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Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

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Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#91

Post by pawelwentpawel »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #49
refurb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you're fair skinned, experts say going outside for 10 minutes in the midday sun—in shorts and a tank top with no sunscreen—will give you enough radiation to produce about 10,000 international units of the vitamin." You don't need a lot of sun exposure to get your body to produce enough vitamin D.

As a person of Scottish descent I joke that I can get a sun burn by holding a picture of the Sun near my skin :-)

I'm surprised why they don't use those "sunlight lamps" in Scotland yet. I guess whisky does a better job ;)

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#93

Post by Daniel_Newby »

jokull wrote: post #75

A high quality source of vitamin D is liver. Cod liver oil is a great way to supplement your diet. In Iceland you can get it in small sardine type cans and spread the liver on crackers.

The vitamin A in liver may be bad for pregnant women and small children.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#94

Post by npsimons »

streptomycin wrote: post #88

Well, that's a pretty content-free article. And there are lots of posts here, with anecdotes and opinions... but nobody is talking about hard data, science, and (most importantly) clinical trials. Is that because it hasn't been proven through a real clinical trial that "programmers must take Vitamin D"?

It really depends on (too) many factors. Out where I work and play, the problem is getting too much sun. An outdoor walk between my office and the lab at the other end of the building gets me plenty sun. Ditto the bike ride home (assuming I'm not working late on something). It also doesn't hurt that I get out to go hiking and climbing on a semi-regular basis. OTOH, if I worked for a startup in Seattle, yeah, I might need to up my intake of vitamin D (which I'm already taking in a multivitamin).

Of course, IANAMD, so the first thing I'd recommend is going to an actual MD if you have health issues - and mention your lifestyle.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#95

Post by mistercow »

jrockway wrote: post #40
mistercow wrote: post #37

This is missing something, but I can't put my finger on it. Oh yeah: citations.

This is another anecdote point: my mom is a nutritional biochemist who has done research on vitamins for much of her life. She always tells me to take Vitamin D and that nearly everyone is deficient because we don't go outside enough (and live in high latitudes). Not science, but the author is on to something, I think. If you doubt it, get your blood tested and see what your doctor says. If you don't want to get test…

I already take a basic multivitamin, but my concern is not that I'm trying to make a personal decision based on this article; I make my health decisions based on more research than that.

My concern is that the article makes a strong empirical claim that it does not back up:

>However, it also inhibits vitamin D receptors, and as such decreases the body’s uptake of this-much-needed-vitamin.

In fact, I can find a couple of studies sort of supporting this, but they have to do with a very specific vitamin D receptor in a very specific subpopulation (elderly women).

Some people are going to read this and they're going to assimilate into their "probably true facts" bank the idea that caffeine just generally keeps you from absorbing vitamin D, and then they're going to repeat that fact and it will spread, and we'll have a whole new common belief about caffeine which is probably false.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#96

Post by streptomycin »

ralmeida wrote: post #90
streptomycin wrote: post #88

Well, that's a pretty content-free article. And there are lots of posts here, with anecdotes and opinions... but nobody is talking about hard data, science, and (most importantly) clinical trials. Is that because it hasn't been proven through a real clinical trial that "programmers must take Vitamin D"?

The article says something too broad to be true (that if you're a programmer, you need to take vitamin D). However, a clinical trial would be overkill: you might need a clinical trial to determine if, say, cell phones are bad for you, but you don't need a clinical test to determine that 100% of people who stop breathing die. Where do you draw the line? Also, it spends a great deal of effort to make a statistically me…

Of course there is a line to be drawn, but I think that dietary supplements certainly should be tested in clinical trials. Otherwise, there is no way to know if they work or not. This is typically how drugs/supplements are evaluated.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#97

Post by patorjk »

carbocation wrote: post #87
patorjk wrote: post #13

This problem actually happened to me. A few years ago I started feeling incredibly lethargic. I would wake up with no energy. It was like sleep had done nothing for me. I didn't know what was wrong, but I felt horrible. After around two weeks I went to the doctor. A blood test was done and it showed I had low vitamin D (26 ng/mL). After about a week of supplementation I felt normal again. It's easy to forget to go ou…

20 is the lower limit of normal per US guidelines, though some specialty societies have their low threshold set at 30. At any rate, you are unlikely to have any calcium metabolism deficits at 26 and it's unlikely to have been a cause of any symptom in an otherwise healthy adult.

Hrm, I may have the "ng/mL" part wrong then, or I may just be sensitive to low levels. All I remember is the number and that he said I was low. Supplementation definitely resolved my problems though.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#98

Post by ralmeida »

streptomycin wrote: post #96
ralmeida wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says something too broad to be true (that if you're a programmer, you need to take vitamin D). However, a clinical trial would be overkill: you might need a clinical trial to determine if, say, cell phones are bad for you, but you don't need a clinical test to determine that 100% of people who stop breathing die. Where do you draw the line? Also, it spends a great deal of effort to make a statistically me…

Of course there is a line to be drawn, but I think that dietary supplements certainly should be tested in clinical trials. Otherwise, there is no way to know if they work or not. This is typically how drugs/supplements are evaluated.

Sure, but clinically testing a supplement to see if it works is not the same thing as doing a clinical test to conclude that taking a "working" vitamin D supplement is good for you if you have vitamin D defficiency.

Re: Programmers Must Take Vitamin D

#99

Post by PawelD81 »

I've been drinking recently a ridiculous amount of caffeine every day. (5-6 coffees + redbulls ) And at the same time I eat everyday tuna sandwich and salmons for dinner every third day. ( +snack a lot of bananas ). Regardless I've never been a real fan of this kind of food, so it must have been a natural body adaptation to low vitamins D level.
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