> Interesting thing... Vitamin D is one of those things that, when vitamins come up on HN, you will often hear the refrain that "it's the one vitamin that large numbers of people are actually deficient in and ought to supplement."
Well, let me add to the narrative, as this was the concentration of my Undergrad studies. Vitamin D, and its analogues are not actually vitamins, they're steroid-hormones and behave as such; look at its molecular structure [1] and its synthesis in the presence of UV light (as this actually how you should be acquiring it).
Most people are deficient in Vitmanin D, the recommended dose of 600 IU are actually not sufficient as many studies, research lends credence to as those that induced viable therapies were often upwards of 4000-10000 IU. The IOM is to blame for this, and a heated debate amongst researchers.
I won't go into full detail on that, but Vitamin D is a critical precursor and reactant in many vital metabolic reactions, my personal concentration was in inducing apoptosis in certain cancer cells with calcitriol, EB 1089, CB 1093, and p53. My proposals were rejected for Independent Studies and I never undertook it in the lab, unfortunately.
> Unfortunately the daily recommended value was established erroneously and should be much higher. Many research papers mention this...
Exactly. My bible was a Vitamin D book with 100+ chapters detailing researchers that published papers detailing how their models were showing that such low IU of Vitmain D were insufficient, going against the IOM's RDL.
If any of you are so inclined the 2nd Volume of Vitamin D by Feldman has been released [2], its expensive but still way less than what the last copies of vol 1 were that I paid back then.
> Nobody makes any money if it turns out to be a good treatment, so nobody will fund the research
You have no idea the amount of dismay I felt when I realized this was the case when I was in school; though I would argue they've fund(ed) it in the past, the problem is their is no way to place IP on Vitamin D itself and therefore Big Pharma's business model doesn't apply, so it can show favourable results but it will be killed because their is nothing to bring to Market as an exclusive seller like they do for drugs. Many therapies could have been explored since H1N1, 2009, but it falls on deaf ears and it takes pandemics like these to shake people into delving into Public Health more seriously.
I hope changes are made by motivated students and researchers, ideally outside of Universities because I know I no longer have the patience or drive to try any more.
1: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
2: https://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-Disease-Therapeutics-David-Fe...
