People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
Yeah my immediate thought too. Give 2500 rabid tanners vitamin D and let’s look at skin cancer rates in 10 years vs the population of rabid tanners.
Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
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Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#22People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
Here is the description how they measured the impact of sun exposure to the results:
> The exposure of skin to UV radiation was clarified with different questions. The self-estimated lifetime exposure was studied with the following question ‘How often have you exposed yourself to sunlight during your lifetime?’ The answer options were (1) ‘seldom’, (2) ‘occasionally’, (3) ‘often’, or (4) ‘very often’. The sunburn history was studied with the following question: how often has your skin been burned due to sunlight during your lifetime? The answer options were (1) ‘seldom’, (2) ‘occasionally’, or (3) ‘often’. The answer options for the question of ‘Main environment in working history’ were (1) ‘outdoor’, (2) ‘indoor’, or (2) ‘variably both’.
They saw approximately the same distribution of sun exposure across the different test groups, it looks like.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#23I was told recently that US Doctors have lost their license over this topic; no idea if that is true.
For a long time, the Mayo Clinic claimed vitamin D supplementation to combat SARS infections had no scientific proof and was possibly dangerous.
If such an authoritative source claims pseudo science and danger, your annecdote could very well be true.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#24People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
I don’t have access to the full paper, but I would expect that they at least tried to control for sun exposure. In general, if you can think of an obvious confounding factor in about five seconds, then it’s a safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too.
They probably have, but that doesn’t mean they have the necessary data to actually address the confounds. Often there is a trade off between what is most provable and what is most novel. Publishing incentives being what they are, novel invariably wins.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the most plausible reason.
The most plausible reason is that the scientific peer-reviewed result is correct, not the tiring "correlation does not imply causatian" commenter on HN who at most skimmed the paper. 2009: > Epidemiological data show an inverse relationship between vitamin D levels and breast cancer incidence. In addition, there is a well-documented association between vitamin D intake and the risk of breast cancer. Low vitamin D int…
it’s a small difference in a small group. And relying on self reporting for sun exposure.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#26Nice to see more benefits of Vitamin D. Highly recommend the supplement for tech workers who spend a lot of time indoors. I take 125mcg/5000IU a day when I wake up and it's subtle, but I just feel a little better with it. Sports Research is a good brand (not affiliated). Nothing better than getting some real sun though, especially in the morning.
A lot of people in the first world are heavily deficient in vitamin D, and deficiency is linked to a whole host of health issues and vulnerabilities. It's dirt cheap and essentially completely safe below toxicity levels (which are quite difficult to hit - I take 10,000 IU daily, and even with that my bloodwork shows me in the lower quartile of the normal range). Its metabolite is a steroidal hormone, so it's pretty o…
That seems like far too much, especially if you ever go outside. In the UK doctors recommend no more than 1,000 IU/day during the winter months. Any more than that is only if you are actually deficient. It seems really hard to get clear answers on it, though. People taking 10x the recommended dose of something seems strange. It makes me think it's being stored somewhere that isn't your blood. It's fat-soluble after all. Why on earth would you take so much anyway?
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#27Nice to see more benefits of Vitamin D. Highly recommend the supplement for tech workers who spend a lot of time indoors. I take 125mcg/5000IU a day when I wake up and it's subtle, but I just feel a little better with it. Sports Research is a good brand (not affiliated). Nothing better than getting some real sun though, especially in the morning.
Also, ask your doctor to get yours tested! A couple years ago, my D was on the low end (31.7ng/mL; 30-100 is normal). I've been taking 5000IU of D3 since then, and a lab last month had me at 59.1. That seems to be about the perfect dose for me, and it's dirt cheap.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#28People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
Yeah… doctors recommend supplementing vitamin D if you don’t get much sun. This almost feels comedic.
Doctors recommend supplementing vitamin D if you have a measured deficiency. Most people naturally settle to 20 ng/mL or higher, and just incidental exposure, or eating certain foods can help you either absorb or synthesize it.
There are also people, like me, who no matter what, we can't make as much vitamin D for whatever cluster of genetic factors causes that. Some of us are always tired unless we take 50,000 IU of D3 a week.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#29I was told recently that US Doctors have lost their license over this topic; no idea if that is true.
No. My memory of the news stories were that some doctors preached it as a miracle preventative/cure, which let to patients neglecting other more effective preventatives because they thought they were safe from getting sick.
I think any doctor would tell you to take supplements if your lab tests showed that you're low. There's nothing controversial in that advice.
Re: Regular use of Vitamin D supplement is associated with fewer melanoma cases
#30People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
I don’t have access to the full paper, but I would expect that they at least tried to control for sun exposure. In general, if you can think of an obvious confounding factor in about five seconds, then it’s a safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too.
> safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too
Research should be able to stand up to scrutiny. The scientific process depends on it.
Given the ongoing reproducibility crisis and plethora of garbage research coming out of academia, I’m not assuming anything about any research I see.