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The Big Vitamin D Mistake

• tw334 9y ago
  what is this saying in plain english? That we all need to take vitamin D supplements?
  • mborch 9y ago
    or better, just spend more time outside.
    • cantankerous 9y ago
      If you wear clothes and/or aren't near the equator it's not gonna make a big enough of a difference. Also you're gonna have to balance that with negative sun exposure. Salmon is probably a top vitamin d source, but supplements are probably the cheapest way to pack it in.
      • lexxed 9y ago
        What if i don't wear clothes and is at the equator
    • sp332 9y ago
      That drastically increases your odds of skin cancer. If you want to reduce your risk of dying overall, stay covered up and take supplements.
      • erkkie 9y ago
        Melanoma correlation with sun exposure is tricky; regular (non burning) exposure tends to correlate with lower risk (eg in outdoor workers). Non-melanoma skin cancers are usually curable. It's plausible to argue the benefits of regular non burning sun exposure overweight the risks.
    • rapsey 9y ago
      The amount of disinformation commonly expressed about vitamin D is quite amazing. Bogus claims: 1. Spend a couple of minutes outside and you will be OK. 2. It is absorbed through the eyes. 3. Deficiencies are rare. When in fact: 1. Does not apply at any time when your body is covered up mostly. Wear trousers and a T-shirt and you've cut yourself off severely already. Add weather with less sun, sunscreen, and/or more clothes and you've cut yourself off almost entirely unless you are outside for very long periods of time. 2. Fuck no. 3. They are extremely common even in sunny places. In the developed world a majority of people are.
      • bbunix 9y ago
        You'd think sunny places would fare better - however after moving to Key West from Montreal I discovered people here spent a lot of effort avoiding the sun (skin cancer is big down here).
        • ianai 9y ago
          As someone with fair skin, I’d be harming myself if I tried to get vitamin D from the sun. And very badly.
    • tathougies 9y ago
      This does not work if you have dark skin and do not live in the tropics.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • chrisfinne 9y ago
    Something like 10x the RDA
  • baxtr 9y ago
    Yes, this is exactly what the article says. In many countries, children under the age of 1 get supplements, but not after
  • bsder 9y ago
    The current RDA (recommended daily allowance) for Vitamin D is 600 IU. This paper is basically saying that number should be 6000 IU.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • olympus 9y ago
    Basically yes. I didn't read the paper, but the abstract says that our current recommendations were designed to get us past a threshold of 50 (nmol/L, but the units aren't that important). But they claim that we should be aiming to get above 75, and it would be best if we could get above 100. So drink more fortified milk. Edit: oops, looks like I read it wrong. 50 nmol/L isn't the threshold the current RDA gets us to, it's way lower than that.
    • glibgil 9y ago
      Milk costs more than a vitamin
      • distances 9y ago
        I assume the article is about milk since it's very common to drink milk in Finland. I'd wager most adults drink milk both with lunch and dinner as long as it fits the cuisine.
    • YokoZar 9y ago
      You would need to drink over 4 gallons of fortified milk per day to get the recommended 8000 IU. Milk just isn't fortified enough, because the current daily recommendations are so low.
      • ianai 9y ago
        Leave some mushrooms out in the sun, gills up, and enjoy ;). Though you may want to calculate it out first. This research survey at least makes me more confident in taking larger doses of vitamin D.
    • tathougies 9y ago
      Except the majority of people on the planet cannot digest lactose, and drinking more milk can cause all sorts of unpleasant digestive symptoms.
  • timewarrior 9y ago
    Summary is adults need at least 8000 IU of Vitamin D per day. This confirm what I have suspected since almost a decade. I have been taking 5k Vitamin D per day since one of my cousin had serious health issues because of low vitamin D for 3 years and as soon as she started having 5k IU per day, they disappeared within a month.
    • Sargos 9y ago
      Has it had any effect on you?
  • benbreen 9y ago
    The recommended daily intake of Vitamin D currently seems to be ~600 IU for adults. This article is arguing that this recommended dosage should be increased thirteen-fold to 8,000 IU for adults.
    • sundvor 9y ago
      Aye. My Vitamin D pills are 1,000 IU and recommended to use 1 per day. I will up that now. This sort of info is awesome. Thanks, HN.
• timewarrior 9y ago
  This article recommends around 100 nmol/L. Most people are between 20-30, because they don't get enough Sun and do not take supplements. It gets really really bad when the number gets below 10 and it takes months to recover. Another Vitamin whose deficiency cause irreversible damage is B12. Folks, get both of these checked.
  • DigitalJack 9y ago
    I happen to have a gene mutation that makes methylation of B12 inefficient. I never did well in chemistry or biology for that matter, but my limited understanding is that methylation is necessary for it to be useful. It turns out that you can buy methylated B12 called methylcobalamin. The more common form is cyanocobalamin, and is not very useful for people like myself. That is my understanding, if anyone here knows better or more, please correct me.
    • timewarrior 9y ago
      Thanks for this added information. I discovered the same thing, with another family member where Methylcobalamin worked wonders and Cyanocobalamin didn't. One thing I would add is that Methylcobalamin needs to be injected to work best. If people do not have your gene mutation, they are better off taking Cyanocobalamin. PS: Whenever someone in family has major health issue which no one can get handle on - they reach out to me. My lifelong dream has been to cure Cancer using AI. Just started working on that.
      • tathougies 9y ago
        You can take methylcobalamin sublingually. Absorption is fine, according to my blood results.
      • pcthrowaway 9y ago
        I thought the injection was typically hydroxocobalamin. Has this changed?
        • 9y ago
• ravar 9y ago
  Throwing in my two cents. I used to suffer from seasonal mood swings, since taking a daily multivitamin this has been the best winter of my life.
  • themodelplumber 9y ago
    I've been tracking my depression for a few years now, and I'm amazed at the number of things that can trigger a depressive episode. I used to think I had a disease called depression, but it now appears that I had arrived at a collection of various life circumstances that made experiencing depression on any given day more likely for me. Some of the main triggers have been: - Attempting to proceed without a plan - Pushing for more productivity when less is called for (New year's resolutions were a great example personally) - Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) - Too much exercise without rest days - Too much exposure to social experience - Too few dopamine-injecting experiences (e.g. not enough achievement, not nibbling away at my problems and watching leverage build up) Strikingly to me, some of these seem tied to my psychology and I would hesitate to tell others "hey not having a plan is bad for you" when I know some people for whom planning is a mental health liability. Personalized medicine can't get good enough, fast enough.
    • jciochon 9y ago
      This is interesting and resonates with me. While I agree with your conclusion about giving advice, could you perhaps share your methodology for discovering your triggers?
