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We're learning more about what Vitamin D does
- mondainx 1y agoGood article, but it does not cover toxicity; you can take too much vitamin D and this has very negative affects. Usually a multivitamin is enough for supplementing; taking extra is where you can run into issues; consult your Doctor.
- alexnewman 1y agoEvidence that multivitamin d is useful?
- nervysnail 1y agoIIRC, toxicity is very rare even in very high doses (like 20 k IU a day) for weeks/ two or so months.
- dpacmittal 1y agoThere was a study where participants had been consuming 10kiu per day for years without any toxicity.
- vondur 1y agoIt’s interesting that his doctor wouldn’t prescribe a vitamin D supplement because it would supposedly be too expensive for the health care system. Fortunately, vitamin D supplements are generally inexpensive to buy. I doubt I’d ever get a prescription for one, they’d probably just tell me to pick some up at the pharmacy downstairs.
- celticninja 1y agoThat will be why the doc tells you it's too expensive, because over the counter is cheap. It's not that they can't afford it, but in the UK there is a standard prescription price. It's under £10 per prescription for any drug that prescribed, but it's a flat fee. So if they prescribe something that costs less than the prescription charge it makes no sense for the patient.
- b33f 1y agoThere's a standard perscription price in England, not the UK. in Scotland and Wales there's 0 charges to the patient
- celticninja 1y agoThanks for the correction.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sxp 1y ago> At a checkup a few years ago, a doctor told me I was deficient in vitamin D. But he wouldn’t write me a prescription for supplements, simply because, as he put it, everyone in the UK is deficient. Putting the entire population on vitamin D supplements would be too expensive for the country’s national health service, he told me. Ugh. It's amazing how incompetent medical systems are. I was also deficient in vitamin D and my doctor wrote a prescription. When I did the math, the cost was something like >$.10 per 1000IU. But if I bought the vitamins from a normal store, I would pay <$.01 per 1000IU. Since a person lacking sunlight only needs 1000IU, the price for giving everyone in the UK Vitamin D would be <$700k/day. And probably much less since most people won't need this high of a dose and bulk quantities would be cheaper. For healthy people, taking extra vitamins is pointless, but giving them to people who are deficient in vitamins is one of the cheapest health interventions for the benefits. PSA: if you're feeling off, make sure your doctor checks your various vitamin levels and see if cheap OTC vitamins help.
- peppersghost93 1y agoToo add to this, if anyone is considering looking for otc vitamin supplementation, please check to see if the brand you're interested in has been lab tested. Heavy metals have been found in cheap stuff before in the US and the government isn't really screening for this stuff proactively.
- gessha 1y agoIf you consider the deficiency a national health issue, you can even subsidize a nation scale production reducing the cost even more. From a state perspective, that should be chump change considering the nation-wide effects.
- Scene_Cast2 1y agoI found that taking a specific brand of Vitamin D (the Genestra D-mulsion in particular) right before bed was guaranteed to give me vivid dreams. I've had half a dozen friends try it, with every single one reporting similar results.
- kylecazar 1y agoThat's interesting. I know vitamin D can improve sleep quality in people who are deficient, and sleep quality helps with dream recall -- I wonder if that's the mechanism or it's something else. A cursory search shows lots of redditors taking Vitamin D (some of them way, way too much btw) and having wild dreams too. I take 800IU a day and haven't noticed anything on that little.
- rapsey 1y agoThat is actually a low dose.
- kylecazar 1y agoYeah, I showed a really mild deficiency in my work so they just suggested adding a low daily dose for me. I wouldn't expect to have had any side effects.
- ltbarcly3 1y agoI was very deficient and they gave me 50k UI per day prescription vitamin D3 for 60 days. Sure enough I was high-normal on my next test. 800ui is likely not enough to have any effect unless you consistently take it for years.
- kylecazar 1y agoThat's wild. I've never heard of such a high dose being prescribed daily. Yes, I wouldn't expect to notice anything on my dose.
- almosthere 1y agoDuring the Pan I took a lot of VitD. It started giving me the feeling that my heart was beating out of my chest, so I stopped.
- Insanity 1y agoHow much Vitamin D? Vitamins are good but as with many things, the poison is in the dosage. You can definitely take too much of it.
- almosthere 1y agoAfter about a week of 1000 IU per day my chest started hurting and I could feel my heart anywhere in my body.
- epgui 1y agoVitamins A, D, E and K can be overdosed… But for vitamin D to be toxic you would have to veer quite far from the posology.
