91–100 of 249 posts
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have some hard numbers on this in my own health. I'm a pasty north European living in California and I get plenty of sunshine, as I enjoy the outdoors. As I got older, I got increasingly more viral infections and strep throat was a twice a year affair. It didn't occur to me that I could be vitamin-D deficient, but I was, severely. For some reason, 10+ hours of sunshine a week isn't enough for me to make my own. Ove…
Just because you get plenty of sunlight where you live it doesn’t mean you get enough exposure to produce vitamin D. You need to expose large areas of your body like legs, arms, and torso for several minutes to an hour. If those areas are covered, sunlight won’t do much. The Sigma Nutrition podcast has an excellent episode on that: https://sigmanutrition.com/episode438/
"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…
> Would require some checking if they had a preregistration, if this was registered as a secondary resuld and if they had done a proper statistica analysis of multiple outocmes. You should do that. Meanwhile, I'm going to (continue to) take a daily vitamin D, because I recognize not everything can be confirmed by a double-blind experiment, and the cost is low.
Or it may be possible to prove the opposite, as with the parachute.
bmj: "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial"
https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
Results: Parachute use did not significantly reduce death or major injury (0% for parachute v 0% for control; P>0.9). This finding was consistent across multiple subgroups. Compared with individuals screened but not enrolled, participants included in the study were on aircraft at significantly lower altitude (mean of 0.6 m for participants v mean of 9146 m for non-participants; P
"Conclusions: Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention. However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps. When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community, randomized trials might selectively enroll individuals with a lower perceived likelihood of benefit, thus diminishing the applicability of the results to clinical practice."
disclaimer:
I am pro-Parachute! I believe 100% in the effectiveness of the parachute!
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…
It's because studies showing correlation between Vitamin D level and winter depression/SAD are mixed.
I'm not saying it's a placebo. If it works for some people - great! But you can't expect doctors to recommend it when the data is quite unclear.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Plant-based D3 exists, extracted from seaweed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> This sounds fishy. Sounds like their primary result was nothing If you combine results from a bunch of studies that really didn't do anything, it's going to mask the results from the ones that did.
Maybe, but with 14 studies you have ~2^14 ways to split the studies into two groups. If you test multiple hypotheses, you have too adjust the p-value accordingly. Have the authors disclosed how many alternative hypotheses were tested until the result in the article was found to be significant?
P-values should, at most, be used to direct further mechanistic studies (if possible). Only use them on their lonesome if this hasn't yet been done, or isn't possible. And if that's the case, reverify them independently (such as by doing another meta-analysis using different data).
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…
> 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. It's because studies showing correlation between Vitamin D level and winter depression/SAD are mixed. I'm not saying it's a placebo. If it works for some people - great! But you can't expect doctors to recommend it w…
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…
As someone who spends alot of time outside(as much as I can while still working!) and also takes 5000iu of vitamin D, I just wanted to say there is moderation in everything. Getting too much sun can lead to skin cancer so make sure you are wearing sunscreen.
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…