      • themodelplumber 9y ago
        Every negative episode I deal with gets tracked and logged. I have a notebook just for this purpose, I time stamp my results, and I try to develop my own theories of what might be going on, and what might have happened, while remaining open to trying others' ideas (that's how I found out about sleep cycles, dopamine, etc.). My purpose is to develop a framework which gives me greater leverage against the suffering. When I feel low, I immediately put myself in a resting state (usually laying down) and start logging and taking notes. Incidentally my lowest periods of depression produce about 2 to 3 negative thoughts per minute for up to 30 to 45 minutes at a time, whereupon my body naturally seems to cycle out of that a bit before returning. So I'm noticing that even really depressed days have lots of little less-depressed leverage points where I can trust my judgments and rally myself to make smart decisions. This tracking and logging and modeling stuff was not something with which I was familiar before I started studying a bit of personality psychology. I basically looked for tools that would help someone like me, but that I hadn't yet tried.
• basicplus2 9y ago
  Sufficient vitamin D is gained primarily from Sun exposure.. typically between 10am and 2pm, I have read that at certain latitudes and times of year the required window is considerably less but cannot find a reference. http://www.return2health.net/articles/does-vitamin-d-really-come-from-the-sun/ http://www.return2health.net/articles/does-vitamin-d-really-...
  • tathougies 9y ago
    This is a very caucasian centric viewpoint. The fact is that if you live in higher latitudes and have dark skin, you physically cannot absorb enough vitamin D from sunlight during the winter months. While it is physically possible during the summer, it is not practical to spend hours sunbathing.
    • basicplus2 9y ago
      That's a very coloured centric viewpoint. The fact is that the majority of people of planet earth can go out in the sunshine at the right time of day and get 80-90% the vitamin D they need and get the rest from a balanced diet.
      • tathougies 9y ago
        No that is not true at all. In today's world people of all races are living everywhere, so we should give recommendations based off a person's individual health. It is simply not true that a brown skinned person can absorb enough vitamin D from the sun in the northern latitudes. I said the above viewpoint was caucasian centric because it assumed that everyone could get enough vitamin D from the sun. My response is not 'coloured'-centric because I did not say that no one could get enough from the sun, only that your absorption depends on your skin color. My response was not a generalization, unlike the comment I replied to.
        • deleted 9y ago
          [deleted]
      • 9y ago
• olympus 9y ago
  Hmm. "Actions are urgently needed to protect the global population from vitamin D deficiency." I wish this sentence wasn't in the abstract, because it's the first thing the "science journalists" are going to latch on to. It's not like people's bones are snapping because everyone has rickets. Maybe not an urgent need, just something we should publish a revised RDA and diet guideline. We had a very different looking food pyramid when I was growing up, but changing it didn't drastically increase life expectancy. Everyone choking down extra vitamins isn't going to fix a non-existent problem.
• yufengg 9y ago
  tl;dr: we need wayyy more Vitamin D than previously recommended. ~13.3x more. Take supplements to reach 8000 IU/day for adults. existing standards from the NIH: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • skybrian 9y ago
    However the article doesn't describe any new research and cites a meta-analysis that has a different conclusion: "A target range of 25(OH)D of greater than 30 ng/mL could be achieved in most individuals by intake of approximately 1000 IU per day of vitamin D3, which is one quarter the National Academy of Sciences–Institute of Medicine tolerable upper level of intake of 4000 IU per day at ages 9 years and older. Although it is above the National Academy of Sciences–Institute of Medicine–recommended daily allowance of 600 to 800 IU per day, intake of 1000 IU per day has been reported as safe for daily use for almost all adults, according to the recent Endocrine Society clinical guidelines. Still, some authors have expressed concern about the efficacy and absolute safety of doses greater than 1000 IU per day, so caution is reasonable. The Endocrine Society has established a tolerable upper-limit intake of 10 000 IU per day at ages 19 years and older. Doses of vitamin D3 below 10 000 IU per day in adults have not been associated with toxicity, and serum 25(OH)D concentrations less than 200 ng/mL are generally not considered toxic. This leaves a considerable margin of safety for efforts to raise the population concentration of 25(OH)D to 40 ng/mL." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/
• tathougies 9y ago
  This supports my lived experience. Found to be incredibly low in vitamin D, and diagnosed with autoimmune thyroiditis. Doctor said to supplement with 2000 IU being the max per day. After seeing no improvement whatsoever in vitamin D levels, and after talking with others with the same issue, I self medicated to 10000 IU / day. Lo and behold my vitamin D levels went back up and my auto-antibodies went back down.
  • BenjiWiebe 9y ago
    I've got a nice doctor. I was also incredibly low (getting muscle twitches) and he put me on 15000 IU a day. Did wonders. :)
    • sitkack 9y ago
      Can you explain muscle twitches vs Vitamin D?
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    • mistermann 9y ago
      Could it also cause cramps?
  • code_duck 9y ago
    Interesting to hear of a connection between this, type 1 diabetes and autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's?). I have celiac, also an autoimmune disease, and one of the symptoms is tingly and numb extremities, peripheral neuropathy. I think that's related to the ataxia side of celiac and nerve degeneration from nerves losing their sheathing. Prior to diagnosis, I learned that the numbness is also a symptom of Vitamin D deficiency and found that taking supplements helped.
    • adventured 9y ago
      Have you ever taken a fluoroquinolone antibiotic at any point in your life? Look into r-lipoic acid, low dose 100mg (take one per day, with food), from the Doctor's Best brand (available on Amazon). You might consider that for the peripheral neuropathy, it does wonders for some people.
• King-Aaron 9y ago
  Anecdotally, I had this discussion with a cardiovascular interventionist specialist about seven or eight years ago when I was managing a team of cardio theatre orderlies in a private hospital. He made the comment, "mark my words, in about five to ten years time there will be a major scare about needing to absorb more vitamin D". His opinion was that the increase in sunscreen usage and the push to avoid skin cancer by staying covered up was likely to blame. I find it interesting when articles such as this pop up, because it directly reflects his concerns from those years ago. For reference, this was the late Dr Geoffrey Mews (who I only just realised has passed on while I was looking for a reference to post. That's made me a bit sad now)
  • deepGem 9y ago
    The NIH guys also did a study that said that even in tropical countries, Vitamin D absorption has fallen dramatically because of lifestyle changes. One of the probable factors is the lust for fair skin. I routinely see people covered from head to toe to help them stay fair skinned, even kids are sent to play covered in full sleeve clothing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3897581/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3897581/
    • LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      Fair skin is a lot better than skin cancer!
      • tomhoward 9y ago
        Sure, but higher melanin (ie, darker skin pigmentation) is correlated with lower cancer rates [1][2]. So the point is that cultural changes are causing people who were previously were at lower risk of cancer due to their skin pigmentation/higher melanin, to now have reducing melanin/pigmentation, therefore increasing rates of skin cancer. [1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/skin-cancer/prevention-and-early-detection/sun-damage.html https://www.cancer.org/cancer/skin-cancer/prevention-and-ear... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/race.htm https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/skin/statistics/race.htm
• guelo 9y ago
  This is one of the reasons I hate dermatologist's panic against sun exposure. Vitamin D deficiency kills way more people than skin cancer.
  • KerrickStaley 9y ago
    [citation needed]
  • mohaine 9y ago
    My dermatologist actually told me to get more sun, but then I have psoriasis. I believe his exact recommendation was one beach vacation every early Feb.
