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Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

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Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#141

Post by neRok »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #98
voisin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? There have been many articles on HN showing the RDA to be ~10x too low (something like 5,000 IU) and that the daily safety limit to be significantly higher than that (something like 30,000 IU). Edit: for clarity I am not saying it is impossible to overdose on oral tablets, but rather that with most tablets 400 IU to 1000 IU and the safe limit so much higher than these, it seems like it would be extremely unli…

> Source? There have been many articles on HN showing the RDA to be ~10x too low (something like 5,000 IU) and that the daily safety limit to be significantly higher than that (something like 30,000 IU). First: the RDA and the safety limit are not the same, and an RDA in a country being too low does not mean that the maximum safe dose is wrong. And it certainly does not mean that there is a higher risk in under-dosin…

The first link makes the problem sound like it can happen to anyone, but then when you tease out the details;

* Toxicity resulting from lack of monitoring is frequently seen in patients requiring high doses to treat ailments like osteoporosis, renal osteodystrophy, psoriasis, gastric bypass surgery, celiac, or inflammatory bowel disease.

* Patients who are on high doses of Vitamin D and taking inadvertently increased amounts of highly fortified milk are also at increased risk for vitamin D toxicity.

* According to the latest report from America's Poison Centers (APC), there were 11,718 cases of vitamin D exposure recorded in the National Poison Data System. More than half of these cases were in children younger than 5 years.

* The clinical signs and symptoms of vitamin D toxicity manifest from hypercalcemia's effects.

* Clinical management of vitamin D toxicity is mainly supportive and focuses on lowering calcium levels.

* Isotonic saline should be used to correct dehydration and increase renal calcium clearance.

A lot of those point to people drinking too much milk! (enriched milk)

* People with osteoporosis thinking "I better drink more milk for strong bones" when they are already on supplements/medicine.

* Kids drinking lots of milk and presumably not drinking any water - hence the dehydration.

PS: There are a lot of people out there that don't drink any water, and stick to juice or milk or soda, etc. They are not always fat, but that doesn't mean they don't have issues.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#143

Post by compounding_it »

krzat wrote: post #131
isoprophlex wrote: post #43

Because it's common to hate on antidepressants, I've always personally had a bias against them. For the past 15-20 years, november thru february are basically a writeoff due for me due to seasonal affective disorder. Cold showers, exercise, no alcohol, strict sleeping rituals. Vitamin d. I can still sleep 11 hours and feel like reheated cat shit. Enter citalopram. "It will take up to six weeks to dial in" they said.…

If a drug has an 1% chance of 100% effect, it will look pretty weak in those studies. IMO it's pretty clear that depression is a symptom of many independent issues, so it's really lame that we don't have a more accurate way of diagnosing it.

The goal is to tackle it in every way. The medicines are supposed to be supportive and not the solution. More often than not people treat it as a solution.

Thats why they are eventually tapered and discontinued once you are able to be on your own.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#144

Post by myrmidon »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #122
sarreph wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you prove that?

I don't need to "prove it", because all I have to do is link this: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.01754 https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01491 https://aclanthology.org/2025.acl-short.47/ https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06166 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/wzveh_v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872 https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-acl.987/ https://aclanthology.org/2…

Relevant excerpt from your own wiki guideline:

"Do not rely too much on your own judgment. [...] if you are an expert user of LLMs and you tag 10 pages as being AI-generated, you've probably falsely accused one editor."

Never accuse people of LLM writing based on short comments, your false positive rate is invariably going to be way too high to be acceptable given the very limited material.

It's just not worth it: Even if you correctly accuse 9/10 times, you are being toxic to that false positive case for basically no gain.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#145

Post by abelitoo »

consp wrote: post #13
r1ch wrote: post #4

Please do not take 5000mg/day of Vitamin D. The author confuses IU and mg which is very dangerous.

Isn't the oral intake pretty much negligible anyway? I remember getting a vitamin d supplement in a syringe (to be put on bread, from a physician) containing a very large dosis. I'm not stating the dosage is wrong. Looks like it is anyway.

Oral has felt very effective for me. I take a daily supplement that has roughly 100% of the recommended daily dose of everything. I split it in half.

For D3, it is 25mcg / 1000 IU / 125%

After splitting in half it's 12.5 mcg / 500 IU / 62.5%.

I take with some fat-containing food to allow ir to absorb which is usually breakfast (yogurt, some nuts, some kind of fruit, oats), and it's a night and day difference in my mood (how easily I can control my temper if already agitated, how easily I brush off annoying stuff, takes the intensity off of my reactions and mood during conversations).

I did a blood test before starting, and if normal is between 30 - 70, I was at 10. Dr prescribed megadose of D2, followed by daily D3, but I skipped on the megadose and went straight to D3 -- makes me wonder if a megadose would build up my stores since D is fat-soluble and make it so I could miss a day and not notice.

All of the above is anecdotal from me, a self-professed cave dweller, but it's been a couple of years now, and I still notice the difference. Also, what I heard from people in Boston is that 90% of them are on a vitamin D supplement. My friend from there laughed at me when I was raving about it, saying "yeah, literally everyone here is on it".

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#147

Post by tock »

cardanome wrote: post #42

With depression it is important to find the cause of it. You might be depressed because you life objectively sucks. Then you symptoms are good and healthy and a signal to make changes in your circumstances. You might actually have a good life but still feel depressed because there is a chemical imbalance in your brain. (Very simplified). That is when drugs come in. It might be just a seasonal thing and you need to go…

You mean relatively sucks. Else every single human ancestor would have to be super depressed too given the standard of life in the past.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#148

Post by 7952 »

rini17 wrote: post #23
Iolaum wrote: post #14

Your body makes Vitamin D when in sunlight. Could it be that sunlight - and the whole being outdoors situation - is the thing that helps rather than vitamin d levels?

There's a research that winter sunlight in northern latitudes just does not convert precursors to vitamin D. Even when it's shining, no matter how long you are outside.

And I guess you need uncovered skin which can be tricky in a cold winter.

Re: Vitamin D and Omega-3 have a larger effect on depression than antidepressants

#149

Post by elif »

Here you go HN commenters. Last month when I made the observation that "from what I've read recently, I've started to get the impression that the explosion in mental health problems (depression, autism rates etc) has more to do with the western diet than genetics"[0]

Y'all called me MAHA and down voted me into the negatives. Please, insult your own analytical ability by doing the same here. This time I'll just revel in your ideologically confined science denial this time.

[0] https://scitechdaily.com/simple-three-nutrient-blend-rapidly...

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