write down underwater mortgages.​..
 US banks did not share this windfall with the public. Canadian interest rates were cut by half, from 21% to 11%; but US credit card rates dropped in April only by half a percentage point, to 20.15%.​...
​  ​State and local governments could make cheap credit available to their communities, but today they too are second class citizens when it comes to borrowing. Unlike the banks, which can borrow virtually interest-free with no strings attached, states can sell their bonds to the Fed only at market rates of 3% or 4% or more plus a penalty...
 How can states get parity with the banks? If Congress won’t address that need, states can borrow interest-free at the Fed’s discount window by forming their own publicly-owned banks.

​Can the US pressure Israel to cancel contract with China to manage the Port of Haifa? That would be something new.
"Polite Deflection Will No Longer Cut It" - US Pressures Israel To Sever Economic Ties With China

US Outrages China With $180M Torpedoes-For-Taiwan Deal On Same Day President Sworn In
“Supplying Taiwan with these torpedoes serves the economic and security interests of the United States by helping (Taiwan) modernize its armed forces and maintaining a reliable defense capability.”  
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-unveils-sale-180m-worth-torpedoes-taiwan-same-day-president-sworn  

​Geopolitical strategic weapon...
​  ​It may well be the case that the U.S. shale sector has cut over US$50 billion from its planned spending this year, the number of operating rigs has fallen by 40 per cent in the past four weeks, and output has fallen by nearly one million barrels per day (bpd) over the same period. It is equally true, though, that what all these reports overlook is that the shale oil (and gas) sector is too important from a geopolitical and economic perspective to the world standing of the U.S. for it to be allowed to fail, and all other considerations are secondary.

Venezuela To 'Protect' 5 Inbound Iranian Tankers With Ships & Planes Military Escort
...​we've been closely following the saga of Iran's provocatively sending five fuel-laden tankers to gasoline-starved Venezuela, despite repeat and growing threats of US intervention against the brazen sanctions-busting mission.
​  ​And now surely escalating matters from Washington's point of view, the Maduro government has vowed it will provide navy ships and military aircraft to escort the inbound Iranian fuel tankers.

 Pompeo Accuses China Of Helping Iran's 'Gas For Gold' Sanctions-Busting In Venezuela
​  ​Currently there are five Iranian-flagged tankers transporting fuel to Venezuela across the Atlantic Ocean, with plans to break the American blockade on the Latin American country. Iran has warned that any US attempt at intercepting its fuel tankers "would have serious repercussions for the Trump administration ahead of the November elections."
​  ​But Washington appears ready to do just that, also as the growing number of Iranian supply flights to Caracas via Iran's US-sanctioned Mahan Air is gaining attention. To get Venezuela's derelict refineries up and running to meet domestic gas consumption, vital parts are needed — a role that Tehran has stepped up to fill. But in a new twist to the imminent geopolitical showdown, the US has freshly accused China of being part of the Iranian sanctions-busting scheme in Latin America.

 What on Earth Is the US Doing by Bombing Somalia?
https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/05/15/what-on-earth-is-the-us-doing-by-bombing-somalia/  

T​he US military is cooking something up that can't be looked at...
​ ​"President Trump has decided to withdraw from another major arms control accord, according to senior administration officials, and will inform Russia on Friday that the United States is pulling out of the Open Skies Treaty," reports The New York Times.
The post Cold War treaty, initiated in 1992 and then ratified in 2002, allows its now 35 member states to conduct short-notice, unarmed observation flights to monitor other countries' military operations in mutual verification of arms-control agreements.  

F​riendly Skies​

Blogger and Mexican avocado trees in Yoakum recently

15 comments:

  1. Hi John. Thanks for the response and info on Vit D. I would love to find a doctor like you here in Florida.
    One other thing. The letter from the San Antonio doctor brought back memories from the book Johnny Got His Gun when the main character refuses a medal for his service in WWI. Very well spoken by her.

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    1. Yes, that's doctor is very careful and well spoken and cries for the suffering of her patients, but never flinches from engaging them in every possible way to help. That's my daughter, Holly Day MD. Her birthday was yesterday.

