Article : Psychiatrists are uncovering connections between viruses and mental health. They’re surprising.

[Arnie Pye]

Not a recommendation.

Title : Psychiatrists are uncovering connections between viruses and mental health. They’re surprising.

Subtitle : Immune responses to viruses like SARS-CoV-2 may affect mental health, and vice versa. Doctors are uncovering exactly how.

Link : https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/22783685/covid-19-depression-mental-health-risks-immunology

Date of publication : Dec 1, 2021

Based on the title of the article and the URL this article had a name change or two before publication.

This article comes across to me as just lazy journalism.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, one of the biggest questions was: Why do some people get so much sicker than others? It’s a question that has forced researchers to confront some deep mysteries of the human body, and come to conclusions that have startled them.

By the fall of 2020, psychiatrists were reporting that among the many groups who were high risk, people with psychiatric disorders, broadly, seemed to be getting more severe forms of Covid-19 at a higher rate. Katlyn Nemani, an NYU neuropsychiatrist, decided to dig deeper, asking: Just how much more at risk, and which conditions?

In January, she and a group of colleagues published a study of 7,348 Covid-19 patients in New York. One finding was stark: People with a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis faced more than two and a half times the average person’s risk of dying from Covid-19, even after controlling for the many other factors that affect Covid-19 outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, smoking, obesity, and demographic factors — age, sex, and race.

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Something I read about quite some time ago is that anyone with vitamin D deficiency has a much greater risk of developing schizophrenia than someone who is replete in vitamin D.

References for the above - there are lots :

World J Clin Cases. 2021 Oct 6; 9(28): 8295–8311.
Link : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8554424/

Some People With Schizophrenia May Simply Have a Vitamin Deficiency
Link : https://scitechdaily.com/some-people-with-schizophrenia-may-simply-have-a-vitamin-deficiency/
Published online 2021 Oct 6. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i28.8295

Vitamin Supplementation in the Treatment of Schizophrenia
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC4083629/

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When we look at risks for more severe cases of Covid what do we find? Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of being severely affected by Covid-19 - but only where publishers have been allowed to link the two in writing - which has often been fudged and rarely mentioned.

Link : https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and...to-severity-of-respiratory-covid-19-covid-19/
Vitamin D and B12 Levels – a Clue to Severity of Respiratory COVID-19 [COVID-19]

• Research summary
  The SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes the current pandemic of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has resulted in large numbers of people infected, individuals with severe disease needing intensive care in hospitals, and deaths around the world since December 2019. Vitamin D is essential for the normal function of our immune system and plays a vital role in the prevention of a variety of infections. Epidemiological research has identified vitamin D as a risk factor for more severe COVID-19. Very early clinical studies show an association between low vitamin D levels and more severe disease and death from the virus. For vitamin B12, early computer modelling and laboratory-based research indicate that vitamin B12 may bind to at least one of the viral proteins and thereby slow down viral replication. Neurological features of COVID-19 and vitamin B12 deficiency overlap. Our hypothesis is, therefore, that vitamin D and/or B12 levels are associated with more severe COVID-19. We aim to investigate this by measuring the levels of these two vitamins in blood samples from 500 consecutive adult patients who presented to Addenbrooke’s hospital with the respiratory manifestations of COVID-19. We will then look for statistical evidence of an association between vitamin levels and the severity of disease in these patients. If this and other research confirm our hypothesis, further work will be needed to establish the best timing, dose and duration of treatment with either or both of these vitamins for the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Such research, and implementing its results, can start quickly since preparations for both vitamins are licensed in the UK. Both are inexpensive, effective at improving vitamin levels, and well-tolerated even in high doses. This research is part of the worldwide effort to reduce the severity of the COVID19 pandemic.

Title (a BMJ Editorial) : Vitamin D and covid-19
Link : https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n544

Title : Link between vitamin D deficiency and COVID-19 gets stronger
Link : https://www.thehealthsite.com/news/...deficiency-and-covid-19-gets-stronger-767093/

Title : Vitamin D deficiency as risk factor for severe COVID-19: a convergence of two pandemics
Link : https://europepmc.org/article/PPR/PPR158640

Title : Vitamin D deficiency may raise risk of getting COVID-19
Link : https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/fo...-deficiency-may-raise-risk-of-getting-covid19


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I thought the possible connections between vitamin D deficiency, schizophrenia, Covid-19 and mental illness might be of interest. But overall, the link I started with ignores the whole possibility of a connection, and I think that is terrible.