Talk:WikiJournal of Medicine/Vitamin D as an adjunct for acute community-acquired pneumonia among infants and children: systematic review and meta-analysis

External peer reviewer comments

 * Reviewer comments were finalized May 1st, 2017.
 * Rebuttal by the Authors received May 6th, 2017.

The reviewers were: All wished to remain anonymous.
 * an MD PhD and biostatistician
 * a medical epidemiologist
 * an Associate Professor and consultant physician
 * a professor and medical director in infectious diseases

Thoughts from a lay person.
Not sure how one should add comments to such a reviewed paper, will have to investigate the formal methods. Feel free to move this into the correct place if it does not belong here.

It seemed off that there was no mention of the fact that bolus dosing is deprecated in the management of immune functions for Vitamin-D.

Mention of the lower value of Vitamin-D2 as opposed to Vitamin-D3 should also be mentioned if any of the trials were to make use of it, also the complications in evaluating mixed serum levels for those who have both types and the postulated reduction of existing Vitamin-D3 function with the administration of large amounts of the less beneficial Vitamin-D2.

The lack of acceptance that Magnesium is a direct co-factor and having it uncontrolled is like stating a fire with a measured amounts of fuel but no idea of the available oxygen. Avoiding trial that co-administer other supplements kind of makes the trials pointless. The promotion of trials that ignore co-factors when investigating nutrients should be stopped. Use two variables if you must but make sure you are measuring the essential co-factors, specifically excluding them is not good.

Selecting populations that do not have a deficiency reduces the knowledge you glean. Those with Rickets are prime candidates for CAP, not because they have Rickets but precisely because they have A Vitamin-D deficiency.

Trials of Vitamin-D that compare doses that are significantly sub-physiological between themselves but exclude the effects of solar physiological doses on some of the participants are not worth publishing, certainly not worth reviewing. If a daily dose from the sun can be 10'000-20'00IU from good sun exposure that is not controlled in a trial how can any sane researcher sit in their armchair and compare results of 100-800IU doses and expect the solar doses to have no affect on their results. Rational researches who are measuring the effects of small sub-physiological doses of Vitamin-D (that they thought were physiological but proved themselves wrong) do their studies in Antarctic winters or nuclear submarines that are deprived of sunlight.

I find that the enduring lack of knowledge of the field that a simple lay person (engineer) like me has managed to amass in a year is troubling. There should no longer be pointless and error prone research on nutrients. Why does it continue unabated.

Idyllic press (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 6 April 2021 (UTC)