- masterphai 1y ago[flagged]
- rapsey 1y agoIt contains glycerin which is 100% the cause of the vivid dreams.
- therein 1y agoYou started off writing this yourself and then "augmented" the reply of an LLM for the later part, right? Because the tone of your post changes from human to LLM as I continue reading it.
- naths88 1y agoHad the exact same feeling. The conclusion shifts back to the human.
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoor it might be changing from anecdotal human to technical research human. Here's my question - if you had read that 5 years ago would you think it was written by a human who had done some reading on the matter, or would you think they googled it and copied some of what they found. Obviously 5 years ago we couldn't have worried it was an LLM, but if you wouldn't have thought someone just copy pasted something without understanding it, or someone was crazy on drugs when they wrote something, then it seems somewhat unfair to give people this new accusation.
- jijijijij 1y agoThis fellow human speaks the truth. You people did trust strangers before the invasion of "Earth", it's totally not fair to be overly wary of the Mimics now!
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoover-wariness of mimics is just a good way to cut down on the available supply of sexual partners in my book!
- masterphai 1y ago[dead]
- Johnny555 1y ago>For me, that means topping up with a supplement. The UK government advises everyone in the country to take a 10-microgram vitamin D supplement over autumn and winter My last blood test showed I was slightly deficient in vitamin D - my doctor recommended a 50 microgram (2000 IU) supplement. My next test to see how well it' working isn't for a few more months.
- Noaidi 1y agoGet a metabolic test as well to check your calcium levels since D can increase serum calcium if you have genetics like mine.
- padjo 1y agoIsn’t vague mixed evidence of a small, limited effect pretty much what you’d find if it it did basically nothing in aggregate?
- epgui 1y agoThis article aside, there are a number of very well established benefits of vitamin D. I think “mixed evidence of small limited effect” is not a phrase that is reflective of current knowledge.
- tagami 1y agoMushrooms exposed to UV convert egosterol to vitamin D - an almost identical mechanism found in our skin
- epgui 1y ago[flagged]
- doublerabbit 1y ago[flagged]
- epgui 1y ago[flagged]
- doublerabbit 1y agoLife would be simpler if I was.
- ggm 1y agoSo you can boost D by eating mushrooms, and keep them in sunlight if you can.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoI’ve wondered whether vitamin D is a real time signal within the circadian rhythm regulation system. Perhaps it is released in response to sunlight in order to let other parts of the system know it is daytime. If it were like this, bulk dosing would be expected to be better than nothing (“maximum daytime!!!! Followed immediately by a very long slow sunset at whatever curve it is cleaned up in the body), but it would be better to dose continuously in real time at a level and body location(s) that would simulate the range of sunlight throughout the day. Can anyone professionally familiar with the research in this area comment?
- Noaidi 1y agoVitamin D interacts with clock genes, which regulate the body's daily rhythms, through its ability to modulate the expression of genes like Clock, Bmal1, and Per2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11990303/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11990303/
- gdevenyi 1y agohttps://open.substack.com/pub/takecontrol/p/dermatologys-war-against-sun https://open.substack.com/pub/takecontrol/p/dermatologys-war...
- dn3500 1y agoI live in the tropics and there is plenty of sunshine here. So my skin doctor told me to avoid the sun at all costs, always wear suncreen and a hat, don't go out in the daytime. A few years of that and now I have a vitamin D deficiency.
- delfinom 1y agoYea sun damage and cancer vs. vitamin d deficiency is a little bit of a balancing act. It also doesn't help skin color is very critical part in all of this but people view that topic as taboo to discuss. The entire reason for skin color variations is a genetic optimization for UV absorption at specific latitudes vs sunburn risks. That and the other half of the problem is we are all sedentary as hell in all latitudes these days. Be it people hiding under AC at the tropics or hiding in heated homes in the north. We don't go outside to get enough sunlight and our fat reserves that store vitamin d don't grow large enough because we still don't go outside when the weather is tolerable.
- immibis 1y agoI don't think anyone is making it taboo to say someone's melanin content affects how they absorb UV light. It's taboo when you tie it to all sorts of other things, say, how well they should do at school.
- pangolinpouch 1y ago[flagged]
- Jensson 1y ago> It's taboo when you tie it to all sorts of other things, say, how well they should do at school. Vitamin D deficiency might affect how well you do in school though and skin color affects that a lot. People who don't live in their native environment get such issues, just like white people getting burnt easily if they move south.
