DSM responds to immunity demands with fast acting vitamin Nutraingredients.com
DSM has launched a fast-acting vitamin D supplement which it says can help consumers reach optimum levels within days, rather than months.
DSM has been producing it for animals for many decades
NOTE: Nanoemulsion form of vitamin D appears to provide much faster response and is gut-friendly
Calcidiol = 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 = 25(OH)D = Calcifediol (Wikipedia)
- COVID-19 defeated by calcifediol form of Vitamin D in Spain - pilot RCT Aug 29, 2020
- Apparently DSM noticed this study
- Semi-activated Vitamin D given weekly (used by Spanish COVID-19 trial) – US patent application Sept 2020
- Wonder if DSM noticed this patent application
- Is HyD (25(OH)D) a better form of vitamin D for some animals and maybe humans with liver problems
- Calcidiol does not appear to have the fast response claims by the Spanish
- Calcidiol increased blood levels of Vitamin D in one month (dogs) – Feb 2021
- Calcidiol (Calcifediol, ampli-D) approved as food supplement by EFSA – (10 micrograms per day) – July 2021
Getting Vitamin D into your body has the following chart
Snips from a Jan 16 email by Robin Whittle on DSM and calcidiol
I don't have full references handy for the following, but here what I recall. DSM is a 119 year old company based in the Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM_(company) . They are one of the few companies who produce D3, the others being some Chinese companies, Fermenta Biotech in India, another company in the Netherlands (I think) and maybe one other in India. Most D3 (~80%) is produced for feed for agricultural animals the rest (~20% ~~35 tonnes per year in early 2020) is further refined to be pharma grade for humans - for supplements and food fortification. This refining is non-trivial, and some raw D3 could be diverted from animal feed for pharma-grade purification.
However the D3 itself is very difficult to produce. Firstly it is difficult to create the 7-dehydrocholesterol from woolfat - Fermenta Biotech has been wanting to do this for years and has a plant in production now, but even for them, with all their knowledge and resources, it will be a few years before they are able to produce for themselves all they need.
The second thing is the very, very, particular arrangements for irradiating the 7-dehydrocholesterol with particular wavelengths of UV-B light and not others (special compounds in the lamp cooling water reduce these) with very particular, very high powered, and limited lifetime iron-doped (I guess) mercury vapour lamps, with the 7-dehydrocholesterol and newly formed D3 in solution in a petrol-like inflammable hydrocarbon solvent. So the entire factory is something like a small oil refinery regarding pumps, containment, fire hazard etc. See photos: https://aminotheory.com/cv19/#Maharashtra-police .
DSM has long sold calcifediol for animal feed since some animals, such as chickens, absorb it better than D3. In the 2000s, I think, they made it themselves with one particular technique. (Sorry I don't have time to check and cite all the details.) In recent years they apparently (I read this in a discussion forum which was generally well informed, but I don't have concrete support for this) they took out an exclusive contract to buy all the 25OHD calcifediol produced by Chinese D3 (the largest in the world) producer Zeijiang Biochemical High-tech. This is again, apparently, primarily for animal feed and I read somewhere of the revenues indicating it was large volumes, tens or hundred of tonnes a year. Zeijiang Biochemical High-tech developed their own technique for making it which presumably has cost advantages over however DSM was doing it in the past. In neither case was it made from D3. I recall that the Zeijiang Biochemical technique involves processing wool fat to produce a particular precursor which was transformed with UV-light directly into 25OHD calcifediol.
DSM sells 25OHD calcifediol under the trade name "Hy.D" where the dot is actually some character which looks like a flat, fully filled, disc, which can make it hard to search for.
https://www.dsm.com/markets/anh/en_US/products/products-vitamins/products-vitamins-hyd.html
However, I can't find evidence that they sell a lot of this directly, or that it is an ingredient in lots of other animal feed products. I did find an Alabama animal feed company which produced a drinking water additive for turkeys which used Hy.D, which is apparently in stock and available for sale, but I am unsure how old the stock is. Assuming the product is what it says it is, this would probably be fine to put into some capsules to give to severe COVID-19 patients or anyone at risk, to get their levels up within a few hours. This would save lives but would no-doubt be against various laws and regulations and any doctors involved would probably need to take some Xanax.