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Worth noting that a lot of people are vitamin D deficient. Particularly pronounced with those with a lot of melanin in the northern hemisphere, e.g. see https:/

Worth noting that a lot of people are vitamin D deficient. Particularly pronounced with those with a lot of melanin in the northern hemisphere, e.g. see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficiency-united-states/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vitamin-d-deficie... So to a first approximation, taking 1000 IU of vit D might be a good default recommendation for anyone if you can’t afford to get your blood work done. I am not aware of any evidence supporting megadosing though.

Eduard 6y ago
Blood work?
- 3np 6y ago
  Blood tests of serum levels etc.
- steverb 6y ago
  Panel of various tests using your blood.
- hinkley 6y ago
  By way of explanation: Your body accumulates a store of vitamin D in the liver, which it rations out into your bloodstream over time. When you ingest or produce vitamin D, your liver buffers the amount that ends up in your blood, which does two things. 1) saves for a rainy day (literally and figuratively) 2) protects you from vitamin d toxicity over the short term. Which I’m told is quite nasty. With a doctor’s supervision you can take large doses of vitamin d for a short time and your liver will soak it up. How fast your blood levels rise tells the doctor about how much more you need in the tank and/or if you are having absorption problems. They taper you off quickly as you approach a healthy blood level.
hinkley 6y ago
Every time I think of those Somali refugees they settled in Wisconsin and Washington State, I get a little bit angry. That’s just cruel. Even balancing for potential racism, Iowa, central Illinois/Indiana, Northern California would be loads better temperature and vitamin D-wise.
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  Actually, the most common destination is Minnesota, even further north than Wisconsin! Today though, Somalis prefer to be sent to the Twin Cities because of the network effect.
leptons 6y ago
>I am not aware of any evidence supporting megadosing though. The main consequence of vitamin D toxicity is a buildup of calcium in your blood (hypercalcemia), which can cause nausea and vomiting, weakness, and frequent urination. Vitamin D toxicity might progress to bone pain and kidney problems, such as the formation of calcium stones. It's not good to have too much either.
- Filligree 6y ago
  Yeah, but too much is really quite a lot. Let's not scare people away from taking a reasonable amount.
  - leptons 6y ago
    I'm not scaring anyone away, but your drama is. After researching the proper dosage of Vitamin D, I purchased the correct dosage, and not one that would lead to overdosing, and those dosages are absolutely available and people often just buy whatever the maximum is even if they don't understand the implications of using it.
- shock 6y ago
  > It's not good to have too much either. You can say that about water too. You can literally die if you drink too much water because the electrolytes get diluted too much⁰. ⓪ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Over the last month or so I've seen comments by HNers that they've taken pretty large doses and that it's helped with depression. I've been trying a double daily dose every day that I'm not able to go outside for an hour - after two weeks (and remember this is anecdotal, the causative nature in this is hidden) I had my first day in years where I was just happy; it was weird, I was like, huh, I feel happy today. My mood has been up in general. I'm hoping this helps long-term; perhaps VitD deficiency is a contributor to rising levels of depression too?
- jonex 6y ago
  Great that you feel better! There are several potential explanations for this, for example: * It could be pure chance and selection bias, for you it seems unlikely, but consider how many took the same advice and saw not effect, they wouldn't post about it. This is why we need larger sample sizes and a control group to compare to. * It could be placebo, maybe your expectations made you notice and appreciate the happiness, maybe also strengthening it. This is why we need to make studies blind by using a placebo group. * There was indeed an effect because you were vitamin D deficient. Recently a large study was published where they gave a large group vit D to look for depression incidence and they could not find any effect. There's a lot of parameters that could affects the results so it doesn't mean there is none, but probably that it's not as simple as "give everyone vit D and we get rid of depression".
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    Oh for sure, placebo is a strong possibility for me (the sense of taking action perhaps provides the mood improvement which is not quite placebo but a related effect); also on HN we're perhaps a lot more likely to be "shut-ins" (or approaching that) and so we're starting from a non-representative pool. For me, I just noticed a few comments saying it helped their depression, was considering VitD already for Covid19 reasons, and figured the possible level of harm was almost zero so I'd give it a shot. Not sure I'd expect a large randomised group to have a noticeable effect (can you link the study you mention, please) but perhaps "people who have reported depression, have been tested and found to be low in VitD" as a starting group and then see if it does better than placebo. Thanks for your comment.