- inciampati 1y ago
- Noaidi 1y agoI have polymorphisms in a gene called CYP2R1 (Vitamin D 25-hydroxylase, involved in activation of vitamin D precursors). My polymorphism lead to lower levels of D3. My doc put me on 1000mcg of D3 a day for a month after I tested low. I came back in for blood testing and my Calcium levels were extremely high (Not good!). So the doctor ordered me to stop the vitamin D to see what was going on. As it turns out I have even more lower frequency polymophisms in a gene called CALCA (Calcitonin is a peptide hormone that causes a rapid but short-lived drop in the level of calcium and phosphate in blood by promoting the incorporation of those ions in the bones.). So basically since I do not realease a lot of Calcitonin naturally I need to get it from food. Guess what food is extremely high in Vitamin D3[1] and Calcitonin[2]? Salmon! I have a genetic history of people that ate a lot of salmon so this makes sense. Genetics matter people. I will assume that most people who have irish/britsh should be getting their D3 from fatty fish since sunlight is so rare there. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6566758/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6566758/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_calcitonin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salmon_calcitonin).
- DustinEchoes 1y agoIs it necessary to take k2 along with d3?
- TacticalCoder 1y ago[dead]
- cheald 1y ago"Putting the entire population on vitamin D supplements would be too expensive for the country’s national health service, he told me." This seems absolutely bonkers. Vitamin D is dirt cheap, and if you can think at all beyond first-order effects, the improvement in immune health alone would likely pay for itself in terms of cost to the healthcare system.
- Tubelord 1y agoI guess the logistics of prescribing an entire population of anything is expensive, and overkill when people can supplement it in pills or diet, or just go outside more.
- danaris 1y ago"Go outside more" is absolutely a nonstarter in the places that most need this: northern latitudes in the winter. Not only is "outside" often so cold that you need to cover enough of your skin that the sunlight would barely help, the weaker sun we get in winter just doesn't produce enough vitamin D in our bodies. That's the problem. (Edit: "northern latitudes" can probably be replaced with "more extreme latitudes," as I believe there are some places that are far enough south that they also experience this, just at the opposite end of the year)
- ainar-g 1y agoWhich is why the Soviet government used “ultraviolet baths” to make sure that children up North got their vitamin D. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/ultraviolet-bath-mcnally-pod https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-day/photo/ul...
- grvdrm 1y agoI solve this with 2 150w led corn lamps in my office!
- paulddraper 1y agoA year of over the counter Vitamin D is around 30 pounds. (Not including bulk discounts or administrative/distribution costs) The population is 70 million. So 2.1 billion pounds, about 1% of the total NHS budget. So do Vitamin D supplements reduce healthcare costs by at least 1%
- strontian 1y agoNo one will probably believe this, but I think dust mite exposure is a major cause of vitamin D deficiency and a lot of the negative outcomes associated with low vitamin D are actually second+ order effects of dust mite exposure. Just posting in case it reaches one person out of the 100s of millions who are sick from dust mites.
- orochimaaru 1y agocitation? There's many open to believing it and the reach maybe more if there are studies that confirm causation with a high probability. fwiw - vit-d supplementation is one of the easiest supplements available. The recommended dosage 400IU is way lower than what can actually bring your levels up. You need about 4000IU of supplementation and regular testing if you're not exposed to sunlight and/or your dairy intake is poor.