    • tathougies 9y ago
      Does insurance pay for that? :)
• noahdesu 9y ago
  Has anyone had experience ordering blood work (e.g. the vitamin d 25 hydroxy test) without visiting a doctor? I've seen very few references to the set of sites that pop up first online [0, 1, 2, 3] when I've gone looking for reviews in the past. Any suggestions? I'm in CA. [0]: https://www.privatemdlabs.com https://www.privatemdlabs.com [1]: http://www.directlabs.com/ http://www.directlabs.com/ [2]: https://www.walkinlab.com/ https://www.walkinlab.com/ [3]: https://www.health-tests-direct.com/ https://www.health-tests-direct.com/
  • zamalek 9y ago
    Bloodwork is a core utility of naturopaths so one would probably know the best place to visit. You don't have to be incredibly lucky for your preventative plan to cover the visit.
  • darshan 9y ago
    I've used Direct Labs multiple times over the years (including for 25 hydroxy) and I've always been perfectly happy with them.
  • dwich 9y ago
    I've tried DirectLabs, WalkInLabs, and Life Extension, and have been happy with them all. All of those companies are basically just "doctor ordering resellers" for the two big test labs (LabCorp and Quest), so you generally don't have to worry about the quality of the testing. I specifically use Life Extension for vitamin D because they're the cheapest one I'm aware of.
    • exhilaration 9y ago
      Can you tell me which one of those uses Quest? I used Life Extension as well for vitamin D but had to go pretty far to get to a LabCorp facility. I've got a Quest facility a few minutes away I'd rather go to.
      • dwich 9y ago
        Sure, here's the ones I know of: Quest-only: DirectLabs, Personalabs Choice of Quest or DirectLabs: Walk-in Lab (switch the radio button to Quest on the category pages, and make sure a "QD" icon shows up next to it in your cart), TrueHealthLabs (make sure the tests you look at say Quest is an option), HealthTestsDirect (make sure the test list page is toggled to Quest at the top) DirectLabs and Walk-in are generally cheaper than the others I mentioned.
• serbrech 9y ago
  For Vitamin D 1IU is 0.025mcg. 8000IU = 200mcg My box of vitamin shows a Vitamin D3 content on 5mcg/pill (noted as 100% of recommended daily intake). Time to change pill I guess...
  • cies 9y ago
    Yes. And see toxinless.com for good info on clean supplements.
  • dbeardsl 9y ago
    Off by a factor of 10. 0.025mcg * 8000 = 20mcg
    • serbrech 9y ago
      no... 200 is correct.
• micro_cam 9y ago
  This article seems to be a low quality review of other research with a clickbatey title (full text here: https://www.jpmph.org/journal/view.php?doi=10.3961/jpmph.16.111 https://www.jpmph.org/journal/view.php?doi=10.3961/jpmph.16....). Pubmed is sort of like arxiv.org and the fact this has an nih.gov base url should not be taken as an endorsement of it by the NIH. That said I do actually believe that more then the recommended amount of vitamin D can be beneficial and the recommendations are in need of reevaluation.
  • davidshepherd7 9y ago
    Just to back this up: the journal it's published in has a very very low impact factor of 0.235 (i.e. it publishes 4x more papers that it gets citations, probably most of it's papers are never cited by anyone) [1]. If this paper was considered a big a deal by the wider research community you would expect it to be published in a high profile journal. [1]: https://journal.komci.org/ViewJournalInfo.php?JID=109#ImpactFactor https://journal.komci.org/ViewJournalInfo.php?JID=109#Impact...
    • andrewwharton 9y ago
      https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic
    • jooke 9y ago
      Do you know why this is the case? Is there some flaw in their methodology?
      • patkai 9y ago
        Good question! The scientific method does not include references to "impact factor" :)
        • drostie 9y ago
          I mean, it does. The "fairy tale" that one hears in high school doesn't, but we put aside fairy tales when we became adults. If you are done with the "undergrad level" of Popper and Kuhn it is worth reading Imre Lakatos's work on philosophy of science. It contains a moment where one realizes that research programs live or die by this "impact factor" and that this living or dying is a key part of the overall methodology of science. The gist is that science is actually participating in a survival-of-the-fittest evolution with certain foundational ideas as the "genes" which "reproduce". So scientific ideas are actually good or bad in no small part due to their ability to create further scientific research along similar lines. A low impact-factor therefore directly says "along this particularly important-to-science axis, this journal sucks."
• timewarrior 9y ago
  One point of caution: Anyone who takes Vitamin D supplement, make sure you take 25-Hydroxy (Calcifediol) and not the active form - 1,25 dihydroxy (Calcitriol). Active form has severe side effects and is not supposed to be used for supplementation unless in you have kidney problem which prevent metabolizing 25-Hydroxy.
  • theprotocol 9y ago
    I thought all D2 and D3 supplements would be ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol, respectively, while calcitriol is what gets tested to assess blood levels. Do any supplements actually contain calcitriol?
    • timewarrior 9y ago
      Medical system in India is a mess of kickbacks. A Doctor gave my cousin a prescription of Calcitriol because it was much more expensive. Led to major side effects which went away as soon as it was stopped. Supplements don't have it. However that warning was for someone who goes out of way to acquire Calcitriol.
  • cies 9y ago
    And pay a visit to toxinless.com to made sure your supplement is clean.
• trhway 9y ago
  not to mention apparent connection to autism. Best example - Somali immigrant populations concentrated in Sweden and Minnesota have unnaturally high child autism rates and extremely low vitamin D levels (very dark skin, weak Sun, a lot of clothes covering almost the whole body most of the year due to the cold climate). Another Swedish study found, though much smaller effect, uptick in autism rates among children whose 3rd trimester, when the brain develops the fastest, fell onto the winter.
• borplk 9y ago
  Steve Gibson has talked about this issue in the past: https://www.grc.com/health/vitamin-d.htm https://www.grc.com/health/vitamin-d.htm (And please, yes we get it you are a smart ass, don't link to the page that you are going to. The horse has been beaten to death.)
  • skeleton 9y ago
    Now I'm curious as to what page you're referring to.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • borplk 9y ago
      I'm not going to refer to it. If you are curious search on google or HN.
      • simias 9y ago
        It seems dishonest to hide content that may be relevant to the discussion, especially after teasing it that way. Maybe if it warrants mentioning in your original comment it also warrants explaining why you think it's irrelevant?