Eduard 6y ago

Blood work?

3np 6y ago
Blood tests of serum levels etc.
steverb 6y ago
Panel of various tests using your blood.
hinkley 6y ago
By way of explanation: Your body accumulates a store of vitamin D in the liver, which it rations out into your bloodstream over time. When you ingest or produce vitamin D, your liver buffers the amount that ends up in your blood, which does two things. 1) saves for a rainy day (literally and figuratively) 2) protects you from vitamin d toxicity over the short term. Which I’m told is quite nasty. With a doctor’s supervision you can take large doses of vitamin d for a short time and your liver will soak it up. How fast your blood levels rise tells the doctor about how much more you need in the tank and/or if you are having absorption problems. They taper you off quickly as you approach a healthy blood level.

hinkley 6y ago

Every time I think of those Somali refugees they settled in Wisconsin and Washington State, I get a little bit angry. That’s just cruel. Even balancing for potential racism, Iowa, central Illinois/Indiana, Northern California would be loads better temperature and vitamin D-wise.

ComputerGuru 6y ago
Actually, the most common destination is Minnesota, even further north than Wisconsin! Today though, Somalis prefer to be sent to the Twin Cities because of the network effect.

leptons 6y ago

>I am not aware of any evidence supporting megadosing though. The main consequence of vitamin D toxicity is a buildup of calcium in your blood (hypercalcemia), which can cause nausea and vomiting, weakness, and frequent urination. Vitamin D toxicity might progress to bone pain and kidney problems, such as the formation of calcium stones. It's not good to have too much either.

Filligree 6y ago
Yeah, but too much is really quite a lot. Let's not scare people away from taking a reasonable amount.
- leptons 6y ago
  I'm not scaring anyone away, but your drama is. After researching the proper dosage of Vitamin D, I purchased the correct dosage, and not one that would lead to overdosing, and those dosages are absolutely available and people often just buy whatever the maximum is even if they don't understand the implications of using it.
shock 6y ago
> It's not good to have too much either. You can say that about water too. You can literally die if you drink too much water because the electrolytes get diluted too much⁰. ⓪ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

Over the last month or so I've seen comments by HNers that they've taken pretty large doses and that it's helped with depression. I've been trying a double daily dose every day that I'm not able to go outside for an hour - after two weeks (and remember this is anecdotal, the causative nature in this is hidden) I had my first day in years where I was just happy; it was weird, I was like, huh, I feel happy today. My mood has been up in general. I'm hoping this helps long-term; perhaps VitD deficiency is a contributor to rising levels of depression too?

jonex 6y ago
Great that you feel better! There are several potential explanations for this, for example: * It could be pure chance and selection bias, for you it seems unlikely, but consider how many took the same advice and saw not effect, they wouldn't post about it. This is why we need larger sample sizes and a control group to compare to. * It could be placebo, maybe your expectations made you notice and appreciate the happiness, maybe also strengthening it. This is why we need to make studies blind by using a placebo group. * There was indeed an effect because you were vitamin D deficient. Recently a large study was published where they gave a large group vit D to look for depression incidence and they could not find any effect. There's a lot of parameters that could affects the results so it doesn't mean there is none, but probably that it's not as simple as "give everyone vit D and we get rid of depression".
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Oh for sure, placebo is a strong possibility for me (the sense of taking action perhaps provides the mood improvement which is not quite placebo but a related effect); also on HN we're perhaps a lot more likely to be "shut-ins" (or approaching that) and so we're starting from a non-representative pool. For me, I just noticed a few comments saying it helped their depression, was considering VitD already for Covid19 reasons, and figured the possible level of harm was almost zero so I'd give it a shot. Not sure I'd expect a large randomised group to have a noticeable effect (can you link the study you mention, please) but perhaps "people who have reported depression, have been tested and found to be low in VitD" as a starting group and then see if it does better than placebo. Thanks for your comment.