- strontian 1y agoI've read hundreds of dust mite studies, and this is the conclusion I came to, but it's difficult to put in a direct single argument with a citation that most people would require to accept it. I also got dust mites entirely out of my home and my chronically low vitamin D was resolved without a change in lifestyle or supplementation. But I'll do my best to share some of the steps toward this conclusion: #1. There is a body of molecular research showing dust mite allergens directly damage the immune system, most importantly once you inhale their fecal pods, they cause epithelial permeability in the lungs. (this study is a good overview of several ways it directly damages the immune system, all of which are totally unrelated to type 1 hypersensitivity, btw: https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(18)30848-0/fulltext https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(18)30848-0/ful...) #2. There are challenge studies that show dust mites directly causing eczema symptoms after inhalation, which shows that dust mite allergens can act on areas other than the respiratory system, probably by entering the blood stream. Of course there are also challenge studies for asthma. (here's a paper arguing for causal role in asthma https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200811-1756pr https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200811-175...) #3. All of the major allergic diseases(asthma, eczema, rhinitis, and although it is not as well studies, I believe IBS) have epithelial damage and increased allergy as a core feature of the disease. #1 and #2 are good evidence that dust mites play a causal role in these diseases #4. From asthma and epithelial permeability in the lungs you can get to worse outcomes from flu and covid etc, from rhinitis you can get to worse sleep and worse mental health etc and reach a large number of health outcomes. #5. It's true that people with allergy suffer worse from all these problems, but so much damage has already been done before you even get to Type 1 hypersensitivity, but that's another story. So basically, dust mites directly damage your immune system in the lungs, skin, nose, eyes, guts(and maybe more?), create a sustained immune response, and leads to a multitude of other bad health outcomes. And since low vitamin D is associated with dust mite sensitization((https://www.worldallergyorganizationjournal.org/article/S1939-4551(24)00021-8/fulltext https://www.worldallergyorganizationjournal.org/article/S193...) , it's also associated with all those other bad health outcomes that are actually caused by dust mites. People have a mental model that vitamins are at the root level of causality, and therefore don't consider that vitamin D could also be caused by dust mite exposure. IgE levels are inversely associated with vitamin D: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77968-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77968-1 But supplementing vitamin D doesn't lower IgE: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/Supplement%203/S7/189978/Effect-of-Vitamin-D-Supplementation-on-Total-and?autologincheck=redirected https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/Suppleme... And of course high IgE is directly caused by exposure to dust mites if you're sensitized. I don't know the specific mechanism by which they cause low vitamin d, but two possibilities are that #1: the high and sustained immune response your body runs from constant dust mite exposure consumes vitamin D and acts like a leaky bucket. #2: dust mites somehow disrupt vitamin d production in the skin(e.g. there was one study showing https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(13)01768-5/fulltext https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(13)01768-5/ful...)
- coldtea 1y ago>In fairness to researchers, it can be difficult to run a randomized clinical trial for vitamin D supplements. That’s because most of us get the bulk of our vitamin D from sunlight And how hard is it to make such controlled studies on prison populations (where both sun and food intake is also a known value)? Make it voluntary and give some incentives for those wanting to participate. Can study supplement effects for one or even five years, it's not like they're going anywhere. That's also a question I have when I hear about diet studies. What's easier than doing such in prison populations? Make it as voluntary as it's for people outside, and there's no ethical issue. We're talking like checking the effect of this or that food or diet style, which they can let different people chose their own. They already eat what they're given anyway, that would be an improvement.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- throwup238 1y ago> And how hard is it to make such controlled studies on prison populations (where both sun and food intake is also a known value)? Very hard. Not impossible, but even something as low risk as a dietary study with Vitamin D supplements would come under very heavy scrutiny and likely be rejected. Prisoners are considered a vulnerable group with diminished autonomy so there is no such thing as “voluntary as it's for people outside“ in prison. Full stop. The Nuremberg Code, Belmont Report, and Declaration of Helsinki all explicitly spell that out. Even ignoring the obvious “ethical issues” that have been settled since the Nazis, they’re also legally protected. See 45 CFR 46 Subpart C [1]. Even if the experiment got past the academic ERBs, the HHS ones will likely shut it down. [1] https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/common-rule-subpart-c/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/...
- tsoukase 1y agoLinking a molecule, that takes part in a complex cellular mechanism, with a general health outcome will never go well and is nonsense. Fellow tech people forget hacking your body with innocent pills or having any meaningful effect without sacrifice. Kill your stress, maintain normal weight and have nice relations.
- InMice 1y agoI do not tolerate vitamin d supplements, they make me sick. Im actually switching to eating salmon and other fish in winter + getting the sperti vitamin d lamp.
- bigmadshoe 1y agoI'm the same and I tolerate vegan D3 (from lichen). Some people are sensitive to the sheep-wool derived regular D3.
- InMice 1y agoI will give it a try thanks for the suggestion
- crazygringo 1y agoIt's generally much easier and cheaper to just go to a tanning bed once a week, than buy your own Sperti "mini tanning bed". A full-size tanning bed will be much more even across your skin. Unless there are no tanning salons in your area.
- InMice 1y agoThey sell two different products one is for tanning, one is for vitamin d. I dont now if the total cost is cheaper (i dont think it is) but certainly seems a lot easier to have the lamp in my own home and not go anywhere for it.
- jiggawatts 1y agoI know it’s not popular to comment about meta web annoyances, but holy shit, five popovers in a row!? One after another, like whack-a-mole? I really want to meet the people that create these for money and ask them how much it hurt to have their ethics surgically removed. I’ve talked to people that work at cigarette companies, online gambling, and worse. It’s always fascinating to hear their excuses.
- lawgimenez 1y agoI just used Safari's hide distracting items feature. Popovers gone.
