10 ms·

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living a

• econcon 7y ago
  I doubt that's the case - for many years when I was a student I lived near equator and never went out. I never felt any impact or mind or body. I even tried some vitamin D3 supplement, smth like 2000IU but had no effects after few weeks, then I quit. The biggest effect anything I had on me is Testosterone Enthante 250mg twice a week. Also I wonder if taking 8,000 IU vitamin D can desentivize the system overtime
• TacoToni 7y ago
  getting my blood panel ran and finding out i was deficient in Vitamin D changed my life for the better once i start daily supplementation of Vitamin D3 (5000 IU). I even live in Florida, but working in an office all day doesn't help. Now that my levels are good, i feel as if my memory is far better and i dont feel tired all the time.
  • leto_ii 7y ago
    > i feel as if my memory is far better and i dont feel tired all the time. I agree. Don't overdo it though, 5000 IU daily seems a bit much :) I live in Amsterdam and take 2000.
    • pdonis 7y ago
      > 5000 IU daily seems a bit much I think it depends on the person. If you get your blood level checked when you have a regular physical, you can adjust the dose as needed to keep the level where you want it (I shoot for the upper end of the normal range, and 5000 IU a day seems to be doing that for me).
    • speakeron 7y ago
      I take about 5000 IU daily (with one or two days off every 10 days or so). I get tested regularly and measure at the top of the lab's 'normal range' (200 nmol/l). I also take vitamin K (especially K2).
    • ArikBe 7y ago
      Out of personal curiosity, what supplement brand do you take? I live in Ams as well and the season is...horrible.
      • leto_ii 7y ago
        Currently I take the one from physalis: https://www.hollandandbarrett.nl/shop/product/physalis-vitamine-d3-forte-60016558 https://www.hollandandbarrett.nl/shop/product/physalis-vitam... You can probably play around with the brands and doses a little. I think the important thing is to take gel capsules with oil inside and not solid pills. Vitamin D is fat-soluble so I think solid pills don't get absorbed very well.
      • aries1980 7y ago
        I take GAL D3 or D-complex+K2 Forte (https://www.gal.hu/en/spd/VIGAD303001/GAL-D3-vitamin https://www.gal.hu/en/spd/VIGAD303001/GAL-D3-vitamin and https://www.gal.hu/en/spd/VIGAKKF02001/GAL-K-complex-Forte https://www.gal.hu/en/spd/VIGAKKF02001/GAL-K-complex-Forte). They are quite transparent on how they source and extract the ingredients.
    • chrismeller 7y ago
      There have actually been a couple of studies lately about Vitamin D recommendations being drastically too low. For example [1] recommends 4000 IU/day for adults and [2] recommends 8000 IU/day. 1: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/744128 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/744128 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28768407/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28768407/
    • blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Canada here. "Central Canada" aka reasonably far up. 2000 IU a day, 3-5 days a week. Not strict about it, just whenever I remember. Big difference in terms of energy, depression, sleep quality, etc. I've messed around with higher levels but they usually give me wicked headaches.
  • netheril96 7y ago
    The FDA's recommendation for Vitamin D daily value is 400 IU. 5000 IU seems extremely and poisonous.
    • anamexis 7y ago
      My MD prescribed me 5000 IU / day after a blood panel came back with me on the low end of healthy.
      • ssully 7y ago
        Same. He wanted to do it after asking if I worked in an office, and the results came back pretty low.
    • alaaf 7y ago
      It actually isn’t. 400 IU is based on preventing disease. To obtain optimal health though, dosages should usually be much higher. Obviously this differs from person to person, but 2000 IU should lead to optimal vitamin D levels. This is an interesting video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeLC_b5gDUM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeLC_b5gDUM
    • elric 7y ago
      The body can produce up to 25000 IU/day in very sunny places on very pale skin. 10000IU/day is considered the safe upper limit. Whether or not that's a good idea long term is a different matter.
      • jcampbell1 7y ago
        The body can produce over 250,000 IU in short order delivered as 25,000 IU a day as a controlled release through the skin. If you want this, the best idea is to spend 5 minutes in your underwear in a tanning bed. Dietary supplements can work, but it takes months.