        • borplk 9y ago
          There's no dishonesty. They are easily found for anyone interested. As I said the horse been has beaten to death so I didn't want to do what I was discouraging others from doing. They are mostly uneducated, lazy, decade-old, hand-wavy, and baseless personal attacks on him. The man has been a geek, engineer, programmer and a techie for multiple decades. He has been on record for the past 12-13 years audio, video and text transcripts, 2-3 hours per week, discussing many topics in detail, explaining his thoughts and ideas and reasoning carefully (on SecurityNow podcast, 600+ episodes!). Every time he has made a mistake he comes back and carefully corrects himself, and it doesn't happen often either. He is no Linus Torvalds, and he doesn't claim to be one, most of us aren't either. And his knowledge goes into all sorts of weird corners from science fiction to medicine like the vitamin D stuff and the "sleep formula". All of it available for free for anyone who has the patience to sit through it and learn. I have, and he has improved my life in many ways that I owe him for and can never pay back (including starting to take vitamin D many years ago after he talked about as I have referred to). He has contributed positively to this community and industry for many years. He has done nothing to deserve people bringing up stupid pages that call him a "charlatan" or "snake oil salesman" every time someone calls his name. There isn't even any substance to those claims. Most of them say "he said XP raw sockets were bad!! GET HIM!!". Or variations of "Spinrite doesn't fix prostate cancer. It must be snake oil software.". He has probably explained 10+ hours on SecurityNow the history behind Spinrite, what it does, what it doesn't, why it works, where it works, where it doesn't work and everything in between. But these bitter 20-something neckbeards are too busy for that. Let's jump the man that has been a programmer for longer than you have existed because he uses assembly or something ... GET HIM! I have no horse in this race. I'm just angry at the smug reply that inevitably follows every time him or his pages/products/projects are mentioned. As if everyone needs to be warned about this monster of a man for the unimaginable sins he committed 10+ years ago when he said something about XP raw sockets, or something else. If these people criticising him had produced a tenth of the content that he has produced they would have made many more mistakes. What are we to do now? Crucify Gibson because his Spinrite software doesn't perform miracles? Or because he has made a few mistakes here and there? Everyone else is perfect? Are we going to dig up the past history of everyone else who is mentioned too? And link to a page that enumerates the minor mistakes they have made over their entire career? Go dig up Github commits to shame people who introduced stupid bugs in open source software? (not that he has, just an example) Or how about we dig through their medium posts, conference presentations, and list and archive any possible mistakes. Then every time someone mentions them say "HEY LOOK EVERY BODY THIS PERSON HAS MADE 3 WHOLE MISTAKES SINCE 10 YEARS AGO, THEY ARE CLEARLY A MONSTER! STAY FAR AWAY.". It is completely uncalled for and has gotten real old. He doesn't come here to write something like this himself so I had to do it for him. Steve, if you ever read this, thank you for your work. Edit: fixed some typos, added some additional sentences
• theprotocol 9y ago
  If the recommendations of this study become the guideline, it may validate the other studies suggesting that nearly everyone is deficient in magnesium, which is a co-factor in the Vitamin D / calcium cycle. AFAIK (and correct me if I'm wrong), the vitamin D metabolism requires magnesium, calcium, vitamin K2, and vitamin A. K2 in particular needs special attention, as it's the hardest of the substrates to get.
  • skybrian 9y ago
    It's not a study. It's an article that cites other studies.
    • theprotocol 9y ago
      It has an abstract, so I figure it's a meta-analysis and not just an article.
      • skybrian 9y ago
        It's not a meta-analysis either. It cites a meta-analysis, which has different conclusions.
• piotrkaminski 9y ago
  Coincidentally, another submission from earlier today points to a study that says that (lack of) Vitamin D can impact sleep quality: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15862222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15862222.
• Memoraid 9y ago
  Low levels of vitamin D can also increase your risk of getting dementia later on in life. This risk can be reduced by supplementing with vitamin D, improving diet and getting outdoors more. Interesting article below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25098535/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25098535/ We are promoting brain health at: https://memoraid.co.uk https://memoraid.co.uk Check us out!
• sitkack 9y ago
  One of the many great videos on the subject D is for Debacle - The Crucial Story of Vitamin D and Human Health, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pK0dccQ38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3pK0dccQ38
• moonka 9y ago
  A couple years after I moved to Seattle I started noticing some odd aches and pains. After a coworker had similar issues, I went to the doctor, and they tested my Vitamin D levels. They were ridiculously low. They had me on a high initial dose, and than taking supplements ever since. I've heard the same story from tons of neighbors. Nowadays it's one of my first suggestions for new transplants. It's made a marked difference (along with a sunlamp).
  • PeachPlum 9y ago
    > along with a sunlamp a regular sunlamp? They are UV-A and don't help with Vit D at all You need a UV-B one which doesn't tan - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004NOPC9S/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004NOPC9S/
  • Mouse47 9y ago
    What sorts of aches and pains? I'm only asking since my body just effing hurts sometimes, usually my upper back/ribs...especially when I'm stoned :/
    • Double_a_92 9y ago
      Not OP, but I had a similar experience. In my case it was stomach and bowel pains, like cramps... combined with anxiety without reason.
    • moonka 9y ago
      My joints were hurting, and things like carrying around my backpack would leave me with a little pain.
• andy_ppp 9y ago
  If you intend to take vitamin d I read in various places you should also take magnesium and probably vitamin k as well. And less calcium. Everything is interconnected. https://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d https://www.precisionnutrition.com/stop-vitamin-d
  • guilty001 9y ago
    I recently started taking 3000mg of magnesium per day as magnesium chelate. The bottle recommends three capsules per day for muscle spasms / cramps. Historically, I have a couple of basic assault charges, an assault with sexual intent charge, I was charged with two counts of trafficking a controlled drug (later dropped). Shortly after I commenced taking six capsules a day I started feeling a lot less psychotic.
    • andy_ppp 9y ago
      Yes, my theory why lithium is so effective is the body can use it to replace the magnesium we are all deficient in.
    • 0xJRS 9y ago
      I would also recommend taking Zinc with it. I was taking Magnesium at one point by itself and developed a muscle twitch which was fixed by adding Zinc.
      • guilty001 9y ago
        Yep, been taking zinc as zinc chelate and / or zinc gluconate for years.
  • logfromblammo 9y ago
    Everything is very interconnected. The underdose and overdose numbers are determined in isolation, just as any good scientific experiment should. Casual observation reveals that vitamin D overdose results in hypercalcemia, a condition treatable by vitamin K. Vitamin E overdose results in hemmorrhaging, a condition treatable by vitamin K. There are no known symptoms of vitamin K overdose. Vitamin A overdose (from retinol) can be treated by vitamin E and vitamin K. Magnesium is balanced with calcium. Sodium is balanced with potassium. So naturally, I wonder what happens when you supply vitamin K in excess, then determine the overdose amounts for the other fat-soluble vitamins. Once that number is found, reduce the K by steps and repeat, until you have the recommended minimum ratio of K to the other vitamin.
• Nicholas7900 9y ago
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• juskrey 9y ago
  But who said increasing of serum levels of Vitamin D by pills intake will decrease mortality?? What about side effects of such massive UNCONDITIONAL top-down recommendations?
• rmm 9y ago
  I have been taking 5000IU Vitamin D for the past 7 years, with a little more over the winter months. It's stupidly cheap, I get 360 5000IU capsules for $13, so it has cost me less than $100 over that period. Anecdotally, it was a game changer for me personally. I got less sick during the winter, and my overall wellbeing improved greatly. A word of advice, increase Vitamin K intake aswell. Vitamin D helps calcium absorption, but Vitamin K directs it to where it needs to go (skeleton).
