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Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

bmj.com

41–50 of 178 posts

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#41
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

getting my blood panel ran and finding out i was deficient in Vitamin D changed my life for the better once i start daily supplementation of Vitamin D3 (5000 IU). I even live in Florida, but working in an office all day doesn't help. Now that my levels are good, i feel as if my memory is far better and i dont feel tired all the time.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#42
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

Its not possible to get any vitamin D from the sun in the winter in these high latitudes even if you outside in the sun all day with short sleeves. The angle of the sun is too low. We are just beginning march now, so the sun should soon be beginning to be high enough to give some benefit.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#43
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

South European winter is pretty okay, IMHO. Especially South Turkey and Cyprus, if we are not strictly speaking about Europe the continent.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#44
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

> I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body.

No you can't. That's not how this works.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#45

Table 4: > When all studies were analysed together, no statistically significant effect of vitamin D was seen on the proportion of participants with at least one upper respiratory tract infection, lower respiratory tract infection, hospital admission or emergency department attendance for acute respiratory tract infection, course of antimicrobials for acute respiratory tract infection, or absence from work or school…

I believe this is saying that as a treatment it is not effective but as a preventative regimen it is.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#46
post #38

As a layperson it feels to me like research in the "megadose on vitamins to prevent illness" area is kind of tainted by the legacy of Linus Pauling, who was no doubt a genius in his fields and whose published literature advocated the position that vitamin C megadose would reduce cancer deaths by 75% ( https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitam... ). I guess we know how to avoid the trouble -- make h…

>As a layperson it feels to me like research in the "megadose on vitamins to prevent illness" area is kind of tainted by the legacy of Linus Pauling

You're completely right, biochemists and medical chemists know fully well it's tainted by Pauling's late work and will tell you so. If even a small positive effect was missed because of that taint, that's a terrible legacy that led to many avoidable deaths (all the people that suffered or died until the positive effect is finally recognized). We should be better at salvaging such effects from their imperfect creators.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#47
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

getting my blood panel ran and finding out i was deficient in Vitamin D changed my life for the better once i start daily supplementation of Vitamin D3 (5000 IU). I even live in Florida, but working in an office all day doesn't help. Now that my levels are good, i feel as if my memory is far better and i dont feel tired all the time.

> i feel as if my memory is far better and i dont feel tired all the time.

I agree. Don't overdo it though, 5000 IU daily seems a bit much :) I live in Amsterdam and take 2000.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#48
post #3

Can any physicians or researchers here verify the credibility of this site, to prevent misinformation?

British Medical Journal? Impact factor 27.604 in 2018. But in scientific publishing the intended audience is not lay people. You really have to know how to read the articles to determine what they mean. I liked their series of articles called "How to Read a Paper."[0] But keep in mind [1]. 0. https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications... 1. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/j…

Thank you, HN is definitely not the intended audience

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#49
post #21

I can say from my own experience that the lack of vitamin D can have a significant impact on both mind and body. I suspect that essentially all people living at relatively northern latitudes have some sort of vitamin D deficiency. From what I know you need to have your face and arms exposed to direct sunshine for at least 15 minutes/day to keep healthy vitamin D levels in the body. Good luck with that in the European…

What about DHA/EPA? Iodine and vitamin B1?

Our modern diets could cause further nutritional deficiencies. I doubt that many people in the West eat fish regularly or supplement with algae oil due to the conveniences of processed food. Same with iodine. Wheat germs have the highest concentrations in vitamin B1, but whole grains in general (rolled oats etc.) are good so you should probably cut the processed food out as much as possible.

Re: Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections (2017)

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People spend more time indoors, often with the windows closed. Humidity might also be higher, and temperatures lower, two variables which have an effect on virus viability outside the body.

According to Wikipedia, more time spent indoors is a likely contributing factor to the flu being more active in the cold season, not the other way around.

Summer or winter, I'm spending all my damn time in an open office. There's plenty of opportunity for exposure in the summer.
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