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The Big Vitamin D Mistake (2017)
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago> 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter That's a lot of pills, even at 1,000 IU per.
- java-man 6y ago10,000 IU per capsule [0]. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GRBQY5B https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GRBQY5B
- AnthonBerg 6y agoI just checked and 8000 IU seems to be juuust about 200 micrograms :) Turns out that the pills are ludicrously big?
- AtHeartEngineer 6y agoIt's usually suspended in olive oil
- thisisnico 6y agoI believe this is due to vitamin absorption, our body requires fat to absorb certain vitamins. Some are fat soluble, some are water soluble. Just depends.
- AtHeartEngineer 6y agoA lot of them come in 5000 iu or 10,000 iu capsules. So 1 or 2 a day.
- gvb 6y ago(2017)
- jimhefferon 6y agoI don't believe that expert recommendations have changed the recommended dosage. Is that because the paper is flawed, or inertia, or ...?
- gvb 6y agoJust noting that it is not a new study - it was discussed previously in 2017: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918
- jimhefferon 6y agoOh yes, I understood, thanks. But as a person from VT, where it is dark much of the year, I follow the recommendations on taking D with some interest. :-)
- colechristensen 6y agoIf you are taking large doses of vitamin D (lets say more than a few thousand a day) get your serum levels checked from time to time. I had been taking 5-10k per day in 5k IU pills regularly and my levels were right at the top of the safe range. Too much vitamin D can screw with your calcium and thus nervous system.
- andreygrehov 6y agoI'm taking 5k IU daily. How long it took you to get to the top of the safe range?
- cliffy 6y agoEven if your bodies are pretty similar, you still don't know if your vitamin D levels will follow the pattern that his did. If you're messing with vitamin D supplements you should talk to a doctor and/or get your blood tested.
- zeroxfe 6y agoAs I understood it -- if you're tested low, you can take 5 - 10k per day for about a month to restore your levels, then drop down to 2 - 5k daily. High doses over a long period is toxic, and low doses are ineffective.
- rmetzler 6y agoCan someone please explain to me the toxicity of vitamin D and how it interacts with K2? I feel like K2 isn’t mentioned often in discussions about vitamin D and I wonder why this is.
- teilo 6y agoIt is almost always ignored, and it is critical to proper Vitamin D utilization.
- chewz 6y agoThere is an app for that of course :-) - Calcium Pro and Vitamin-d Pro [1] [2] (also for Android users) And please read this article explaining relations between calcium, vitamine D and parathyroid if you have time [3] [1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calcium-pro/id587386613 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/calcium-pro/id587386613 [2] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vitamin-d-pro/id796680824 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vitamin-d-pro/id796680824 [3] https://www.parathyroid.com/low-vitamin-d.htm https://www.parathyroid.com/low-vitamin-d.htm
- m3kw9 6y agoI thought it was 1000 IU for D3
- mark-r 6y agoI think that's the point of this report, the previous recommendations were way too low.
- thisisnico 6y agoI think 1000IU is fine for regular people with reasonable levels of D3, that might be a little low, but it's not enough for people that are VERY low.
- tehjoker 6y agohttps://sci-hub.scihubtw.tw/10.3961/jpmph.16.111 https://sci-hub.scihubtw.tw/10.3961/jpmph.16.111
- tgb 6y agoIn case anyone doesn't notice it, the full text is available at the corresponding PubMedCentral link. Personally, this would be where I would have linked instead: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/
- dang 6y agoOk, we've changed to that from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28768407/ in the link above. Thanks!
- krastanov 6y agoI have noticed the significant uptick in vitamin D articles. It is probably related to the current pandemic, but can someone with the necessary background explain (and direct to explanations) how important vitamin D is in the grand scheme of things. Does its common deficiency compare with the effect of the typical over consumption of sugars or with the effects of a typical sedentary live?
