Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
First get tested to see how deficient you are. I was prescribed 50,000 IU a week for 8 weeks because I have 12 ng/mL. Standard range is 30 to 80 ng/mL.
Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
21–30 of 137 posts
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#22Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
Not science person but I took some and I was too sleepy, all day. Also there are about 4-5 hours until it promotes the production of melatonin and so you have to time it right. Also it is fat soluble, you need to take it with your (fat?) meal.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#23Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
I would advise taking a K2 MK7 supplement with D3, or get a supplement that contains both. Personally, I take one capsule a day that contains both 3000IU of D3 and 100μg of K2 MK7. D3 by itself can cause high calcium levels, to the point of toxicity in very high doses. The K2 moves the calcium from the blood to bones.
> Personally, I take one capsule a day that contains both 3000IU of D3
Not sure how much D3 you're getting (though starting with 3K IU is a lot) because it's not clear how much gets through the gut. You might want to take some cod liver oil (Ω3 capsules) at the same time -- the fat is believed to improve the still mysterious absorption process.
Typical dosage is a drop of cholecalciferol suspension under the tongue for direct absorption.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#24I’ll try to get 15-30 min of sun exposure without sun screen in the warmer months each day. Feel immensely better during then, to a point where I’ve seriously considered moving somewhere warmer without real winter months.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#25Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
If you are truly an indoor human, start with 10k iu daily and possibly titrate up from there based on bloodwork. Absorption can differ significantly between individuals
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#26I've been taking 1000 IUs daily, for the last 20 years, skipping summers (during which I would attempt sun exposure), while continuously being within acceptable medians for my age. I sure hope what I am typing now makes sense :-)
Any chance you have an identical twin who has not?
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#27I dove deep into Vitamin D supplementation research during Covid. The tl;dr as I understand it - and bear in mind I'm a layperson in this - is that while Vitamin D deficiency correlates to many bad things, taking Vitamin D doesn't help . It does raise your level as it shows up in blood tests, but the bad things still happen. Except for some very specific issues. I have a mild deficiency and used to take Vitamin D. I…
Thank you for this. I've heard that it's not so much the Vitamin D itself that may be beneficial, but rather the process whereby Vitamin D gets produced that results in the benefits.
The tapestry of cells in our bodies has evolved over millions of years to function in a way that is most favorable to propagating themselves in the context of the environment in which they underwent natural selection. It seems we've removed ourselves from that environment in a lot of ways and then have been trying to compensate for that by micro-managing telemetry that we're able to easily or cheaply observe. However the underlying complexity is far, far beyond what we see as the end result of the cellular processes.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#28Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
If you are truly an indoor human, start with 10k iu daily and possibly titrate up from there based on bloodwork. Absorption can differ significantly between individuals
test first, supplement with test results
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#29I dove deep into Vitamin D supplementation research during Covid. The tl;dr as I understand it - and bear in mind I'm a layperson in this - is that while Vitamin D deficiency correlates to many bad things, taking Vitamin D doesn't help . It does raise your level as it shows up in blood tests, but the bad things still happen. Except for some very specific issues. I have a mild deficiency and used to take Vitamin D. I…
>while Vitamin D deficiency correlates to many bad things, taking Vitamin D doesn't help.
Your links state the exact opposite and it's important to get wording right here. If you have a tested vitamin D deficiency (and it's not "mild", as Deva Boone highlights), there are CLEAR benefits to supplementing.
It's only in healthy individuals where the benefits are tiny (like the cancer testing 0.9% v 1.2%) or non-existent.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#30Like all studies into Vitamin D supplementation that aren’t randomized controlled trials, it’s very hard to tell apart cause and effect. Vitamin D naturally occurs when people go outside and get exposed to the sun, and going outside is correlated with all sorts of healthy traits. Also, publicity of the association of vitamin D with good health has led people who care about their health or who have access to good medi…
When evolution molds a genepool it does so with inbuilt assumptions, one the assumptions is exposure to some level of sunlight. Deviating from these assumptions would result in undefined behavior (in the CS sense) for individuals. If an individual cannot or will not expose themselves to sunlight, taking D3 is probably the best option they have.
In my opinion, these are the best options if you want to be healthy like people who get sun exposure (in order from most to least likely to work):
1. Act like a person who is exposed to sunlight. Walk, run, don’t spend every day at a bed, couch, or desk.
2. Expose yourself to sunlight.
3. Supplement vitamin D.