  • ejstronge 9y ago
    I haven't heard this about vitamin K before - please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we know how the mechanism through which vitamin K reduces skeletal fractures.
    • AstralStorm 9y ago
      Indeed we don't, plus the two forms of vitamin K (phylloquinone and menaquinone) have different mode of action. They are important cofactor for many proteins, including one called osteocalcin, needed for bone calcification.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
        It looks like Vitamin K also inhibits arterial calcification.[1] 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052396/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4052396/
    • hellofunk 9y ago
      Correct; see my other comment as well. Vitamin K supplementation should not be casually added to anyone's diet without careful evaluation.
    • Matrixik 9y ago
      Here you can find all info you want: https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-k/ https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-k/ Search on that page for: "Skeleton and Bone Metabolism". K1 and K2 work differently. We know a lot but there is still a lot more we don't know. Hell, looks like even different versions of K2 (from MK-4 to MK-13) works for different stuff in body. Only because MK-7 stays in blood for longer than MK-4 doesn't mean that it better. It could also mean that body is better in utilizing MK-4, or even that it's using it for different stuff. More here: https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2016/12/03/start-here-for-vitamin-k2/ https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2016/12/03/start-here-for-vit...
• nothingisright 9y ago
  Well it is pretty obvious that there is an epidemic of low testosterone in modern society and it looks like this is one of the many causes. The soyboy epidemic is real. People have placed too much trust in "science". Science is just humans. No matter how you word it, the scientific process is just a tool. People say "science" is responsible for various discoveries, but in reality, smart people building on the work of other smart people are responsible for those discoveries. Science was merely a process used, often discarded as people chose to believe certain assumptions were false despite the supposed "evidence" to the contrary. Just as with the articles on sitting all day, where people proclaimed their joy at the idea that doing a few stretches will solve their problems, here we have people proclaiming that the best solution to this problem is "supplements". Little pills of synthesized nutrients, with no actual evidence related to their effectiveness. It is a technocratic dysfunction. People walking down a path to their own destruction based on "progress". A progress to where? To being low in testosterone, depressed, anxious, and lonely. When it turns out that you need about 20 minutes of sun exposure per day, and your employer doesn't allow you to have that, what then? When it turns out that you can't actually just sit all day and yet your job is a programmer, what then? When you are 40 and it turns out you couldn't "make your life better", what then? It is over. People have to jump on a scale to tell them their weight. They no longer trust themselves in any way. They need to measure their food, their weight, the number of steps they take. They need a scientist to tell them how to live. Another human with a flawed study. What happened to intuition, instincts, and emotions? Oh emotions are useless, says the person who basis every decision on a list of pros and cons that leads them to making the worst decisions of all. I can't trust myself anymore with anything. We as a human race our slaves to a wealthy class of people and have been since the agricultural revolution where slaves became a thing. The roman empire was characterized by 20% of the population being actual slaves. Now we all sit inside our cubicle all day, for 8 hours a day, as slaves. All we do is get to the next day, and the next day, in a constant state of limbo and nothingness. These are not our true lives. Safety, cleanliness, and sterility. I remember watching the videos of the shootings in Las Vegas and hearing one of the girls say "this is more exciting then the concert". The media quickly dismissed it as "some people were drunk". It is a bit of an awkward truth that being drunk doesn't make you a different person, it simply removes your socially programmed inhibitions. People are seeking out danger in a sterile world. What will the next study reveal? That enslaving hundreds of thousands of animals chemically alters the meat to make it dangerous for humans? That 7 billion people may be, oh, I don't know, a little too many people on earth? What a shock all of this would be. Where too then technocrats? Where are you progressing too now? Thanks in advance for the downvotes soyboys.
• growlix 9y ago
  Interesting that this stems in part from misinterpretation of confidence intervals. The referenced paper, A Statistical Error in the Estimation of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for Vitamin D [0], seems like an excellent example to illustrate how (and how not) to interpret confidence intervals. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/#!po=22.5000 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/#!po=22...
• matco11 9y ago
  Vitamin D and Alzheimer’s https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4153851/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4153851/
• dharma1 9y ago
  How do you get your levels checked in the UK if you have private insurance?
  • letsgetphysITal 9y ago
    Go to your GP. If you get frequent colds, feel lethargic, or have pretty much any ache or pain which can't be ascribed to a physical damage, they will test you for VitD deficiency. You can also ask to be tested.
  • longwave 9y ago
    I was just looking this up after reading this article and discovered that an NHS lab can send you a test kit in the post for £28, which will likely be cheaper than any private option. http://www.vitamindtest.org.uk/ http://www.vitamindtest.org.uk/
    • dharma1 9y ago
      thanks!
• cjCamel 9y ago
  Anecdotal I know, but I've heard of a couple of different areas where a a medical professional recommends Vitamin D supplements to their patient. Someone I know has been told to take vitamin D to help manage relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis[1] Another person has been recommended vitamin D to help with conception. Seems to pop up all over the place. [1] https://www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-research/emerging-areas/vitamin-d https://www.mssociety.org.uk/ms-research/emerging-areas/vita...
  • TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Henry Osieki in the 9th edition of his book The Nutrient Bible factors increasing demand for Vitamin D include: alcohol, autoimmune reactive arthritis, bile problems, cancer (breast, prostate, colon, and skin). Crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, elderly individuals, hypoparathyroidism, intestinal disorders, insulin dependent diabetes, kidney disorders, lack of exposure to sun, mineral oil intake multiple sclerosis, obesity pancreatic disease, pregnancy, rickets, schizophrenia, smog exposure, ulcerative colitis, use of anti convulsants e.g. phenytoin and phenobarbital, steroid medication, vegetarianism. Functions facilitated: anti-proliferative effect - osteosarcoma, melanoma, colon and breast cancer, apoptosis, anti-inflammatory action, blood clotting, calcium and phosphate absorption and regulation, cofactor in synthesis of heat shock proteins, differentiates leukaemia cells and induces apoptosis, heart and muscle action, helps induce monocyte conversion to macrophages, increases bone strength, induces apoptosis in breast and prostate cancer, increases neurotrophic factor synthesis (NGF, GDNF, NF-3), increases the activity of tyrosine hydroxylase and choline acetyltransferase, increases neural glutathione levels, inhibits iNOS and TFN - alpha activity, immune-regulating properties, mineralisation of bone and teeth potent anti-proliferative agent in the colon, protects against neurotoxicity associated with ischaemia, reduces the risk of colorectal and prostate cancer, regulates cellular differentiation in intestinal cells, regulates or inhibits T-cell mediated immune response, regulation of calcium and phosphorous metabolism, selectively reduces interleukin 2 levels and proliferation of T cells, stimulates polyamine, stimulator of ornithine decarboxylase and spermidine acetyl transferase.
• majani 9y ago
  Is this specific to North America? As someone who lives along the equator, I think it's impossible to get too little sun exposure in these parts.