- _Microft 6y agoI would have to look it up but there were studies finding that a vitamin D deficiency correlated with a higher risk of developing severe cases of Covid-19. If there is a causal relationship (i.e. better vitamin D levels will reduce the risk) or if this is because of a confounding factor is not known, as far as I know. A confounding factor could e.g. be a more healthy lifestyle in general. Running outdoors will expose people to more sunlight which leads to more vitamin D production - while couch potatoes with an unhealthy lifestyle would get less sunlight and lower vitamin D levels. In this case, supplementing vitamin D might have little to no effect - because all it would do is raising the vitamin D levels while the person still would have bad health because of their lifestyle. Here's a simple search for these keywords: https://www.bing.com/search?q=covid+19+severity+vitamin+d https://www.bing.com/search?q=covid+19+severity+vitamin+d
- Symmetry 6y agoAs background, because healthy people tend to get out more there's always going to be a correlation between health and vitamin D levels. That means that most media articles gushing about a new vitamin D to health link are almost always worth ignoring. However, in the case of the Covid-19/vitamin D negative correlation it was much bigger than you'd expect by that route. Then someone actually did a randomized controlled trial and found a protective effect.
- ianai 6y agoI think in that case it was still a beneficial affect due to the marginal person in the study having a vitamin d deficiency and thus diminished immune response. Give them a proper dose of vitamin d and their immune system rebounds and pretty rapidly.
- dmitryminkovsky 6y agoThis is very different than the 400 IUs per drop in the baby drops we have right now.
- Markoff 6y agoyeah I am giving my younger one two drops and older one three drops, I take 2000IU but I guess I should at least double it plus they eat yogurt every breakfast and also cheese and milk can always hope for results of Dutch diet :-)
- jolux 6y agoOut of curiosity: why haven’t official recommendations changed in the three years since this was published? Is it flawed?
- jrumbut 6y agoFrom the article: "Undeniably, further studies are needed to clarify the optimal supplementation of vitamin D, although it is uncertain whether a universal recommended dietary allowance is feasible." So perhaps they've established the RDA is too low, but the article itself says they haven't nailed down what the new recommendation should be. That's probably more than a 3 year process (now massively disrupted) assuming that consensus is building in the direction.
- wgjordan 6y agoThe original 2011 report [1] was updated with a note mentioning that an official review conducted in 2017 [2] concluded the official recommendation probably wouldn't have been any different despite the statistical error, so they didn't change them. [1] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13050/dietary-reference-intakes-for-calcium-and-vitamin-d https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13050/dietary-reference-intakes-... [2] https://www.nap.edu/resource/13050/FINAL%20Vitamin%20D%20Phase%20II%20Panel%20Report_11-17-17.pdf https://www.nap.edu/resource/13050/FINAL%20Vitamin%20D%20Pha...
- lhl 6y agoRecommendations/guidelines can take a long time (years, decades even) to change, especially if they've been long-standing. FWIW, the Endocrine Society has been raising its recommendations for years now: Holick, Michael F., Neil C. Binkley, Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, Catherine M. Gordon, David A. Hanley, Robert P. Heaney, M. Hassan Murad, and Connie M. Weaver. “Evaluation, Treatment, and Prevention of Vitamin D Deficiency: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 96, no. 7 (July 1, 2011): 1911–30. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2011-0385 https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2011-0385. I've probably posted this exact reference before but there's research going back decades showing that without sun exposure, almost everyone will be Vitamin D deficient: "CONCLUSIONS: Healthy men seem to use 3000-5000 IU cholecalciferol/d, apparently meeting > 80% of their winter cholecalciferol need with cutaneously synthesized accumulations from solar sources during the preceding summer months. Current recommended vitamin D inputs are inadequate to maintain serum 25-hydroxycholecalciferol concentration in the absence of substantial cutaneous production of vitamin D." Heaney, Robert P., K. Michael Davies, Tai C. Chen, Michael F. Holick, and M. Janet Barger-Lux. “Human Serum 25-Hydroxycholecalciferol Response to Extended Oral Dosing with Cholecalciferol.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 77, no. 1 (January 2003): 204–10. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/77.1.204 https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/77.1.204. Recommending sun exposure has been somewhat anathema, but I think more and more people are finally coming around that humans are evolved to need a lot more sunlight than most of us are getting... Baggerly, Carole A., Raphael E. Cuomo, Christine B. French, Cedric F. Garland, Edward D. Gorham, William B. Grant, Robert P. Heaney, et al. “Sunlight and Vitamin D: Necessary for Public Health.” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 34, no. 4 (July 4, 2015): 359–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2015.1039866 https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2015.1039866.
