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The Big Vitamin D Mistake

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#291

Post by alex_stoddard »

drostie wrote: post #256
patkai wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question! The scientific method does not include references to "impact factor" :)

I mean, it does. The "fairy tale" that one hears in high school doesn't, but we put aside fairy tales when we became adults. If you are done with the "undergrad level" of Popper and Kuhn it is worth reading Imre Lakatos's work on philosophy of science. It contains a moment where one realizes that research programs live or die by this "impact factor" and that this living or dying is a key part of the overall methodolo…

But to stretch the analogy a bit further would it be fair to say that impact factor is very like sexual selection for extreme display traits that otherwise are detrimental to the wellbeing of the species?

Yes impact factor matters to current science as practiced but there is plenty of good criticism to show (at least as it is currently calculated) that it is a lousy measure of what is likely to end up being true, reproducible and useful.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#292

Post by spraak »

kgwgk wrote: post #204
tomhoward wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but higher melanin (ie, darker skin pigmentation) is correlated with lower cancer rates [1][2]. So the point is that cultural changes are causing people who were previously were at lower risk of cancer due to their skin pigmentation/higher melanin, to now have reducing melanin/pigmentation, therefore increasing rates of skin cancer. [1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/skin-cancer/prevention-and-ear... [2] https:/…

Aren't those links about "people with naturally darker skin"? I'm not sure how cultural changes can affect that. Rich people may eat caviar, but eating caviar won't make you rich...

That's what the above poster already said.

> people who were previously were at lower risk of cancer due to their skin pigmentation/higher melanin

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#293

Post by sliverstorm »

Anybody have tips on balancing all the cofactors? You need other things to absorb & use the vitamin D. Some kind of multivitamin that focused only on D and its cofactors might be handy, without going whole-hog to the "everything" multivitamin popular today.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#294

Post by tathougies »

ngrilly wrote: post #115
_fq4v wrote: 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?

I was around 15 nmol/L (I think). 20 was the minimum. I checked a few months after starting my new regime, and it had gone up to about 50. I then tried backing down to 4000 IU a day and it fell back to around 40, so I went back to 10000, and I haven't checked since then, but I do know my antibody counts are down.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#295

Post by amelius »

netcraft wrote: post #262
edraferi wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the last couple sentences of the abstract: This could lead to a recommendation of 1000 IU for children 1 year of age, and around 8000 IU for young adults and thereafter. Actions are urgently needed to protect the global population from vitamin D deficiency. So 8000 IU for adults

This is per day? I have been deficient for a few years now and I take ~6000 IU per day, but it doesnt seem to make a big difference in my blood tests. I already thought 6K was a lot...

Are you taking it with food? I think it dissolves in fat, so you might want to take it with some oil for better absorption.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#296

Post by cypherpunks01 »

tgb wrote: post #203
klht wrote: post #169

Everyone supplementing and doing their own tests should be careful to note the difference between nmol and ng/ml. 100 nmol = 40 ng/ml ng/ml is the most common measure in India and many other places.

Uh, you should be careful too! There's some error in what you wrote too. Is that nmol/L that you mean?

What is the correct conversion? Quest, one of the dominant lab providers in the US, reports in ng/mL and I'm not sure how to interpret my result in nmol/L.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#297

Post by Quiark »

zeveb wrote: post #278
deepGem wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NIH guys also did a study that said that even in tropical countries, Vitamin D absorption has fallen dramatically because of lifestyle changes. One of the probable factors is the lust for fair skin. I routinely see people covered from head to toe to help them stay fair skinned, even kids are sent to play covered in full sleeve clothing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3897581/

> One of the probable factors is the lust for fair skin. I think this must be cultural. Certainly in my experience in the United States, the lust is for tanned skin. There are even tanning salons, where one can lie down in a machine which floods one's skin with UV. Now, I personally love fair skin, and have never understood why others seem to love a tan so much.

And in Asia they sell skin-whitening lotions.

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#298

Post by urlgrey »

The USDA partnered with industry to develop a process for increasing Vitamin D levels in mushrooms by simply exposing them to ultraviolet light.

Monterey Mushrooms has a video showing how this step was added to the packaging process:

http://www.montereymushrooms.com/nutrition/mushrooms-with-vi...

Re: The Big Vitamin D Mistake

#299

Post by tathougies »

code_duck wrote: post #105
_fq4v wrote: 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.

Interesting to hear of a connection between this, type 1 diabetes and autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto's?). I have celiac, also an autoimmune disease, and one of the symptoms is tingly and numb extremities, peripheral neuropathy. I think that's related to the ataxia side of celiac and nerve degeneration from nerves losing their sheathing. Prior to diagnosis, I learned that the numbness is also a symptom of Vitam…

Yes, Hashimoto's. All auto-immune diseases are linked. If you have one, you have a higher chance of having another. This doesn't mean you will have the other, just that the number of people with T1D among hashimoto's patients is higher than the number of people with T1D among the general public, and vice versa.
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