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Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

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Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they test "high dose taken frequently" at all? Bearing in mind that the guideline vitamin-D daily dose target is set at just about the lowest possible value that doesn't cause obvious deficiencies.

Vitamin D is fat soluble, and thus you can overdose on it. High dose frequently is not recommended, and most high dose supplements will have warning labels about vitaminosis.

You need to take extreme amounts of it for months to overdose.

Something like 40,000-100,000IU/day for several months.

That's 8-20 pills per day of the most potent D3 commonly available.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#82

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 don't know if supplements are the best way to attack that but it's one of the easiest ways. 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 lo…

Sardines are good, I love them, but they definitely smell strongly and so will you if you eat them frequently. I wonder if there anything similar without the smell? Honestly for the reasons you listed though sardines are kind of a super food imo.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#83

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…

Also sunlight during the day helps with melatonin synthesis at night, leading to better sleep, leading to less cancer.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#84

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…

>Melanoma, the truly deadly skin cancer, is more prevalent in populations with less sun exposure.

It's vastly more prevalent in white people versus other skin colors. Even at the same latitude. Even in the same country. The incidence rate of malignant melanoma in the US is about 30 times higher for Whites than Blacks.

https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/melan.html

If somebody is White, getting more sun won't prevent melanoma; it does the opposite. Sunlight and vitamin D are still good things, so White people should spend time outside with sunscreen or protective clothing.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#85
It took me a long time, and virtually no help from outside, to discover that vitamin D effectively cures my winter depression. I was never really feeling good around that time of the year, but it wasn't problematic enough to actually do something about it. But when my gut started to revolt around that time too, I started to feel distinctly unwell. So I went to my doctor, who gave me an approintment with a nutrition specialist. That chat was totally and wholy unhelpful, and the sympoms persisted. Out of sheer luck, I insisted on having my vitamin D tested. It turns out I was truly hitting bottom. Even that didn't make my doctor say heureka. No, he kind of casually brushed the test result away, but casually said I could take some D, ideally from october to easter...

Next hurdle was the dose. Most things I could get at the pharmacy without prescription are actually very low dose, and then there is this fresh panic going about, "vitamin D users overdose" or something. But with luck, I found dekristolmin. 20k i.e. in a single small pill. I take one every sunday since two years, and my mental health couldn't be better. Also, most of the gut irritation is also gone.

Why I type this here? I found it interesting that I had to discover this cure on my own. The medical system wuldn't have figured that out on their own, let alone accept that it was the single solution.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#87
post #2

"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…

D3 (animal-based) > D2 (plant-based) > D1 (synthetic), at least in humans if you read the literature, that is. The fishy thing is how actual scientists do whole studies using only D1 and then draw conclusions.

[deleted]

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#88
There have been many vit D studies before, e.g., this one with 25K participants in the USA, which found no effect: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1809944

It's best to look at a meta analysis of all existing data/trials instead of focusing on one trial that happens to be positive.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#89
post #85

It took me a long time, and virtually no help from outside, to discover that vitamin D effectively cures my winter depression. I was never really feeling good around that time of the year, but it wasn't problematic enough to actually do something about it. But when my gut started to revolt around that time too, I started to feel distinctly unwell. So I went to my doctor, who gave me an approintment with a nutrition s…

I had a fairly similar experience with winter depression being cured by 10,000IU Vitamin D3 daily.

I wouldn't say it's the single solution, which might be because my depression wasn't limited by season. I'm speaking in the past tense because my depression is largely managed by diet and exercise (rock climbing). The diet aspect is basically covered by the AFS in Table 2 here[1], with some additional natural probiotics (frequent yogurt and occasional kombucha).

Like you, I basically figured this out with some luck in stumbling across information, some self-experimentation, and little help from medical professionals. What little help I did receive was in NY. In TN where I currently reside, I likely would not have received even that help, because medical care is unaffordable for most people. Additionally, there are an inordinate number of horror stories here about prescribers getting people onto a huge number of medications--this seems to particularly happen to young women who aren't comfortable advocating for themselves. I suspect this is due to pharmaceutical kickbacks, but haven't found any data to back that hypothesis up.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6147775/

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#90
post #43

Wouldn't we know this already if populations in sunny areas had less cancer (controlled for genetics)?

Would especially sunny areas not produce people with more cancer (or certain types)?

https://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kuow/files/styles/x_...

Sunnier areas have less skin cancers, if that's what you were wondering.

Now is it because of the Vitamin D, or because of a more systemic application of sunscreen?

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