- deanclatworthy 6y agoI take 100micrograms a day. How does this relate to the IU unit used here?
- 0x64 6y agoWikipedia says 40 IU of vitamin D is equal to 1 microgram, which would make 100 micrograms equal to 4000 IU [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_unit
- zzzeek 6y agonot even two months ago there was a big HN discussion about a blog post, including comments here by the author: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story?postId=5f39453f8d01fe00170023fe https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st... which would appear to contradict this article quite directly, if I'm reading correctly (I'm a know-nothing here taking 2000 iu /day, just trying to understand the topic)? "Her Vitamin D was low at the time, so her physician started her on over-the-counter Vitamin D supplementation at 5000 international units (IUs) daily. Five years later, she was still on this dose, and her blood Vitamin D level had risen to 79 ng/ml. This level is within what many labs call the normal range, between 30 and 100 ng/ml, but levels above 70 are almost always a result of high dose supplementation, and I have seen toxicity with levels between 70 and 100 ng/ml. (A better “normal range” based on what I have seen would probably be between 30 and 60.) " The linked article seems to be using nmol/L units as opposed to ng/ml so multiplying by 2.5 doesnt seem to be working out for me, someone who knows something have any comparison between these two?
- R0b0t1 6y ago5000IU is a rather large dose and her dosage was not adjusted. Beware of that author's potential biases: doctors are heavily invested in getting you to pay them more money even though they might cite humanitarian (and very patronizing) reasons for doing so. But, having vitamin D be easily accessible may be the better course of action. A similar scenario is sceen in India where most antibiotics are available OTC, something "unthinkable" in the US.
- WillPostForFood 6y agoAlso note that the patient was in Arizona, and may already have been getting a good amount of vitamin D from sun exposure.
- ColanR 6y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. It's definitely important to be aware of potential biases.
- lhl 6y agoWhile I'm a big fan of Vitamin D in general, one thing to watch out for is that while this paper cites meta-analysis of associations of serum levels of 25(OH)D and ACM as an argument for supplementation: Garland, Cedric F., June Jiwon Kim, Sharif Burgette Mohr, Edward Doerr Gorham, William B. Grant, Edward L. Giovannucci, Leo Baggerly, et al. “Meta-Analysis of All-Cause Mortality According to Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D.” American Journal of Public Health 104, no. 8 (August 2014): e43–50. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302034 https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302034. Recent meta-analysis seems to suggest that supplementation is not associated with lower ACM. In that case, Vitamin D would be primarily a marker for poor outcomes, not the actual primary cause. n=75,454 "Vitamin D supplementation alone was not associated with all cause mortality in adults compared with placebo or no treatment. Vitamin D supplementation reduced the risk of cancer death by 16%. Additional large clinical studies are needed to determine whether vitamin D3 supplementation is associated with lower all cause mortality." Zhang, Yu, Fang Fang, Jingjing Tang, Lu Jia, Yuning Feng, Ping Xu, and Andrew Faramand. “Association between Vitamin D Supplementation and Mortality: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” BMJ 366 (August 12, 2019): l4673. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l4673 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l4673. 2011 Discussion on Vitamin D as a marker: Jacobs, Elizabeth T., María Elena Martínez, and Peter W. Jurutka. “Vitamin D: Marker or Mechanism of Action?” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention : A Publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, Cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology 20, no. 4 (April 2011): 585–90. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-10-1257 https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-10-1257.
