There were two very early studies I remember reading surrounding covid-19, in 2020, that I'd love to see more light shed on now.
One was that people who took Vitamin D were less likely to be symptomatic. The other was that people who smoke cigarettes were something like 80% less likely to experience severe respiratory complications.
I take Vitamin D every day and smoke like the devil, and I'm the only person I know who's never had covid (or at least never tested positive for it... and I'm a paranoiac who for several years tested anytime my nose itched). Confirmation bias of one right here.
Did either of those things have any truth to them? I do realize that daily smokers tend to underreport their smoking, which could lead the stats to lean toward showing that nonsmokers got severe disease at a higher rate than their percentage of the general population, if smokers lie at a rate of 5:1 on their hospital admission forms... but it never sat right with me that this wasn't followed up. I seem remember a similar thing with smokers / reduced risk of acute lung disease among the cleanup workers at Chernobyl, so in some way it made sense to me at the time.
I heard of a study just the other day that tracked people over a couple decades in Scandinavia somewhere, if I remember correctly.
They found people who didn’t get outside had a significant shortening of their life compared to those who got outside more. Smoking, being something that gets people outside, ended up being a bit of a wash. Spending all your time inside is about as bad as smoking… it may have even been slightly worse. I tried finding the study quickly, but it wasn’t coming up.
For what it’s worth, I never got COVID in the last 5 years either, despite testing every time I got a little sick. But I also spent a considerable amount of time indoors and away from people. I’m not a smoker. I’ve been supplementing with vitamin D on and off for years, but mostly off during the Covid years. More recently I’ve been pretty consistent with it, but covid finally got me. I have it right now. I thought I was out of the woods.
noduerme|3 months ago
One was that people who took Vitamin D were less likely to be symptomatic. The other was that people who smoke cigarettes were something like 80% less likely to experience severe respiratory complications.
I take Vitamin D every day and smoke like the devil, and I'm the only person I know who's never had covid (or at least never tested positive for it... and I'm a paranoiac who for several years tested anytime my nose itched). Confirmation bias of one right here.
Did either of those things have any truth to them? I do realize that daily smokers tend to underreport their smoking, which could lead the stats to lean toward showing that nonsmokers got severe disease at a higher rate than their percentage of the general population, if smokers lie at a rate of 5:1 on their hospital admission forms... but it never sat right with me that this wasn't followed up. I seem remember a similar thing with smokers / reduced risk of acute lung disease among the cleanup workers at Chernobyl, so in some way it made sense to me at the time.
al_borland|3 months ago
They found people who didn’t get outside had a significant shortening of their life compared to those who got outside more. Smoking, being something that gets people outside, ended up being a bit of a wash. Spending all your time inside is about as bad as smoking… it may have even been slightly worse. I tried finding the study quickly, but it wasn’t coming up.
For what it’s worth, I never got COVID in the last 5 years either, despite testing every time I got a little sick. But I also spent a considerable amount of time indoors and away from people. I’m not a smoker. I’ve been supplementing with vitamin D on and off for years, but mostly off during the Covid years. More recently I’ve been pretty consistent with it, but covid finally got me. I have it right now. I thought I was out of the woods.