Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

The story is clearly more complicated than, "supplement Vitamin D, improve everything that low-Vitamin-D is correlated with". Getting real sun, & doing the whole stack of things associated with that – being active, seeing nature, joint activities with friends outside the home, etc – is more likely to help with the correlated conditions.

But I can also think of reasons why these RCTs don't quite close-the-book on Vitamin-D as much as this author suggests. Looking more-closely at the 'VALID' 25,000-subject RCT that's highlighted:

* the dose of 2000IU is still small compared to the recommendation of other groups, such as the UCSD/Creighton group that highlighted a massive calculation error in the original RDA determination, that suggests the RDA should be 7000IU (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150317122458.h...)

* by only enrolling people over 50yo/55yo, the possibility that Vitamin D levels earlier-in-life are important isn't tested

* by eliminating people with any history of cancer/cardiovascular disease, the potential that Vitamin D helps specifically among people whose risk is so high these diseases turn up by their 40s can't be detected. (I'm assuming the 'history' screened for was just the patient themself; if they also screened out family history, that'd be an even bigger limitation.)

* a ~5y followup can't detect effects at 10y or beyond

* Vitamin D's effects are somewhat like, & linked-to, hormones - and indeed there's some indication it should be taken in the AM, rather than before bed, to avoid mild sleep disruption. I don't see any indication as to when the VITAL study participants were coached to take their calendar-packs. Similarly, natural Vitamin D levels vary seasonally. What if unnatural timing (within the day or the year) changes the mix of effects that more natural pulsing would achieve?

Also, the VITAL study did observe "a possible vitamin D–associated benefit with regard to the incidence of cancer among black participants".

So: a great study, in many respects, but still leaves untested lots of plausible ways Vitamin-D supplementation could theoretically help - in higher doses, the younger, the already-sick, during a respiratory pandemic, etc.

Once a month is too infrequent, but it'll work fine. 1x/week is better. 1x/day is best. Some benefits are missing versus daily dosing, but the main things are still in play.

K2 and magnesium above the RDA aren't needed with smaller (less than or equal to 5,000 IU/day) amounts of D3.

They do work much better when all are taken together.

I said no need to take so much.. for no reason.

With advancing age, higher amounts (+ magnesium and K2) mimic/amplify the actions of hGH/IGF-1 pushing back toward youth. More D3 is often needed with age for the same effect.

The combo is also protecting bone and the higher amount of magnesium does countless things: released when the body is ready to unroll inflammation, opposes excess lipid peroxidation, opposes lipofuscin, lengthens telomeres, shifts the calcium:magnesium balance such that less calcium is absorbed into stressed cells, keeps calcium dissolved, decalcifies, vasodilation at skin (improves nutrient flow, slowing aging effects), binds and clears heavy metals as excreted, sensitizes to LH, increases testosterone/progesterone and IGF-1 (directly and indirectly), aids in clearance of estrogens, opposes stress, lowers cortisol and aldosterone, shifting to DHEA and potentially anabolism, improves sleep if taken at night (ZMA for males), etc...

> the only reason white people exist in the first place is because of vitamin D

Is there a study to back up that claim? I haven't seen anything claiming to prove that lighter skin was a definite cause of a need for higher vitamin D levels. In fact, the article would seem to prove this theory wrong. Vitamin D supplementation does not help with much of anything as far as we can tell so far.