    • SamBam 7y ago
      There is research showing that the figure of 400 IU is based on a statistical error [1] (that's the original article, there's plenty more if you search). Most articles I have read recommend somewhere between 2000 and 5000 IUs. Some recommend higher. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/
• thinkingemote 7y ago
  Its not possible to get any vitamin D from the sun in the winter in these high latitudes even if you outside in the sun all day with short sleeves. The angle of the sun is too low. We are just beginning march now, so the sun should soon be beginning to be high enough to give some benefit.
  • bproven 7y ago
    Yep - I learned that a few years ago.
  • kaztal 7y ago
    Sweden here. My partner is a doctor, she claims with assurance that you can't make a carpet decision like this. People who come from norther latitudes are used to the lack of sun, and their bodies don't need more vitamin D than is provided. Depending on your heritage, ymvm.
    • leto_ii 7y ago
      It may still be worth taking a blood test, especially if you have some symptoms that match vitamin D deficiency.
    • v77 7y ago
      Most people in North America are not from northern latitudes genetically unless we are talking about the UK and Germany and even then..
      • orasis 7y ago
        Huh? Europe is generally populated further north than North America is.
    • BurningFrog 7y ago
      Swedes need as much vitamin D as anyone, but usually get it from their diet. Herring is a vitamin D gold mine, for example :)
    • 7y ago
• egeozcan 7y ago
  South European winter is pretty okay, IMHO. Especially South Turkey and Cyprus, if we are not strictly speaking about Europe the continent.
  • oblio 7y ago
    I'd say anything South of Prague is probably ok. Even if the winters are cold, the sun is still shining for a long part of winter.
• hannob 7y ago
  > I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. No you can't. That's not how this works.
  • leto_ii 7y ago
    > No you can't. Yes I can :D While my experience is obviously not definitive scientific proof it can still bring some value. To give you a more simple example: when I broke my leg I went to the doctor's and put it in a cast. That helped me tremendously. Is that a well designed randomized controlled trial? No. Is it good advice to anybody with a broken leg? I would say so.
    • lotsofpulp 7y ago
      A cast for a broken leg is not comparable to concluding cause and effect with a vitamin supplement. Vitamin supplement quality, absorption rate, measurement accuracy, etc are all difficult to pin down.
      • leto_ii 7y ago
        There is science around this though. If you take a vitamin D blood test that shows low levels a doctor will prescribe a certain dose. Vitamin D is scientifically known to be important for humans, it's not just my opinion.
        • lotsofpulp 7y ago
          That may be true, but it’s not the same as a broken leg and cast situation, and you need a well controlled randomized trial to say things about cause and effect for non observable phenomena such as the effects of vitamin supplements.
          • leto_ii 7y ago
            The point of the leg and cast example was to show that anecdotal evidence can be useful. I deliberately chose a clear and simple example. Indeed the case of vitamin D is more nuanced.
• _d03 7y ago
  What about DHA/EPA? Iodine and vitamin B1? Our modern diets could cause further nutritional deficiencies. I doubt that many people in the West eat fish regularly or supplement with algae oil due to the conveniences of processed food. Same with iodine. Wheat germs have the highest concentrations in vitamin B1, but whole grains in general (rolled oats etc.) are good so you should probably cut the processed food out as much as possible.
  • leto_ii 7y ago
    It can be that there are other hidden deficiencies. Vitamin D was the most surprising for me though because I wasn't aware that you can't really find it in food and that it's only synthesized in the skin in the presence of UV rays.
    • joncrane 7y ago
      >you can't really find it in food Pretty sure that's the reason almost all milk in the USA is fortified with Vitamin D (and A)
    • pmoriarty 7y ago
      My biggest surprise: even meat eaters can have Vitamin B12 deficiency. My doctor recommends all his patients supplement with B12, regardless of whether they're vegetarian, because of the above mentioned potential for everyone to have B12 deficiency, and, according to him, tests for B12 aren't reliable.
  • dr_coffee 7y ago
    True iodine deficiency is quite rare in the west as many table salts are fortified with iodine. It is extremely uncommon to see people with Goiter in the US. The same goes for thiamine/B1 deficiency which used to cause cardiovascular and neurological disease in alcoholics, but is now very rare becuse many pastas/breads/cereals are fortified with B1.