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  2. That's a great story. As far as the vaccine for the Covad virus Italian doctor and researcher, Prof. Pasquale Mario Bacco, said that this virus is mutating rapidly so a vaccine will be useless. If it was done in June it would worthless in November. (www.radioradio.it)

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    1. This virus mutates kind of slowly for what it is. It has some error-correction mechanisms that help it replicate more accurately. It mutates slowly for an RNA virus, but faster than DNA viruse. Vaccine statements are all worthless, since all speculative.
      Don't be a vaccine test subject for a cronavirus vaccine.

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    2. Hi John. Thanks for promoting Vitamin D. Research shows that natural sunlight is better than any Vitamin D supplement. But too much sunlight can cause skin cancer for fair skinned people like me as my experience confirms. I have done extensive research in this topic in collaboration with New Zealand's top government expert in sunshine and skin cancer at NIWA. We need about half an hour of exposure to sunshine around the middle of the day, every second day, to produce enough vitamin D. Sunshine exposure every day for fair skinned people will increase the risk of skin cancer because Ozone depletion has made UV radiation more intense. Therefore, fair-skinned people should only have sun exposure every second day and systematically rotate their body to expose different parts to the sun in turn when sun-tanning to get enough Vitamin D without being at risk for sunburn and skin cancer. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325615721_Vitamin_D_production_and_UV_exposure-a_systematic_review

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    3. I tell people that sunlight on their skin is good and sunburn is bad.
      You can see that I have moderate skin pigment. It's all from sunlight. My ancestors are from England, Scotland, Ireland, Normandy, Germany. Typical white Europeans.
      I bicycle and garden. Occasionally I lie out in the sun, particulrly on warm-enough winter days. I take 5000 units D3 per day, and have for over a decade. My 25OH vitamin-D level was 79 a few Julys ago. Upper mid normal. It is pretty hard to get too much.
      Don't eat t whole raw polar bear liver by yourself, though.

      Article Summary: A review of the current literature has ascertained the lack of concrete experimental evidence regarding the extent of effect of sunlight exposure on 25(OH)D levels on which public health recommendations may be based. Previous studies on the effect of UV radiation on vitamin D levels in humans have mostly been observational. The current recommendations are based on either ecological studies or mathematical calculations of vitamin D production in response to UV exposure. The few experimental studies that have been used as a basis for recommendation were studies that used artificial UV as the source of radiation to generate 25(OH)D. However, a recent study comparing ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight and artificial sources, found UV from the artificial source to be 8 times more efficient in generating 25(OH)D . Therefore, there is a need to understand the effect of natural sunlight on 25(OH)D levels."

      "
      The vitamin-D hypothesis has it that Mediterranean people lost pigment as they moved northward to Germany and Russia, to maximize vitamin-D access.
      "Skin cancer" really means "squamous cell cancer", though maybe some basal cell cancers. too. Trying to say sunlight causes melanoma is common, but not substantiates, so fearmongering. Keep track of little stuff on your skin and freeze things that don't go awway. Any sore that does not heal is urgent.

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  3. To be technically correct, this matter of sunshine exposure can be complicated but a medical doctor will have the intelligence to check all relevant variables and advise patient concerning their situation and the safe optimum daily exposure time in the sun depending on their season and latitude they live in.

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  4. I live in New Zealand at latitude 40 where it is difficult to get enough sunshine in winter. But through experience I learned the trick and regular blood tests confirm that I maintain good levels of Vitamin D all year round. For the past 20 years I've had numerous non-malignant skin cancer lesions and melanoma, but now my skin is in good condition and I never suffer from colds or flu.

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    1. Lots of nice folks in New Zealand. Kiwis were very hospitable to our family when we bicycle toured the South Island in January-March 2006.
      "Oh, you're the American family. We heard about you", Hostel proprietress.
      Fond memories, and some hard days, too.

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  5. I enjoyed travelling all around the USA for 6 weeks in 1983. Folks there were very hospitable. Most Kiwis are friendly, honest and hard-working but they trust the government too much and follow rules like sheep. Our government is controlled by the USA.

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    1. And who controls the USA?
      Cloak of invisibility hides the owners of the empire, doesn't it?

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  6. The owners have a top secret annual meeting with the world's leaders in politics, industry, media and banking to update their information and keep their focus on global domination. https://bilderbergmeetings.org/index.html

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    1. I keep hoping to get invited to the Bilderberger meeting, but every year, no invitation comes. I'll probably never get to ask questions of Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Evelyn Rothschild.
      Oh, well, I have gardening to do...

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