  • adventured 9y ago
    The study was about Finland. Scandinavia and northern countries broadly often have a variety of bad health effects from very low VitD levels (including eg very high rates of multiple sclerosis). Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, UK, Germany are among the nations with the highest rates of multiple sclerosis, heavily due to their low VitD. If you don't get enough sun (a minority of people anywhere on the planet do or can), Vitamin D can be an important supplement no matter where you live. It's well worth it to have a simple blood test done to get your levels checked, if you can at some point, just to know where you stand.
  • richardknop 9y ago
    Well, most of landmass is north of equator actually. So North America, Northern Europe, Northern Asia, Greenland etc would be affected by this. Most of the landmass in southern hemisphere has lots of sunlight (Australia, SEA, South America).
• deleted 9y ago
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• INTPenis 9y ago
  Living in scandinavia I've taken vitamin D every winter. But lately started taking it all year. I've been sloppy and it seems to coincide with periods of poor energy and a bad mood. I'm not sure if the energy and mood precede the drop in vitamin use or vice versa. But either way I think it's good to supplement if you live up north.
• dcx 9y ago
  Related to this topic, if you have IBS/IBD, some interesting research been coming out in the last couple of years indicating that low vitamin D may play a role in this issue as well. This [1] 2015 study found 82% of people with IBS had low vitamin D levels relative to 31% in the control group. This [2] 2016 one proved causation of vitamin D supplementation improving symptoms, by randomly splitting into two groups and treating only one. This [3] speculative writeup by the Vitamin D Council in 2014 discusses some possible mechanisms of action. This seems like such low-hanging fruit that it was extremely surprising to me that this is at the cutting edge. Causes and cures for IBS are not clear and one third of patients find current treatments unsuccessful [4]. But the above doesn't seem to be well known in online discussion because it's so new, and my gastroenterologist didn't bring it up at all either. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412886/ [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27154424 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27154424 [3] https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/inflammatory-bowel-disease/ https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/inflammato... [4] https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/study-finds-high-dose-vitamin-d-supplementation-significantly-improves-irritable-bowel-syndrome/ https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/study-finds-high-dose-vitami...
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
    Thanks for this. I have IBS and began taking a 2000 IU supplement of Vitamin D awhile back for unrelated reasons. Maybe I'll bump it up to 3000 to see if it helps.
    • billmalarky 9y ago
      That seems to be too low to have an effect if you are actually deficient according to the study.
    • dcx 9y ago
      No worries at all! I'm in the same boat. FYI some patience is needed as it apparently takes 3-6 months for changes in vitamin D input to make its way into the bloodstream and show effects [1]. I've just started supplementing 5000 IU as I get very low levels of sunlight. Fingers crossed that this helps the both of us. [1] http://www.vitamindandms.org/faq/index.html#How%20long%20will%20it%20take%20to%20increase%20my%20vitamin%20D%20level http://www.vitamindandms.org/faq/index.html#How%20long%20wil...?
• klht 9y ago
  Everyone supplementing and doing their own tests should be careful to note the difference between nmol and ng/ml. 100 nmol = 40 ng/ml ng/ml is the most common measure in India and many other places.
  • tgb 9y ago
    Uh, you should be careful too! There's some error in what you wrote too. Is that nmol/L that you mean?
    • cypherpunks01 9y ago
      What is the correct conversion? Quest, one of the dominant lab providers in the US, reports in ng/mL and I'm not sure how to interpret my result in nmol/L.
• jhwhite 9y ago
  Could someone help me understand this? >it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for 97.5% of individuals to achieve values ≥50 nmol/L. Another study confirmed that 6201 IU/d was needed to achieve 75 nmol/L and 9122 IU/d was needed to reach 100 nmol/L. The largest meta-analysis ever conducted of studies published between 1966 and 2013 showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <75 nmol/L may be too low for safety and associated with higher all-cause mortality, demolishing the previously presumed U-shape curve of mortality associated with vitamin D levels. What is IU/d? What is nmol/L? Could someone ELI5 the entire abstract for me? Well, maybe a little more than 5, I get that there was an error estimating recommended levels and we're not getting enough.
  • cup 9y ago
    IU/d International Units per day nmol/L Nano Mols per liter. The abstract is basically saying previous work was mistaken and we need to take a lot more vitamin D than we've been suggesting, and calling on regulatory authorities to change their guidelines.
  • sarcas 9y ago
    Both IU/d and nmol/L are measurements of molecules. nmol/L is "nano-moles per liter", and is a measure of concentration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration "IU" is a measurement common in pharmacology, and has to do with trying to standardize how much mass/volume of a substance will give a particular biological effect. The "/d" is per day. In summary, the article is saying that, based on a meta analysis[1] of previous research, we have misunderstood or misreported some of these measurements. They suggest both the safe dosage and the effective dosage for Vitamin D should be much higher, and argue that this is a cheap and effective way of treating problems associated with Vitamin D deficiency. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis (edited for spelling)
  • mft_ 9y ago
    IU/d = international units per day (a measure of vitamin D intake) nmol/L = nanomoles per litre (a measure of resultant blood concentration of vitamin D) The ELI5 is: 1. Trials indicate that vitamin D deficiency (possibly below a blood concentration of 75 nmol/L) is a bad thing and is associated with a higher risk of death (from any cause) and also other health problems (risk of development of type I diabetes is given as an example) 2. The current recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin D (https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...) is currently lower than the intakes that studies have found are needed for most people to provide the blood concentrations which may be needed for good health (possibly due to a previous calculation error in determining the RDA) 3. Therefore, the author recommends to increase the RDA for vitamin D
• tgb 9y ago
  Is it standard for medical papers to write values with four significant figures when they appear to have less than one significant figure worth of precision? This is an actual question.
  • Sean1708 9y ago
    Are you talking about the abstract or is there something in the actual paper you're talking about? Because I can't personally see anything in the abstract to suggest that the values quoted to 4 s.f. only have 1 s.f. of precision.