- electriclove 6y agoDefinitely get tested so you know what your levels are. You can tell your doctor that you are taking Vitamin D supplements and you want to measure your Vitamin D and Calcium levels. That should be sufficient for them to approve the labwork. You can also test your Vitamin D levels via a homekit that you mail in. This is one example: https://www.everlywell.com/products/vitamin-d-test/ https://www.everlywell.com/products/vitamin-d-test/
- mikenew 6y agoThis summer I spent about six weeks making an effort to get as much sun exposure as I realistically could. I'd do 20-30 minute dog walks in the afternoon in shorts and no shirt, plus a few bike rides per week, also shirtless. I didn't take any vitamin D supplements and, as far as I know, wasn't eating any food with added vitamin D like milk. At the end of it I did one of those mail-in vitamin D tests, and it put me at 40 ng/mL. Depending on the source, that's very bottom edge of the acceptable range. Walking around with your shirt off feels pretty weird, and I can't imagine most people would even be willing to do that. And of course it's getting into the rainy season here in the pacific northwest, so there's no sun exposure to be had no matter what you do. Seems like, at least for someone like me who works indoors, supplementing is the only option to stay within a healthy range. I figure humans are just not adapted to wearing a lot of clothing and staying indoors all the time. I'm now taking 5000 IU per day, and I plan to take another test in a few months. Subjectively I can say that I feel far better than I did a few months ago, but that could be placebo or due to other factors. Still, I'm pretty convinced I should be supplementing vitamin D.
- teucris 6y agoAlso in the Pacific Northwest - a doctor once told me that at our latitude, the sun never gets high enough in the sky for humans to be able to rely on sun exposure alone to meet our needed Vitamin D levels.
- WillPostForFood 6y agoAnd this article is about Finland. Seattle is 47N LAT, Helsinki is 60N. That's around how far north Whitehorse is in the Yukon - very little Vitamin D is possible from sun exposure that far north.
- Sharlin 6y agoYep, around here it's mostly the early afternoon hours during summer months that the UV levels even rise above the threshold of triggering cholecalciferol synthesis. For many people the summer vacation is pretty much the only time of the year that they have a chance to synthetize vitamin D on their own.
- hazemotes 6y agoRecently we had an article by a doctor posted on here claiming that taking 5000IU a day had given a lady debilitating cognitive problems due to problems with calcium regulation. Perhaps people need to get their levels checked regularly and adjust accordingly?
- _wldu 6y agoThis is why I occasionally take vitamins, but not everyday. It's easy to over do it and cause more harm than good.
- AQuantized 6y agoThe frequency has much less to do with it than the absolute amount, at least for fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D. Taking 2000IU on 3 separate days isn't much different from taking 6000IU at 1 day.
- chewz 6y agoPeople should get their calcium and PTH levels checked before taking larger doses of vitamine D as low vitamine D could be result of hyperparathyroidism. In this case vitamine D can kill you (and for sure will give you cognitive problems, brain fog and such). Most doctors/endocrynologists is poorly trained to deal with that.. Belive me I have been there (had low vitamine D and high calcium due to thyroid cancer affecting parathyroid glands and had been prescribed vitamine D by incompetent endocrynologist) and this article helped a lot.. https://www.parathyroid.com/low-vitamin-d.htm https://www.parathyroid.com/low-vitamin-d.htm
- yubiox 6y agoIs this what you are referring to, the lady taking 130,000 IU per day? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33030138/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33030138/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774
- remote_phone 6y agoI’m very curious what devboone’s opinion is on this.
- cnst 6y agotl;dr: * linked abstract recommends 8000 UI for young adults and thereafter; * my Centrum Multivitamin/Multimineral Adults has Vitamin D3 25mcg (1000 UI), listing it as 125% DV. I guess I gotta find something extra to get an extra 7000 UI/d to reach 100 nmol/L?
- speeder 6y agoI wish the Vitamin D science was more nailed down. I am currently taking 7000 UI daily, because medic told me to do so, thing is... even the same medic, sometimes told me to take another dose, because he forgot I was already taking it, when I told him what I was taking, his reply was... "huh... that I think is about right". My experience with other medics weren't better. Also some were AGAINST me taking Vitamin D, because 7000 UI is viewed by many medics as toxic, but I have hypothyroidism, and one of its issues is that some people show vitamin D deficiency symptons even with correct blood serum levels (and the symptons go away only after forcing the levels go higher than normal), telling that to medics also resulted in mixed results, some said they would read more, some got mad at me, some agreed with me.
- kungito 6y agoHow many medics did you go to and why so many?
- gruez 6y agoprobably english isn't his first language and he meant "doctor".
