71–80 of 249 posts
Given that D3 is dirt cheap and lots of us are low in it, is there any downside to taking a reasonable daily dose?
I'd say 2,500 IU is max to take daily without infrequent blood tests to calibrate the optimum.
Wouldn't we know this already if populations in sunny areas had less cancer (controlled for genetics)?
Last century they insisted Vitamin C prevents/cures cancer. This century it's Vitamin D with the same level of insistence. Don't hold your breath. Abstract says it all: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20799507/
I've been taking a daily vitamin D supplement since COVID-19 broke out in the USA. I believe there's a lot of evidence that many people are deficient in vitamin D. I don't know if supplements are the best way to attack that but it's one of the easiest ways. Getting daily sun exposure isn't always convenient and not really possible for a good chunk of the year since we have real winter here.
I've also tried to get my RDA of Vitamin D every day. Often I get it from fortified (coconut) milk and a multi-vitamin. But I prefer to include fish. I'm particularly fond of canned sardines [1] because they're a long-shelf-life pantry item, they're a relatively inexpensive protein, they have lots of omega-3s and fit my low-carb diet, and (unlike tuna) they're low enough on the food chain that you can eat them daily without excess heavy metal intake, and iiuc they're a more sustainable fish option. I think sardines have a bad reputation for taste because people lump them in with anchovies, which can be incredibly salty and fishy. I find sardines to be much more mild and versatile. I find they taste best alongside acids (lemon juice, vinegar, tomato) and maybe creamy fats (avocado/guac, cream cheese). You can add them to salad, toast, pasta, pizza, or even just inside a bell pepper.
Here's a good simple recipe for someone trying sardines for the first time: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/sherried-sar...
[1] the tiny, two-layer per can kind
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Monthly blood tests prescribed by a doctor at a local bloodwork lab.
Did you have a challenge getting them to initiate that? I'd imagine once you're shown to be severely deficient it's easier, but there's a chicken & egg.
If that's not an option, non-prescription at-home tests are available in the US for as low as $49.
I don't know about monthly, I think a 60-day followup after treatment in order to titrate your supplementation might be best (it takes time for supplementation to work), but at-home tests are an option if your provider is for some inexplicable reason, reluctant.
As far as I can tell, the only harm from supplementation comes when the typical adult consistently consumes doses so high as to be absurd (50,000+ IU daily for months) so I don't know why any medical professional would be hesitant to investigate such a common health issue with such an easy, inexpensive, and effective treatment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How exactly are you getting "should have resulted in thousands of cancer deaths"? A population of 100,000 should expect to see 144.1 deaths[1]. If you evenly divide the study group into two 52,500-sized groups(treatment + control), each group should expect to see 72 deaths. A 12% drop in one of the groups is 8.6 deaths. As a colleague would say, that's very few clams from which to make a chowder. Perhaps the research…
144.1 deaths per year. Presumably these studies lasted multiple years. Though I'll admit this was less than I expected, which would explain the differing results.
"When all 14 studies were pooled, no statistically significant results emerged. However, when the studies were divided according to whether vitamin D3 was taken daily in a low dose* or in higher doses administered at longer intervals*, a large difference was seen." This sounds fishy. Sounds like their primary result was nothing, and then they looked for something else. Would require some checking if they had a prereg…
Yes, exactly. There's a real-life example of an author group who got sufficiently annoyed at a reviewer requesting an inappropriate subgroup analysis: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Reviewers asked for the subgroup analysis; authors said "no, this is statistically nonsense"; reviewers said "yes, but we'll reject the paper otherwise"; reviewers said "ok, but only if you let us also spl…
> inappropriate subgroup analysis
No subgroup is inappropriate unless you know all of the values of all of the parameters. But sure, the intent they tried to demonstrate (take all sub-group analyses with a grain of salt) is a good thing to remember.
Edit: To whoever downvoted me, time of year of birth does have real-world effects. https://www.livescience.com/13958-birth-month-health-effects...
> Previous studies have found similar links between spring births and various disorders, including schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis and even Type 1 diabetes. It's possible these diseases are linked to some environmental influence during gestation or the first few months of life, though researchers aren't sure what that could be.
> The leading candidates including vitamin D levels, infections that come and go seasonally, changes in nutrition, and even possibly weather fluctuations, Handunnetthi told LiveScience.
Now perhaps all of this is just bad science and these correlations are just statistical anomalies. But perhaps they aren't.
"When all 14 studies were pooled, no statistically significant results emerged. However, when the studies were divided according to whether vitamin D3 was taken daily in a low dose* or in higher doses administered at longer intervals*, a large difference was seen." This sounds fishy. Sounds like their primary result was nothing, and then they looked for something else. Would require some checking if they had a prereg…
Yes, exactly. There's a real-life example of an author group who got sufficiently annoyed at a reviewer requesting an inappropriate subgroup analysis: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Reviewers asked for the subgroup analysis; authors said "no, this is statistically nonsense"; reviewers said "yes, but we'll reject the paper otherwise"; reviewers said "ok, but only if you let us also spl…
The global distribution of many types of cancer is strongly related to latitude. The farther you are from the equator, the higher the rate of disease. The more sun you get, the less cancer. It's hard not to infer that sun exposure and thus synthesis of vitamin D helps prevent many cancers. We've been urged to avoid sun exposure because it can cause skin cancer. But those cancers are squamous and basal cell carcinomas…
Taking D3 without K2 gives you atherosclerosis though so it's wise to combine the two.
The global distribution of many types of cancer is strongly related to latitude. The farther you are from the equator, the higher the rate of disease. The more sun you get, the less cancer. It's hard not to infer that sun exposure and thus synthesis of vitamin D helps prevent many cancers. We've been urged to avoid sun exposure because it can cause skin cancer. But those cancers are squamous and basal cell carcinomas…