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The Big Vitamin D Mistake

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

181–190 of 459 posts

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#181
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best „normal“ dietary source is Gouda cheese, and almost an order of magnitude better, Natto (though that’s hard on the taste buds).

What is Natto?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D

You may not like the taste, but trying it is an interesting experiment.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been tracking my depression for a few years now, and I'm amazed at the number of things that can trigger a depressive episode. I used to think I had a disease called depression, but it now appears that I had arrived at a collection of various life circumstances that made experiencing depression on any given day more likely for me. Some of the main triggers have been: - Attempting to proceed without a plan - Push…

> Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) Interesting site, didn't knew about it! I've checked it out, and as I wake everyday at 7am, it suggests me four different hours: 10pm, 11:30pm, 1am and 2:30am. What I find interesting is that none of it matches exactly the 8h average sleep value. As you say that you have had great results, could you comment a little bit on that? Thanks!

8 hours is typically time from bedtime to wake time. It allows for some time spent falling asleep, and maybe one wake-up to visit the bathroom.

You'll notice that your suggested wake times are an hour and a half apart. Natural sleep cycles tend to run about 90 minutes (on average). So 7.5 hours would be 5 cycles. 8 hours is 5 cycles plus that buffer time.

I haven't used the app you mention, but I have begun a habit of getting out of bed between cycles instead of whenever in the cycle my alarm goes off. It definitely increases morning alertness and willingness to get up. Not sure it affects restedness much.

And I've been measuring my sleep in cycles (or at least in 90 min increments) instead of in hours - which gives me a much clearer perspective on how much I've had and need.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#183
post #23

This supports my lived experience. Found to be incredibly low in vitamin D, and diagnosed with autoimmune thyroiditis. Doctor said to supplement with 2000 IU being the max per day. After seeing no improvement whatsoever in vitamin D levels, and after talking with others with the same issue, I self medicated to 10000 IU / day. Lo and behold my vitamin D levels went back up and my auto-antibodies went back down.

> incredibly low in vitamin D How much low, in ng/ml or nmol/L?

Not GP, but my level was 8 nmol/L in the middle of summer. No medical explanation could be found for why I was so deficient, and I get at least 1hr sunlight every day during my daily cycle commute (UK). Symptoms were depression, tiredness and disturbed thinking.

I was prescribed vitamin D3 10,000 IU/day.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#184

Could someone help me understand this? >it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for 97.5% of individuals to achieve values ≥50 nmol/L. Another study confirmed that 6201 IU/d was needed to achieve 75 nmol/L and 9122 IU/d was needed to reach 100 nmol/L. The largest meta-analysis ever conducted of studies published between 1966 and 2013 showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels What is IU/d? What is nmol/L? Could someone EL…

IU/d International Units per day

nmol/L Nano Mols per liter.

The abstract is basically saying previous work was mistaken and we need to take a lot more vitamin D than we've been suggesting, and calling on regulatory authorities to change their guidelines.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#185
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be reiterated: Please consult a professional before drastically altering the chemical composition of your ephemeral body. I know it sounds downright crazy, but it's possible that someone who's studied medicine and practiced it for years, actually knows better than random anonymous forum users.

>>I know it sounds downright crazy, but it's possible that someone who's studied medicine and practiced it for years, actually knows better than random anonymous forum users. As the link in the OP actually denotes, no, that's not always the case. Bodybuilders and performance trainers - as well as Soviet Union sports scientists - have known for decades that Vitamin D supplementation is vital. This has been rejected by…

That's why doctors recommend that people get adequate sunlight every day. Of course paler people need to find a safe balance.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#186

This article seems to be a low quality review of other research with a clickbatey title (full text here: https://www.jpmph.org/journal/view.php?doi=10.3961/jpmph.16.... ). Pubmed is sort of like arxiv.org and the fact this has an nih.gov base url should not be taken as an endorsement of it by the NIH. That said I do actually believe that more then the recommended amount of vitamin D can be beneficial and the recommen…

Just to back this up: the journal it's published in has a very very low impact factor of 0.235 (i.e. it publishes 4x more papers that it gets citations, probably most of it's papers are never cited by anyone) [1]. If this paper was considered a big a deal by the wider research community you would expect it to be published in a high profile journal. [1]: https://journal.komci.org/ViewJournalInfo.php?JID=109#Impact...

This sounds extremely low to me, but looking at the list of top journals sorted by Impact Factor on https://journal.komci.org/SearchJournal.php (you have to choose "Impact factor" in the "Sort results by" dropdown, as it does not generate a useful URL), the top journal only has an IF of 0.791.

I don't really know anything about the medical publishing world, but I would have expected a top journal to be cited much more?

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#187
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of impaired kidney function, I get my vitamin D levels monitored every month. Yes supplements can take 2-3 months to increase the levels. The sun actually works pretty good if you can stay outside 15 minutes in noon sun. But that's difficult in the winter months.

I've read varying reports of how much sun you need to generate a day's supply of vitamin D, but rarely do they mention how much skin needs to be exposed. Face only? Face and arms? Entire upper body? Entire body? Is there some online resource for this with time of year and latitude corrections? I imagine there's quite a difference between vitamin D production in noon sun in Fairbanks Alaska versus Miami Florida.

Not to mention it needs to be adjusted for skin tone. The whole reason that humans have a range of skin tones is that paler skin allows for better vitamin D absorption at higher latitudes.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to say the b complexes are indeed super important, but recent studies indicate a potential link between overly high dosage and some types of cancers, particularly in men. So be wary of overdoing it with those 3000% dv supplements.

5-hr energy drinks have 8333% the recommended dosage!! When I saw this I threw mine away, that’s a scary amount, considering the cancer link as you said.

The occasional B vitamin overdose is unlikely to harm you. B vitamins are water soluble, so if you consume more than you need you'll just pee it out within 24 hours. And the toxic levels for most B vitamins are between 100 and 10,000 times the recommended levels.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#190

Could someone help me understand this? >it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for 97.5% of individuals to achieve values ≥50 nmol/L. Another study confirmed that 6201 IU/d was needed to achieve 75 nmol/L and 9122 IU/d was needed to reach 100 nmol/L. The largest meta-analysis ever conducted of studies published between 1966 and 2013 showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels What is IU/d? What is nmol/L? Could someone EL…

Both IU/d and nmol/L are measurements of molecules. nmol/L is "nano-moles per liter", and is a measure of concentration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration

"IU" is a measurement common in pharmacology, and has to do with trying to standardize how much mass/volume of a substance will give a particular biological effect. The "/d" is per day.

In summary, the article is saying that, based on a meta analysis[1] of previous research, we have misunderstood or misreported some of these measurements. They suggest both the safe dosage and the effective dosage for Vitamin D should be much higher, and argue that this is a cheap and effective way of treating problems associated with Vitamin D deficiency.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis

(edited for spelling)

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