- speeder 6y agoOne reason for frequent switches was switching of health insurance. The other reason was that diagnosing my hypothyroidism was super hard, there are a ridiculous amounts of shitty quality endocrinologists out there, including many doing things that they shouldn't (like abusing ADHD meds for weight loss to the point the government had to step in and ban several ADHD meds, to the detriment of actual ADHD sufferers)
- teach 6y agoRemember that the average medical doctor does not take even ONE human nutrition course as part of their undergraduate or med school studies. They clearly have enough background to understand the complexities of human nutrition, but most haven't studied it at all or kept up with the research. It's like asking an ophthalmologist about bladder cancer -- they just don't know. Consider speaking to a registered dietitian, who actually are trained in this area.
- nradov 6y agoBeyond routine vitamin D supplementation, there is an intriguing letter from Dr. Gerry Schwalfenberg claiming success in treating respiratory viral infections with high doses. Hopefully someone will conduct a clinical trial to see if that treatment protocol has any effect on COVID-19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/
- Randy_Savage 6y agoI take 5000 IU after blood test confirmed I was deficient. I suppose I should spend less time in front of the computer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- open-source-ux 6y agoThe summary of the paper recommends: "...8000 IU [International Units] for young adults and thereafter" For comparison, the NHS (National Health Service) recommendation in the UK is just...10mcg (400 IU) https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-d/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-... A massive difference with what this paper recommends. How will the public know which vitamin D guidelines to follow when the guidelines differ so wildly?
- jrochkind1 6y ago> RDA at least three-fourths of the levels proposed by the Endocrine Society Expert Committee as safe upper tolerable daily intake doses. That seems like a dangerously low margin between recommended and unsafe, no? And they say "at least" like maybe the RDA should be even higher than three-fourths the maximum safe daily dose? I mean, maybe the human body really does have such a tight tolerance, it really needs 75% of what would be dangerous to maximize health. That would be surprising to me, but could be. It still seems like a recommendation like that is likely to lead to many people exceeding the designated maximum safe daily amount. (Of course, it could also be that the safe upper tolerable daily intake dose is mistakenly too low?)
- petertodd 6y ago> I mean, maybe the human body really does have such a tight tolerance, it really needs 75% of what would be dangerous to maximize health. Since your body produces Vitamin D from sunlight - and that process is self-limiting - it's certainly biologically possible that the margins really are that small. Historically most people spent far more time outside than we do now. Unfortunately if that is true, the only reliable way to get the dosing right without expensive testing would probably be sun exposure, which many people simply aren't going to get with modern lifestyles. There's also no evolutionary reason why there couldn't be an inherent trade-off between Vitamin D and UV-related skin damage/skin cancer: evolution tends towards "good enough" rather than "perfect".
- michaelmrose 6y agoRemember that there is no particular expectation of good design in something that wasn't designed in the first place and that a pre civilized human would have encountered only a small number of other humans and would have been primarily considered a success or failure as far as fitness depending on ability to breed in your 20s not living to 85. What is optimal for us may differ substantially from what might have been optimal for our ancestors. Also consider that vitamin D from sunlight would likely have been a bigger component and that is naturally slackened by tanning reducing vitamin d production/need to stay out of the sun to avoid getting burned/overheated. Basically it would be harder to get too much.
- tedunangst 6y ago> we call public health authorities to consider designating as the RDA at least three-fourths of the levels proposed by the Endocrine Society Expert Committee as safe upper tolerable daily intake doses. Are there any other vitamins where taking double the RDA puts you over the safe dose? Also: the switchover comes with the complication that people taking 1000% RDA now just blindly keep taking 10x after the switch...
- albertTJames 6y agoThe study is mainly based on the results of this meta-analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103214/ which showed an increase mortality risk for patients < 30ng/L They seem to say the confounders were corrected for in most studies but drawing a causal link between vit D and mortality purely from observational data is shaky. They say: >> Differences in the amount of adjustment may account for some of the heterogeneity that was present among studies. All studies adjusted for age, and most adjusted for other covariates. Even with extensive adjustment, residual confounding is always possible. Confounding is also possible by factors that were not measured, such as genetic predisposition. It is inherently difficult to completely exclude any possibility of confounding in observational studies, so caution in interpretation of the findings is appropriate. >> Supplements of 2000 to 4000 international units (IU) per day of vitamin D3 would produce an approximately 20 to 40 ng/mL increase in serum 25(OH)D.65,66 But the conclusion about the usefulness of Vit D supplementation can only be drawn from Randomised controlled trials: >> Two randomized controlled clinical trials using 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3 are under way in the United States, a study designed to replicate the study by Lappe et al.,8 and a new randomized controlled trial by Manson et al.67 These studies will not have results available for several years.