    • tgb 9y ago
      Yes, the abstract. One sentence cites a result suggesting that 8895 IU/d is necessary to reach >= 50nmol/L and the next another that 6201 IU/d is necessary to reach 75 nmol/L. Clearly these aren't compatible to even 1 significant figure. Now, of course this is a matter of accuracy and not of precision, but do you really believe someone's 4 sig figs of precision is at all justified when they disagree with another person's 4 sig figs to such an extent? It's possible, I guess! But I'm betting if you look at the original study you only have 1 or maybe 2 significant figures that are actually justified. Look further at the paper where the 8895 number comes from [1]. That's the only number reported to more than 2 sig figs in the paper and comes in this context [emphasis mine]: "It also estimated that 8895 IU of vitamin D per day may be needed to accomplish that 97.5% of individuals achieve serum 25(OH)D values of 50 nmol/L or more. As this dose is far beyond the range of studied doses, caution is warranted when interpreting this estimate. Regardless, the very high estimate illustrates that the dose is well in excess of the current RDA of 600 IU per day and the tolerable upper intake of 4000 IU per day [1]." The two figures don't even show half the range needed to see this value and make it pretty clear that this is a laughable amount of precision to report. To make this clear: the value reported is the intercept of the dashed red line with the 50nmol/L line in the second figure -- which has been extrapolated out to a value almost three times as large as the highest dose used in any experiment. And the extrapolation is done on a curve that is getting very close to level at that point so even a minor error in dose response would cause a large error in reported dose. Frankly, after looking at this, I don't think the originally posted article should have quoted this number in its abstract - the point of this paper seems to be to show that the standard value of 600 IU/day is unsupported form the data, not to suggest that their 8895 IU/day is well supported. Consider the most well-studied nutritional number we ever see: the daily caloric intake! It's never given more than 2 sig figs and often just 1! And this study is making the argument that the daily recommendations for this are off by a factor of 10x. It'll take a lot to convince me that any number in nutrition can be reported to 4 significant figures, and even then I expect that it would be useless since inter-person variation is going to cause at least a 1% difference (probably more like 25% differences like calories just for men/women differences). [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/
• richardknop 9y ago
  I always wondered about this. Since I was very young, let's say after age 14 or so I rarely travelled for summer vacation and was living in Europe and had almost no vitamin D from sunlight (working as software engineer and being a nerd so all my hobbies were indoors). I have always felt like I missed having a good time at a beach while sun was shining (I remember it from family vacations when I was very young). Since then I have spent couple of months in a country near equator and gotten lots of (hours per day) sunlight. I feel healthier and happier now. I also used to have deficiency of vitamin B when I was very young. I remember I had to eat lots of fish oil to replenish my B complex (recommended by my doctor).
• macawfish 9y ago
  If you're looking for a better way to get vitamin D from supplements, try drops instead of pills. Each drop contains ~1000 IU, so you could get around 40,000 IU with just a dropper-full... For most of us, a week's worth of 40,000 IU/day could really be a boost. "Taking 50,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity. This level is many times higher than the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for most adults of 600 IU of vitamin D a day.Feb 5, 2015" (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/vitamin-d-toxicity/faq-20058108 https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...)
  • macawfish 9y ago
    I'm remembering when I did this, I made sure to take epsom salt baths to absorb magnesium!
• kieranmaine 9y ago
  This older paper suggests vitamin D isn't as important - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2478893?redirect=true https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl.... I'm not sure which is correct, but good to have an opposing view.
  • skoocda 9y ago
    This paper suggests that increasing vitamin D intake from 800 IU/d to 2000 IU/d doesn't increase the risk of falling over and fracturing a bone. I wouldn't call that especially relevant, and it's definitely not an opposing view.
• JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  This makes it sound impossible for some people to get enough vitamin D from sun and food without supplements. If you're fair skinned and living in northern climates, you'll be deficient even with a healthy diet given that you can't be out in the sun that long without burning. Is the human body that defective?
  • PacketPaul 9y ago
    Wouldn’t it be if you are dark skinned not faired skin?
    • JustSomeNobody 9y ago
      This is true, yes. But really both have issues. It takes much longer in the sun for a dark skinned person to get enough exposure to produce a healthy amount of D. But the fair skinned person burns readily, so they can't stay in the sun long without protection which would inhibit getting enough sun.
• mattferderer 9y ago
  I found the podcast Science Vs very helpful in understanding this topic - https://gimletmedia.com/episode/vitamins-supplements-worth/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/vitamins-supplements-worth/ I was recommended Vitamin D by the wife of a Chiropractor. I do 2000IU somewhat daily to every other day in the winter & 5000IU if I feel a cold coming on with some extra zinc. This has made a significant improvement in my ability to fend off colds. That said, I do try to exercise a few times a week & eat as reasonably healthy as one can do in the far north midwest of America.
• debacle 9y ago
  > 8895 IU/d This is double what I'm taking. The US RDA is 1/10th of this amount.
  • ProblemFactory 9y ago
    Yes, that's the argument in the article: that the RDA is far too low.
• hollander 9y ago
  Several years ago I read an article on Facebook about vitamin D, and because I was in pain and tried many things like this, I read more about it, and started using 2000 IU daily. In about two weeks I felt a lot better. Later that year I was on holiday in the mediterrenean and noticed how much better I felt after a morning in the sun. This made me decide to take even more, so I increased use to 6000 IU/d, and I felt even better. Several weeks ago I had my blood tested, and I came out under 100nmol, which shocked me. I changed pills immediately, and am going to test again. I want levels to be around 120, so I'm going to test once again. I'm going to call my docter right now in fact.
  • macawfish 9y ago
    I recommend 1000 IU drops. They contain 1000 IU in a single drop, literally. You can get them off the shelf at my local health foods co-op. I've taken 40,000 IU before in a single day (I read that was a safe upper limit for most people). It felt amazing. It also helped me process built up emotions from winter darkness and depression. That day I took 40000IU I literally wept, then felt relief like none other, and a lightness of being. Also, by the way, people under stress might appreciate some vitamin B complex. There's a reason why they put vitamin B in those 5 hour energy drinks: it helps our bodies cope with the stress of that much caffeine.
    • hollander 9y ago
      Be careful with that kind of dose! To compensate for insufficiency, it's totally OK, but I wouldn't take it daily. You may start suffering from calcification of the bones. This cannot be undone.
      • macawfish 9y ago
        Its good to be cautious. I did some research to come up with this upper limit as an amount to take on a given day, and also wouldn't be worried about taking this daily for a week since I live in Minnesota and am chronically deficient. "Taking 50,000 international units (IU) a day of vitamin D for several months has been shown to cause toxicity. This level is many times higher than the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for most adults of 600 IU of vitamin D a day.Feb 5, 2015" (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h... https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...)
• justin_d 9y ago
  Anyone who thinks they are D deficient should just go to the doctor and get your blood tested.
• BeetleB 9y ago
  I see a number of comments about taking Vitamin D for mood and SAD issues. My goto site for supplements is http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-scientific-evidence-for-nutritional-supplements-vizsweet/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o... It essentially ranks supplements based on the amount of research there is to support the claim (so the same supplement can show up in multiple categories). You can see Vitamin D is backed by a lot of research for various ailments, but the category for which there is least evidence is mood related disorders. On a side note, be very wary of the supplements you take (in the US). There is virtually no oversight in their manufacture, and various groups' investigations have shown that the claimed dosage can be way, way off. And the inactive ingredients may be false as well. Relying on well known companies did not seem to make a difference. I recall an interview with a pharmacist at a hospital that had decided they test the supplements they had in stock - given that they were giving them to patients. They were rather shocked. If anyone has a good resource where a group tests different manufacturers' supplements and has some kind of reliability rating, I'd love to know. I pretty much stopped taking supplements when I saw how unreliable the claimed dosages were.
