When I first listened to episode 152 about Vitamin d, I was positively surprised that all the vitamin d I was gobbling for years was probably not the magical cure to my winter time low energy.
As a biomedical engineer, I have some ability, although rather basic, to read and understand medical papers.
My friends generally think I’m crazy for not taking vitamin d supplementation, and they recently quoted a video on youtube by one dr. John Campbell, where he discusses a new meta analysis study that claims vitamin d supplementation has a significant effect on reducing incidence and severity of covid.
After going through the paper, and reading all the cited papers in the meta analysis, it is clear to me that the case still stands as brought up in episode#152 that vitamin d supplementation actually does not contribute to decreased chances of catching covid or severity of covid when caught.
My question to this forum for discussion is: Why do these papers keep coming up? Why are they cited so much? Why do well known doctors with millions of followers keep sharing this as credible content?
Have a look at the paper yourself here: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/5/679
Without going too much in details, read the papers cited in the analysis that match a “good” criteria of their scope. You’ll know what I mean when I say I’m confused why they use this as a measure for how vitamin d supplementation is (according to the study) up to 80% effective in reducing chances of catching covid … ridiculous