- jiggawatts 1y agoI used the close tab button. Same effect.
- donatj 1y agoI went to the doctor about eight months ago for an unrelated ailment, but the doctor wanted to do some blood tests. Turns out I had a fairly large vitamin d deficiency. The doctor told me just to pick up some supplements. After a couple weeks I was genuinely surprised how much better I felt. Overall less lethargic. I've been feeling over all just kind of blegh for a long time and it really seems to have helped. My dad had suggested vitamin d and I didn't take it seriously but he was right.
- frikskit 1y agoWith so much of the UK with living with unspecified malaise, some significant part of which likely contributing to their low employment participation rate, I suspect giving everyone vitamin D would be very cost effective.
- elemdos 1y agoIdk I think most of it comes from the food
- firecall 1y agoAs a conversational point, I do recall reading an article sometime ago about people moving to the UK from sunnier places, and then suffering from Vitamin D deficiency!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cpncrunch 1y agoYoull struggle to get the rda from diet alone unless you eat daily fish. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...
- monkpit 1y agoSurely they meant that the malaise comes from the British food…
- astrange 1y agoEnglish food tends to be better at home than at restaurants. Also, it tends to mostly be undefined brown lumps but it does have flavor and there are some spices. (mostly mustard) The exception is "Chinese takeaway", which is actually as bad as the stereotype.
- 1y ago
- perfectritone 1y agoWe need sunlight prescriptions
- senectus1 1y agoI know a very dark african lady that was given that by her GP, she was waring indoors a lot and in winter was not getting enough sunlight.
- vivzkestrel 1y agoI apologize if this sounds stupid but has the OP ever considered moving to a country like India during december and jan, wouldn't it solve the issue?
- crazygringo 1y agoIt's much, much more convenient to just visit a tanning bed once a week for 10 minutes.
- lazy_afternoons 1y agoThere is a 5000 years old epic called Ramayana which dedicates a significant part of it to a conversation between the protagonist Ram and his guru, agastya. The summary of that entire conversation is this: If you ever feel demotivated, defeated or dull just pray to the sun or go into the sunlight. This message was repeated dozens of times over and over with various metaphors. I think they were trying to hammer the point that sunlight solves a lot of issues.
- rrishi 1y agointeresting ... i am acquainted with ramayana on account of growing up in india but wasnt aware of this sunlight recommendation in it
- peterfirefly 11mo agoAlmost certainly not that old. Around 2500-2000 years old.
- fittingopposite 1y agoI am impressed how many pop-ups one can serve at once... Btw not a very revealing article. Basically, saying Vitamin D is important but it's difficult to know how much. Didn't learn anything more about Vitamin D as the headline suggested.
- Crowberry 1y agoI closed the webpage after the fourth one, sometimes I really hate what the mainstream web has become.
- boletus 1y agoIt helps to just block all javascripts bt default
- fittingopposite 1y agoDoesn't it make some websites unusable? Feels tedious to know when to turn JS on and when off.
- morcus 1y agoYou can have off-by-default with an allowlist. After the initial period most of your sites that need JS will be on the list.
- The-Old-Hacker 1y ago> Vitamin D is important but it's difficult to know how much. My GP recommended one Vitamin D3 1000iu tablet per day. They are very cheap (£1.15 for 60 in the UK).
- nazgob 1y agoAnd where did they get that from? Seems quite random.
- wafflemaker 1y agoI'm actually buying a D³+K²+magnesium combo (as both k2 and magnesium are recommended when taking d3) - just because it's pretty much the same as buying the d3+k2 combo. Also h I chug it down with a solid portion of tran/cod liver oil. D3 is supposedly best ingested with fats.
- dpacmittal 1y agoA few months ago I felt incredibly depressed, demotivated and hopeless out of the blue. I was about to go to a psychiatrist to get some anti depressants but I just happened to get some bloodwork done. My vitamin d levels were super low at just 9. Few months of supplements got me to 35 and I've been feeling much better.
- constantcrying 1y ago>Putting the entire population on vitamin D supplements would be too expensive for the country’s national health service, he told me. What? Have these people looked at what Vitamin D costs at the supermarket. If Vitamin D insufficiency has any significant detrimental effects, then 3 bucks of supplements a month surely are cheaper than dealing with the consequences. If one hour of doctors time costs 200 bucks, then this is enough to pay for FIVE AND A HALF YEARS of Vitamin D supplements. This seems like a completely insane statement.
- prizzom 1y agoHow do you downvote garbage non-content like this?