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The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

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41–50 of 308 posts

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#41
post #19

Has anyone done a RCT of D3+K2? K2 seems to be important in the absorption of D3. Another aspect that bothers me with these studies is that we’re simply supplementing the vitamin D, seemingly without measuring the change in blood levels. I took 2000IU (+K2) a day for many years in between testing my blood levels and still had <30ng/ml and had to go up to 5000IU/day. I’d like to see some further study.

TARGET-D is an in-progress study that supplements vitamin D based on blood levels (your idea).

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#42
It's arguable whether Vitamin D is really a vitamin or a hormone, see

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33549285/

Look at the molecular structure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D

that's a freakin' steroid with one of the bonds in the rings deleted

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secosteroid

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#43
post #19

Has anyone done a RCT of D3+K2? K2 seems to be important in the absorption of D3. Another aspect that bothers me with these studies is that we’re simply supplementing the vitamin D, seemingly without measuring the change in blood levels. I took 2000IU (+K2) a day for many years in between testing my blood levels and still had <30ng/ml and had to go up to 5000IU/day. I’d like to see some further study.

Were you taking hard tablets? And were you taking them with a fatty meal?

Those are both very important. I take a Vitamin D + K2 softgel with a meal that has some fat in it.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#44
post #19

Has anyone done a RCT of D3+K2? K2 seems to be important in the absorption of D3. Another aspect that bothers me with these studies is that we’re simply supplementing the vitamin D, seemingly without measuring the change in blood levels. I took 2000IU (+K2) a day for many years in between testing my blood levels and still had <30ng/ml and had to go up to 5000IU/day. I’d like to see some further study.

What I found was that I had to dissolve vit D under the tongue, not immediately swallow it.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#45
post #19

Has anyone done a RCT of D3+K2? K2 seems to be important in the absorption of D3. Another aspect that bothers me with these studies is that we’re simply supplementing the vitamin D, seemingly without measuring the change in blood levels. I took 2000IU (+K2) a day for many years in between testing my blood levels and still had <30ng/ml and had to go up to 5000IU/day. I’d like to see some further study.

K2 is also known to prevent problems with calcium build up which can happen if Vitamin D is dosed too high. I personally would never take Viramin D without K2 alongside it.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#46

Your body needs vitamins in order to form complex aminos to operate. But your body only needs to make so many of them - especially if you are an adult, not pregnant, or not suffering from a disease of some sort. The very premise that loading up your body with "excess" vitamins beyond what you need is already pretty fraught. Building a house without enough lumber can lead to long term deficiency - but loading up a con…

Vitamin D deficiency entered the chat. It's a relatively common issue in many countries.

Two things to consider: The recommended levels are established based on "good enough for 95% of people". That means that quite a lot of people can get by with less than the recommendation. Furthermore, being deficient is not a binary. If you are just a little bit deficient you may have very mild symptoms.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#47

Your body needs vitamins in order to form complex aminos to operate. But your body only needs to make so many of them - especially if you are an adult, not pregnant, or not suffering from a disease of some sort. The very premise that loading up your body with "excess" vitamins beyond what you need is already pretty fraught. Building a house without enough lumber can lead to long term deficiency - but loading up a con…

Most vitamins are a cofactor for enzymes like

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiamine#Biological_functions

Vitamin D is not but rather it regulates calcium and phosphorous metabolism.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#48

It's arguable whether Vitamin D is really a vitamin or a hormone, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33549285/ Look at the molecular structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D that's a freakin' steroid with one of the bonds in the rings deleted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secosteroid

It's pretty well-established science now that vitamin D is a hormone, not a true vitamin. Vitamin D binds a nuclear receptor that regulates roughly 1,000 to 2,000 genes (5-10% of the human genome).

The "Vitamin D" moniker has just stuck around since it was named in 1922.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#49
Just because vitamin D supplements helps with rickets doesn't mean supplementation helps all the other things we seem to attribute to vitamin D.

I think a good hypothesis for the discrepancy regarding why people with "naturally" high levels of vitamin D fare better than those who do not has to do with how vitamin D is produced naturally.

If you take the vitamin orally it might help for rickets and a few other issues but if you take it naturally via sunlight you might actually be having other benefits that aren't properly measured today.

With the current state of fear surrounding sunlight I doubt people are getting enough to see benefits and all studies use oral supplements instead of time in sunshine.

Re: The worthlessness of Vitamin D is mildly exaggerated

#50
post #40

The survey in the article that assessed vitamin D deficiency was a bit odd: > Because physical exams are performed in mobile vans in NHANES, data could not be collected in northern latitudes during the winter; instead data were collected in northern latitudes during summer and in southern latitudes in winter. To address this season-latitude aspect of the NHANES design, we stratified the sample into two seasonal subpo…

Not to mention, northern latitudes get more sun that average in summer, and most northern countries have more reasonable working hours so people actually do go outside.
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