  • XzetaU8 9y ago
    For me Examine.com is the best source on supplements/vitamins take for example Vitamin D https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-d/ https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-d/ as for your question regarding Supplement manufacturers test check labdoor https://labdoor.com/ https://labdoor.com/
    • BeetleB 9y ago
      Looking at Vitamin D on Labdoor: >6 of the 19 products in this report exceeded their label claims by greater than 40%. >All 19 vitamin D supplements met or exceeded their claimed vitamin D3 content, ranging from +0 to +900.0 IU versus their stated label claims. >The average label variance in this testing batch was 22%. Wow. Let's look at melatonin: >Only half of the products tested (15 of 30) measured melatonin levels within 10% of their label claims. 7 products deviated from their claims for melatonin by at least 25%. 3 of those products recorded 40% or more melatonin than their label claims, and 1 product had less than 1% of its label claim for melatonin. Vitamin B12: >Overall, vitamin B12 measurements in this batch analysis ranged from 515 mcg to 6990 mcg per serving, deviating from label claims by an average of 27%. 3 products also recorded vitamin B6 and/or vitamin B9. 9 of the 13 products recorded more vitamin B12 than claimed, with one product recording as much as 74% of its label claim for vitamin B12. All products passed heavy metal screenings, and recorded vitamin B12 levels considered to be safe by the Institute of Medicine (IOM)1.
• robg 9y ago
  D3 is the more active form that's more readily absorbed. I've found the Metagenics brand to be the best.
• sliverstorm 9y ago
  Anybody have tips on balancing all the cofactors? You need other things to absorb & use the vitamin D. Some kind of multivitamin that focused only on D and its cofactors might be handy, without going whole-hog to the "everything" multivitamin popular today.
• urlgrey 9y ago
  The USDA partnered with industry to develop a process for increasing Vitamin D levels in mushrooms by simply exposing them to ultraviolet light. Monterey Mushrooms has a video showing how this step was added to the packaging process: http://www.montereymushrooms.com/nutrition/mushrooms-with-vitamin-d/ http://www.montereymushrooms.com/nutrition/mushrooms-with-vi...
• amrx101 9y ago
  One con of being in a Tropical country is that you don't have to worry about your Vitamin D intake. The sun roasts you every year in the pre Monsoon heat.
• OldSchoolJohnny 9y ago
  The Vitamin D council page answers nearly every question I've seen in these posts: https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/ https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• pascalxus 9y ago
  I read another post somewhere that said all you need is 12 minutes of direct sunlight to maximize your Vitamin D intake. It's because your body can only absorb so much vitamin D at one time, from the Sun. As for food products, there aren't that many natural sources of vitamin D. Milk is fortified with vitamin D but doesn't come with it naturally. Given how few sources of vitamin D there are: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=110 http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=110 I don't see how our species could have evolved to depend on vitamin D (other than being outdoors).
  • drzaiusapelord 9y ago
    It drives me crazy that popular brands of soy and almond milk don't have vitamin D. I've long moved off real milk because its really calories dense and gives me gas. Now I'm missing out on one of the few easy sources of vitamin d.
• creep 9y ago
  About once every 6 months I remember to start taking my vit D supplements again. I've always taken more than the recommended dose because vitamin D is not extremely bioavailable in pill-form, and I notice amazing improvements in mood, mostly. Usually I am sad in the mornings. I have a cup of coffee, browse around on HN, and then convince myself to do work, and the sadness goes away with the distraction, and by the evening I feel pretty good for "doing so much work". When I take vitamin D, after about a week I begin to wake up and set to work immediately, leaving time in the evening for fucking around. I really should do that now, before finals.
  • whowouldathunk 9y ago
    Same experience for me. The University of Washington headache clinic recommended Vitamin D and Magnesium supplements and it made a marked difference in my mood. Turns out having constant mild headaches is pretty depressing.
    • noir_lord 9y ago
      Have to be careful with magnesium, too much and you'll spend the entire day on the toilet been reminded that topologically humans are a tube.
      • creep 9y ago
        This effect is more pronounced with lower-quality magnesium supplements, such as magnesium oxide, magnesium sulfate, and magnesium chloride. These compounds are insoluble in water (magnesium oxide), or their counter-ions are not absorbed (magnesium sulfate). Magnesium + glycine (specifically bisglycinate which is the magnesium salt with two glycine molecules) is more bioavailable and does not have a laxative effect since glycine is easily absorbed by cell walls. Magnesium citrate also does not have a marked laxative effect and is more bioavailable than magnesium oxide, but less bioavailable than magnesium bisglycinate.
        • noir_lord 9y ago
• jazzy1990 9y ago
  Interesting admission. There's been recognition of subclinical vitamin D deficiencies for years in the professional athlete community, a segment of the population at higher risk of bone and tissue disorders: http://journals.lww.com/cjsportsmed/Abstract/2010/09000/High_Prevalence_of_Vitamin_D_Insufficiency_in.9.aspx http://journals.lww.com/cjsportsmed/Abstract/2010/09000/High... http://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/ijsnem.18.2.204 http://journals.humankinetics.com/doi/abs/10.1123/ijsnem.18.... There is no reason not to get tested given how easy it is to order online: https://www.accesalabs.com/Vitamin-D-Test https://www.accesalabs.com/Vitamin-D-Test I've tried out a handful of supplements for Vitamin D but haven't landed on a good one. Has anyone tested, tried specific supplements, and then retested and documented results?
• tastythrowaway 9y ago
  so does that mean we need more or less vitamin D?
  • spuz 9y ago
    More; a lot more.
• k3a 9y ago
  I think that vitamin D defficiency may have contributed to start of my Multiple Sclerosis! I used to sit mostly inside all summer programming. So be careful.
• sharpenthesaw 9y ago
  This is fake news. I'll explain why I think so. Please counter me if I'm wrong. >>This piece of news is a literal "copy-paste" of the abstract of the article "Big Vitamin D Mistake - BVDM" BVDM is an article published by a Greek group. About the population from Finland. BVDM has 2 premises and 2 conclusions. >Premise 1: There is a correlation (not causation) reported recently in Finland of country-wide vit. D supplementation and lower Diabetes Mellitus type 1 incidence. >Premise 2: There was a study published in America (Meta Analysis of All Cause Mortality and Vitamin D - MAACVD) that investigated deaths that had the lab values of vitamin D available. The main finding of the study was: Vit. D levels of >30ng/mL is probably better than <9ng/mL, correlated with a lower risk of death (hazard ratio of 1.6 to 2.2).* THESE ARE THE PREMISES AND NO MORE. Here are their magical conclusions: >Conclusion 1: The right level of vitamin D is 100ng/mL. This is apparently extrapolated from a subgroup analysis in MAACVD. I find this extrapolation shocking because: 1- this finding wasn't considered significant enough to be published in the abstract by the original American group. 2- subgroup analyses shouldn't be extrapolated. >Conclusion 2: in order to make sure everyone gets this alleged "correct vit. D levels", here are the doses of supplementation that everyone should get. >> As you can see, the conclusions are far outside the realm of possibilities offered by the premises. What the Greek authors did was nitpick a couple of minor points in some random published studies and synthesize them into a magical conclusion of how much more Vit D everyone should take (more than 3x the current recommended amount in some ages). This is sensationalism. I'm sorry to see such poor material to be presented as science by "scientists" and "scientific journals". >>Please correct me if I'm wrong. *PS: I wasn't able to read the MAACVD full article, it wasn't free online. In these kinds of articles, the axis of the study is presented in the abstract, and the most significant findings are never left out. If someone has access to the full text, please share it with me and this forum.