- yk 6y ago> 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. I am very suspicious of scientific papers who make basic mistakes in the abstract, like citing a lower limit to argue against existence of a U-shaped curve, for that it would be more interesting to know "safe" (in the context of this paper) upper limits. I am also very suspicious of papers that use the word "demolish" in the abstract and aren't about civil engineering.
- heroHACK17 6y agojoe i take 5000 ius of vitamin d every day rogan
- bronlund 6y agoI'm just going to leave this here for those interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH1rB-Ya2UQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH1rB-Ya2UQ
- soneca 6y agoI wonder if Vitamin D would be an odd biological case of the adage ”if a metric starts being used as a goal, it ceases to be a good metric”. From my understanding, Vitamin D has strong evidence of being a good marker of good health. A certain level of Vitamin D is strongly correlated with a lot of health indicators. But there is no strong evidence so far that it’s a cause of good health. If that’s the case, that Vitamin D doesn’t cause good health, it just happens to be present in people with good health — and I could be wrong in both of my previous statements, I am not a specialist, I just read specialists claiming this. So, if that’s the case and Vitamin D supplement intake becomes widespread (a lot of dairy products in the US includes Vitamin D already), it might interfere in research trying to understand the relation of Vitamin D and good health. Not just research, but a doctor checking a patient blood exam wouldn’t notice anymore the low Vitamin D and wouldn’t recommend a, probably beneficial, larger exposure to the sun.
- ajsnigrutin 6y agoWouldn't this make 'now' a good time to do a study on Vitamin D? Basically, give a grup vitamin D supplements, and compare to placebo group? Because curing all the coronavirus histeria, i know people who've gone sunbathing for too long in relatively cold weather, because some study somwhere found out that a bunch of people who died from covid had very low vitamin D, and by correlation=causation logic, they though they needed more (but ignore the fact that most dead here were eldery in retirement homes, bedbound and pretty much never in the sun at all).
- antonvs 6y ago> But there is no strong evidence so far that it’s a cause of good health. The linked paper seems to contradict this pretty strongly. E.g.: > "vitamin D is a powerful nuclear receptor-activating hormone of critical importance, especially to the immune system." That's just one example - the article mentions several others. > I just read specialists claiming this There are a lot of quacks in this field - are you sure you're not reading some of those?
- avsteele 6y ago> "vitamin D is a powerful nuclear receptor-activating hormone of critical importance, especially to the immune system." This just means there is a plausible mechanism of action. It in no way implies positive health effects for particular levels (except possibly in limiting cases)
- mmlkrx 6y ago2015 was a particularly gray winter here in Berlin. The sun didn't come out in weeks and although I felt fine, I suspected I was Vitamin D deficient and got a blood test done. I still have the scans: 2015-02-04: 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin-D3 level at 7.1 μg/l Then, after taking a 20,000 IU pill per week for around two months: 2015-04-16: 25-Hydroxy-Vitamin-D3 level at 45.6 μg/l
- lawlessone 6y agowhy one large pill a week?
- Ragib_Zaman 6y agoVitamin D has a relatively long half life in the body, so taking a large dose weekly results in essentially the same bodily concentration as taking smaller doses daily. Some people prefer taking their doses weekly as a matter of convenience.
- Schinken_ 6y agoIt was pretty similiar for me as well. In NRW, Germany. I was at <4 µg/l (not measureable). Welp. Took 20k/Week for 8 weeks as well. Felt a lot better, don't know my after result though. The problem for me was. A few months later I was down to ~7ish again. Looks like I need a daily supplement then. How did you feel before/after?
- mmlkrx 6y agoTo be honest, I felt normal before and normal after. I'm not sure what my levels are now (and I feel normal too), but I've started taking weekly Vitamin D pills from DM. They have 5600IU and I've been taking two per week. Will probably just do a blood test in a month or two to see where I stand.