    • aries1980 7y ago
      In the UK, you can barely find table salt that has iodine. The one has the right potassium/sodium ratio with iodine (e.g. Iodized LoSalt) is zero.
• BurningFrog 7y ago
  This is one reason arctic people eat so much (vitamin D rich) fish. The other is of course that a plant based diet is impractical when plants are only alive half the year. White skin itself is an evolutionary adaption for getting enough vitamin D outside of tropical Africa. The extreme "melanin-anemic" blond & blue eyes look of Scandinavia is thought to be because it has a uniquely warm weather for the latitude, which make it possible to grow (vitamin D poor) grains there. That supports by far the biggest population density that far north, but also induces extreme whiteness to soak up every possible sun ray. Conversely, if you have dark skin and live in the non tropics, you absolutely need to monitor and enhance your vitamin D intake. Sadly, doctors don't seem to bring this up with dark skinned patients, at least from what I hear from my (OK, not that many...) black friends.
  • wdobbels 7y ago
    I'm probably missing something obvious but... Should white skin not reflect sunlight more, and dark skin absorb it more? I agree that northerners have more need to absorb sunrays and hence make more vitamin D, so shouldn't they be black?
    • pygy_ 7y ago
      Melanin is deposited in the epidermis, vitamin D conversion happens deeper, in the blood vessels of the dermis.
    • hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
      Vitamin D synthesis happens underneath the skin, and requires UV B radiation. The dark skin is an adaptation to avoid UV damage from the normal UV levels you get at the less extreme latitudes by filtering out most of it.
    • BurningFrog 7y ago
      Yeah, it's confusing. I think this is how it works: The melanin is not transparent, so it stops the light from penetrating beyond the very surface, and so a smaller volume of skin cells get access to sunlight. To go a little deeper: Sunlight does two major things in our skin. It creates vitamin D, and destroys folate. Both are essential, so the various skin colors we have reflect the balance evolution has struck in various environments.
• pdonis 7y ago
  > you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body Even that might not be enough, since in many people the body's ability to synthesize vitamin D when exposed to sunlight decreases with age. The only way to know for sure where you stand is to get your blood levels checked when you get a physical, and supplement if you need to.
• davidw 7y ago
  > your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day I wonder what the actual numbers are for this. This weekend, I got out for a couple of 3 hour bike rides, for instance, but it was chilly out, so nothing but my face was exposed.
  • logfromblammo 7y ago
    The reaction is as follows: 7-dehydrocholesterol --(UVB @ 296nm)--> previtamin-D --(thermal isomerization)--> cholecalciferol The first step reaches equilibrium after about 15 minutes in Fitzpatrick type 1 skin in UV index 3-5 (moderate), and about 2 hours in Fitzpatrick type 6. The total amount produced is dependent on the surface area of exposed skin, and the previtamin isomerizes slowly, over about 12 days. Time to equilibrium is about half the time to acquire sunburn at a UV index high enough to catalyze the previtamin-D reaction. At UV index 6-7 (high), time to burn is about the same as the time to reach previtamin-D equilibrium. At UV index 8 or higher (very high), you will burn faster than you make previtamin-D, and should maybe avoid being exposed during the midday hours. At UV index 11 or higher (extreme), if you are Fitzpatrick type 1, you will carbonize to a burnt matchstick the instant you step out of shadow, like a cartoon vampire, and you should not only not be outside, but should also be huddling in a dark basement waiting on the tyranny of the sun to pass. Thanks to the equilibrium in the skin, the maximum absorbed dose from sunlight is the equivalent of about 20000 IU per day. High vitamin-D intake also requires increased vitamin-K consumption to reduce calcification of soft tissues.
• animalnewbie 7y ago
  > 15 minutes Depends on your own skin color too.
• Florin_Andrei 7y ago
  I probably had life-long chronically low levels of vitamin D. Taking supplements was a major change for me - basically everything got better. This sort of thing is impossible to diagnose correctly without lab tests.
• all_blue_chucks 7y ago
  One's person experience is not meaningful for a population.
• GordonS 7y ago
  As a single, contrary data point, I live in the North of Scotland, and get very little sunlight - I started taking 4,000 IUs a day of vitamin D around a year ago, but haven't noticed any difference whatsoever.