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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

#181
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worked on a project related to modelling UV and skin cancer rates. And what I learnt there is that that big thing that causes skin cancer isn't so much total UV exposure over a year, but a sudden switch for long periods of no sun to a period of intense sun. You see this especially in the Nordic countries where it isn't uncommon to go from 4 month of getting essentially no sun to 10 days of spending 10 hours a day i…

   > essentially no sun to 10 days of spending 10 hours a day in a bathing suit on a beach in Thailand or Bali.
is that because there isn't enough melanin built up in the skin to prevent damage?

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually dated a med student all through medical school and thus made a huge social circle of doctors I've kept in touch with for over a decade as they all became doctors and now have almost a decade of experience too. I'd say about half want to help, but can not due to the system. The other half enjoy maximizing their income through the system and don't care either. So that leaves very very few that are actually a…

Shoulder surgery should not be delayed. The probable retraction of some damaged parts is not a joke. Your friend could have been the lucky one in the pool, but there is also a possibility that in a few years the problem will grow and the surgery required will be much heavier and expensive. > and without surgery are back competing on the bike. My bet is that they are on painkillers for life

Are you saying that the doctor, upon closer questioning simply flopped and gave bad medical advice to my friend when they told him that yes it's reasonable to expect to regain full shoulder straight again without surgery? Because if so maybe my friend should sue? What is this blanket statement of "shoulder surgery should not be delayed" based on?

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#184
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 found it interesting that I had to discover this cure on my own.

This is sadly true for so many things in medicine. The doctor may or may not care, but either way they only have 10 minutes for you and are highly incentivized to push some very expensive pills to make you go away instead of being able to analyze the issue in any depth.

I used to suffer greatly from gout, to the level of being bedridden for a month+ unable to move from the pain. All the doctors could offer were some pills that helped a little but didn't cure it and had somewhat nasty side effects. And I'd have to take them for life, almost guaranteeing liver problems later in life.

With so much time unable to move, I spent it doing all the research I could and one day randomly happened upon research on childhood diabetes that noted that increased fructose intake leads to higher uric acid (which causes gout). So it wasn't even a case where the research didn't exist, it's just that it lived under the folder "childhood diabetes" instead of in the folder "non-diabetic adult with gout", so no doctor made the connection.

I cut as much fructose off my diet as possible and within a month my blood uric acid was lower than ever and the gout completely cured, no need for any pills. That was over a decade ago, still doing great.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My bet is that they are on painkillers for life Also, they are professional athletes at the peak of their bodies' physical fitness capacity with teams of doctors, physical therapists, and trainers looking after their health with a focus that few of us can imagine, and an overriding ethos of sacrificing their future health on the altar of present performance. In general, professional athletes' healthcare decisions s…

If a group of great doctors lets people crashing at 180mph ride again without surgery after a shoulder dislocation, doesnt that mean that maybe his doctor in nonametown USA might be able to learn a thing or two from them? Or are they just trying to keep their operating room billing hours maxed out? I guess we won't know for sure but I have a hunch.

Sure. That doctor could suggest his patients to wear kevlar reinforced biker jackets all the time.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#186
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…

> That chat was totally and wholy unhelpful, and the sympoms persisted. Out of sheer luck, Iinsisted on having my vitamin D tested.

This happened me countless times. You go for help maybe having a hunch that something is not right. Describe symptoms and so on, only to be lightly dismissed. I honestly can't understand why isn't the rule for doctors when you visit them to at least ask: "When was your last blood test?" and then act accordingly either re-testing or analyzing previous tests. I'm not saying that all doctors proceed this way, but sometimes if you actually do not politely ask them to further analyse you, they won't. One of my siblings is celiac and it literally took many years to actually discover that if it wasn't for my mum endlessly trying to understand why at the time he was extremely tired spending way too many hours a day sleeping. All the technology that is available today that testing can discard options or at least follow clues on pursuing something else.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#187
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…

Isn't 10,000IU way above the recommended limit? I went through a bottle this past winter (at the recommended dosage) and didn't notice a change in either direction, but was a bit confused during the research phase since everyone seems to use a wildly different dosage.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-Consumer/

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-d/

edit: I also found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35878761 which suggests higher levels are safe, as long as you're not eating D3 pills like kettle chips. So I guess that answers it, though my points stands about there being such a wide range of info

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#188
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…

15 minutes of full-body UV exposure from the sun is estimated to provide the equivalent of 20-30,000 IU Vitamin D3.

There is a definite need for studies that better determine the effective dose for D3.

My research led me to the conclusion that studies should be done based not on standardized supplementation, but instead supplementation to a standardized blood serum level.

Re: Reduced cancer mortality with daily Vitamin D intake

#189
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…

As I've become older, I've also found that in winter, my skin starts to be a bit unhappy (fingertips on the right hand getting rough and a bit broken up, usually, but it can also be a bit below the eyes), and my gut starts to be rather unhappy. When the sunshine returns, and I get some sun-on-skin time during the day, it all goes away. I'm now experimenting with vitamin D supplementation.

Regarding your comments about doctors; yes.

I may be completely wrong, but I think they have a revolving door of patients, and are restricted to actions which are permitted and/or supplied by their institution, or larger, national regulator.

I've found that doing my own investigations, usually via Eurakalert, leads me to finding a considerable number of modern, up to date, wel designed studies, and as a result, and also knowing my own body properly, and over all of my life, and caring for it in a way which is impossible for a doctor with a large number of patients all of whom he gets to see for an appointment every month or whatever it is, I give myself infinitely better treatment than a doctor.

My experience of institutionalized medicine has been high prices, rote treatments, lack of insight or imagination, and on one occasion, completely unnecessary full chest x-ray (which I would no longer stand for, but I was younger at the time).

The only use I see for them is access to larger treatments, such as surgical treatments, which cannot otherwise be obtained.

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