- MrYellowP 6y agoPUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Hi, you might remember me from some older thread about grapefruit juice. This is basically the counterpart, the other side. In short: Do not ever drink grapefruit juice the day you also take in vitamin D. It gave me a month long heavy headache. Not headaches. One gigantic headache. Despite being years behind me, it still haunts me. You're welcome.
- treeman79 6y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160567/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160567/ I’ve been very In the infection theory for low Vit D and inflammatory conditions. I had weird symptoms for many years. But a round of doxycycline would leave me feeling good for weeks. A random doctor heard this and declared I had Sjogrens. He had noticed a long history of Sjogrens patients improving.
- aj7 6y agoAnd I had just switched from 5000 to 2000 IUs.
- coding123 6y agoFlagged. The 50th Vitamin D thread this week.
- Barrin92 6y agoEvery week there's another one of these that leaves me more confused. One article says that much vitamin D is toxic, now this one says it's necessary. Does anyone who has looked into these contradicting results have an idea what's probably safe but high enough so that it get's someone who doesn't get much sun in the winter at least acceptable levels? I currently just take a 1000 IU pill every day because that's what it says on the bottle.
- hanselot 6y agoAfaik, the big problem with vitamin d is that you can't take it supplementary at nearly the same efficiency as you would getting it from sunlight. I am no expert at all, and think nootropics and adaptogens are amazing, and think Dr Shai Efrati (Israeli physician) is doing amazing things with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. I think the key is finding a right mix of NAD+, resveratrol, some nootropic (I prefer noopept), and if you are adventurous you can look into ashwaganda and ginkgo biloba. I also will repeat, I am no expert, these are just the things I have found over the years, to be some of the keys in tackling aging, as per Dr. Aubrey de Grey's work, at the SENS Research Foundation. Sorry, this is rather unrelated perhaps, but I don't think just maxxing out one stat is going to get you to a healthy balanced (near-immortal) setup. Extra disclaimer: I also really appreciate Ray Kurzweil (who I believe I read somewhere takes over 100 supplements a day).
- pilsetnieks 6y ago> One article says that much vitamin D is toxic That article you're referring to (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24734774) was a case study about a single person taking 130000 IU daily which is far, far higher than anyone has proposed.
- partyboat1586 6y agoThe best way is to get monthly blood tests and measure your serum levels of vitamin D. You can then adjust your dose accordingly. For me, light skinned in the northern hemisphere I need 4000IU keep my labs above 50.
- wuwuno 6y agoDepending on skin type but people exposed to 30 minutes of sun at noon produces between 10,0000 and 20,000 IU of Vitamin D3. As the angle of the sun lowers the UV rays get filtered by the atmosphere, which is why in winter you can't make Vitamin D if you are too far away from the equator. I'm willing to bet that if the body produces that much Vitamin D3 that it's probably safe to take that much as a supplement.
- CyberDildonics 6y agoI think anyone who has gotten a sunburn skiing or snowboarding would disagree.
- spfzero 6y agoThe comment is making the case that you might expect it to be safe to take as much D3, as your body makes naturally with a small amount of sun exposure. It's not arguing that you should go skiing and get sunburnt.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago> As the angle of the sun lowers the UV rays get filtered by the atmosphere, which is why in winter you can't make Vitamin D if you are too far away from the equator.
- ShorsHammer 6y agoIt's a bit scary how many people here are taking Vitamin D supplements. Unless you live in high latitudes just a bit of direct sunlight daily is more than enough, supplementation for the average person is rarely ever needed barring some genetic disorders or lifestyle factors. Plus you get all the additional benefits of the great outdoors!
- brnt 6y agoThe problem is that all that good sun is out when I'm working during winter season. The only way to go for a walk in the sun is to take a long break, and even then I'm going to be wrapped in a thick coat, hat soon, without much skin exposed.
- dawidw 6y agoI'm really surprised that nobody mentioned vitamin K2 MK7 in the comments. By the way, what are the recommended levels of 25(OH)D in your countries?
- doctorsaren 6y agoDoctors are not interested to make you healthy, because then they will not make any money with you. It's much better to give people Vit-D tablets with minimal dose, so you will constantly visit the doctor and give all your money away.