5 ms·

Likely placebo. Vitamin D is extremely soluble in our bodies and takes months of consistent supplement dosage to have an effect on our baseline levels.

• nicoburns 6y ago
  I had winter depression for years, and Vitamin D supplementation has all-but completely cured it. If I forget to take it for a few days (in the winter), then I really notice the difference, and taking the supplement (via drops) reliably helps within 2-3 hours of taking them. I don't see how this could be a placebo as 1. I wasn't really expecting them to work in the first place. 2. I've tried all sorts of things over the years to try and relieve my depression, and nothing else has worked. It's possible that raising baseline levels isn't actually required to have beneficial effects. Of course, the quantities of vitamin that aren't raising baseline levels must be going somewhere. It doesn't seem unlikely to me that at least some of it is going directly towards production of whatever things the body uses vitamin D for.
  • tinus_hn 6y ago
    The only way to be sure is to randomly take either the real preparation or some placebo that looks, tastes, smells etc. exactly the same so you can’t tell the difference. The placebo effect does not require you to believe in the cure.
    • retsibsi 6y ago
      To be sure, yeah, but if you've tried a bunch of things with no success, and then one thing works despite your having no real optimism for it, that's pretty suggestive of a non-placebo effect.
      • EricE 6y ago
        And even if it is a placebo - if you improve, who cares?!? I never get that for people who seem eager to dismiss a placebo effect as not having value because it isn’t “real” - whatever that means.
        • thibauts 6y ago
          You improving has no predictive power about somebody else improving. That’s the problem. Limited usefulness VS an effective drug.