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Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

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Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#81

Post by goda90 »

Nursie wrote: post #53
goda90 wrote: post #38

It seems like its easy to identify the harms of extremes. Too little of X causes Y and too much of W causes Z. But with so many variables affecting the human body(nutritional, genetic, environmental, microbial, mental, etc) how can we even approach being certain about optimal levels in the middle? I don't see how we could control for enough variables for long enough to know how much vitamin D is best for the body, an…

But we can see how supplementation affects outcomes, and it turns out that so far the results on that are pretty 'meh', unless you're supplementing specifically for severe vit D deficiency.

I guess my point is, if outcomes are affected by a couple dozen variables, unless we can control for all those variables, then we might not see any affect from this one variable. And there is a limit to how many variables we can reasonably control for.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#82

Post by jspash »

smolder wrote: post #49
RL_Quine wrote: post #14

For other reasons I get tested for vitamin D every few months and managed to get my levels just above the normally recommended amount as per doctors advice. When people are saying they’re taking 25-100k UI a day I’m just stumped why they’d be doing that without medical advice, the amount to change my levels was nothing in comparison.

That's a dangerous amount. Vitamin D is a hormone and shouldn't be taken willy nilly. If you know anyone doing that you should warn them to stop.

The vitamin "misnomer" really confuses me. I don't think if it was called "hormone D" that people would be snaffling it up trying to self-medicate.

Anyhow, I've googled and googled but still can't figure out why it's called a vitamin at all. The best I can come up with is that there IS an actual vitamin D that comes from the sun, but it helps the kidneys produces the good "hormone D" which is the what people are deficient in.

Can anyone shed some light on this? My description above could be a million miles off.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#83

Post by TacticalCoder »

What about the study in Spain from a few days ago (I'm in Spain atm and it's kinda big news over here), at the Reina Sofia University Hospital in Córdoba, where they just announced the results of the randomized blind controlled trial and the results are incredible: 1 person out of 50 who got huge doses of vitamin D for a few days after arriving at the hospital with Covid-19 symptoms ended up in the ICU, where 13 out of 26 who didn't get any vitamin D ended up in the ICU? It's "only" 76 people but it's 2% vs 50%.

It was a blind study (AFAICT): patients had no idea whether they got vit D or not and patients got randomly selected.

Here's a doctor's analysis of that study:

https://youtu.be/V8Ks9fUh2k8

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#84

Post by baccheion »

RL_Quine wrote: post #14

For other reasons I get tested for vitamin D every few months and managed to get my levels just above the normally recommended amount as per doctors advice. When people are saying they’re taking 25-100k UI a day I’m just stumped why they’d be doing that without medical advice, the amount to change my levels was nothing in comparison.

RDA is 400 IU. It's actually the food RDA, with 20% expected from food. Overall RDA (sun + food) is 2000 IU. Therapeutic vitamin doses are 10x the RDA. 6x is elevated while doing "nothing" and 20x is full saturation ("but why").

2x and 4x for minerals.

For vitamin D, that would then be 20,000 IU or roughly 300 IU/kg/day.

No need to take that much or be outside the 40-60 ng/mL range for no reason. On the other hand, many benefits may be had in the higher range with advancing age. Especially when combined with vitamin K2 (1 mg MK-4 and 100 mcg MK-7 per 5,000-10,000 IU) and getting more magnesium than phosphorus (with 1/3rd-1/2 that amount as calcium; for example, 1.5g phosphorus, 1.5g magnesium, and 500-750 mg calcium).

Some magnesium as ZMA is good for males, as it improves sleep quality.

By the way, ancestral eating patterns led to ~1.5g magnesium per day.

At least after development has ceased (ie, plates fused), shifting from calcium to magnesium is a solid step.

The main issues with higher vitamin D3 are addressed by adjusting vitamin K2, calcium, and magnesium.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#85

Post by lprd »

I have a couple questions for any doctors out there.

How many times a year should one check his vitamin levels?

I live in Paris, and during the winter months we don't get that much sunlight. My doctor gave me a prescription for vitamin D3 (100,000 IU vial, once a month, for three months). Is this a good dose for the year (provided you get adequate sunlight during the summer months)? How long does vitamin D3 stay in the body until it uses/flushes excess out? Are you better off taking a high dose like this for 3 months, or adopting a more slow and steady method (i.e. supplementing daily).

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#86

Post by qmmmur »

raverbashing wrote: post #76
scott_s wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it odd to encourage people to skip what I consider the most important conclusion for most people: "Vitamin D does not appear to prevent disease in healthy adults."

2nd line of my post Describing it as "prevent disease in healthy adults" means pretty much nothing. Which diseases? Does being Vit D deficient count as healthy? It's an empty statement.

Diseases americans are concerned with. You definitely don't even hear about vitamin d in Australia but soon cancer research would easily eclipse it. Can you imagine why?

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#87

Post by basementcat »

api wrote: post #25

The most obvious evidence to me has always been that Europeans are not black. A change like the loss of melanin requires selective pressure, which in this case was likely furnished by less vitamin D as we migrated away from the equator. The pressure must have been significant since being white carries a big downside: higher vulnerability to sunburn and skin cancer. When I lived in Cali I always envied my darker skinn…

"Race problems" would just be replaced by individuals subjugating each other based on other physical attributes, religion or choice of text editor.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#88

Post by baccheion »

lprd wrote: post #85

I have a couple questions for any doctors out there. How many times a year should one check his vitamin levels? I live in Paris, and during the winter months we don't get that much sunlight. My doctor gave me a prescription for vitamin D3 (100,000 IU vial, once a month, for three months). Is this a good dose for the year (provided you get adequate sunlight during the summer months)? How long does vitamin D3 stay in t…

Can you get D3 from a store? Prescriptions are usually vitamin D2.

20,000 IU or 50,000 IU D3 1x/week is a great amount. Or you could try taking a lesser/proportional amount each day.

You could also get one of those sun/S.A.D. lamps or red light devices to increase topically.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#89

Post by LinuxBender »

Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see the study including K2 MK-7 and magnesium with D3. The 3 work together and can not support all of the metabolic functions on their own in a silo. There are also enzymes and co-enzymes that are part of the picture and I did not see any mention of them. Is there a more detailed version of the study? Again, could be me, I may have overlooked a link.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#90

Post by api »

basementcat wrote: post #87
api wrote: post #25

The most obvious evidence to me has always been that Europeans are not black. A change like the loss of melanin requires selective pressure, which in this case was likely furnished by less vitamin D as we migrated away from the equator. The pressure must have been significant since being white carries a big downside: higher vulnerability to sunburn and skin cancer. When I lived in Cali I always envied my darker skinn…

"Race problems" would just be replaced by individuals subjugating each other based on other physical attributes, religion or choice of text editor.

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