I’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.
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Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
31–40 of 137 posts
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#32This is a very neutral headline. But for the tl;dr crowd: > Across all formulations, vitamin D exposure was associated with significantly longer dementia-free survival and lower dementia incidence rate than no exposure (hazard ratio = 0.60, 95% confidence interval: 0.55–0.65). The effect of vitamin D on incidence rate differed significantly across the strata of sex, cognitive status, and APOE ε4 status.
You can get your APOE ε4 status, which is a marker for Alzheimer's and dementia, from any DNA test like 23AndMe. To protect your privacy: use a fake name, new email address, and get a temporary UPS Store mailbox address for the kit to be mailed to. Use a Visa gift card for payment. Yes, it can be done and it works.
>To protect your privacy...
You can't really expect too much privacy with a DNA type test, right? Since it knows all of your relatives who have also (or will ever) taken the test.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#33Like 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…
> Vitamin D naturally occurs when people go outside and get exposed to the sun, ...
Not sure where you are living? If I go outside in winter (+2 months around) I need gloves, cap, scarf. Literally only a little portion of my face gets some sunlight until 5pm. Then it is dark!
I live in Germany!
So, this isn't an argument for a lot of people in cold countries or dark countries. Mostly both..
Exposing to the sun is very hard here around the year.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#34I’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.
Same here, hello from the Space Coast!
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#35Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
The most important first step is to test your current levels. Then you can use a Vitamin D calculator[1] to help get you a starting point for how much to supplement based on your desired target level -- recommended target range is 40-60 ng/ml (100-150 nmol/L). Then re-test in 3-6 months to check levels and adjust supplementation as needed.
[1] Vitamin D calculator: https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/dcalculator
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#36Hey people who follow the science: As an “indoor human”, how much should I be taking? (TIA!)
Some might not like this answer but the best course of action is still some sun exposure. As for the actual answer, someone correct me if I'm wrong but there there are multiple 'variants' of vit. D and the vast majority of "vit D" supplements most likely don't include the complete formula (which is arguably the best way in order to also assimilate it "fully"). The daily recommended dose is fine unless you're deficien…
There's an app called Dminder that notifies you when the sun is in the optimal position (highest point in the sky) to generate Vitamin D based on your location.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#37Like 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…
> Vitamin D naturally occurs when people go outside and get exposed to the sun, ... Not sure where you are living? If I go outside in winter (+2 months around) I need gloves, cap, scarf. Literally only a little portion of my face gets some sunlight until 5pm. Then it is dark! I live in Germany! So, this isn't an argument for a lot of people in cold countries or dark countries. Mostly both.. Exposing to the sun is ver…
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Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#38Hey 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.
Easiest to just take it in the form of fish oil capsules.
Though you can't take larger doses like this, because fish oil also contains vitamin A which can be toxic in higher doses.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get your APOE ε4 status, which is a marker for Alzheimer's and dementia, from any DNA test like 23AndMe. To protect your privacy: use a fake name, new email address, and get a temporary UPS Store mailbox address for the kit to be mailed to. Use a Visa gift card for payment. Yes, it can be done and it works.
>To protect your privacy... You can't really expect too much privacy with a DNA type test, right? Since it knows all of your relatives who have also (or will ever) taken the test.
Even if they correlate your test results to your relatives, so what? If you’ve used a fake name and mailbox, they can’t know who you are. You’re just a set of AGCT encodings.
Re: Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia
#40Like 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…
It is not limitations. It is just that the findings should be presented truthfully and the authors should not try to suggest more than can actually be inferred from the data.
Correlation between facts is interesting in itself, but to general public it should be clearly presented that "although we can prove these things are correlated, we don't know why and how and whether one causes another or vice versa or there is something else causing dementia as well as making people more likely to supplement with vitamin D".
Without putting this warning label I treat it as kind of "scientific clickbait"