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Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

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Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#171

Post by mixmastamyk »

May be an unpopular take, but this one felt a bit too academic to me. It also, perhaps inadvertently, argues against several strawmen too.

We've long known D is an essential component of bone-health and the immune system, since it was noticed a century ago that tuberculosis patients that went outside in the sun had better outcomes. Known to prevents rickets too.

The fact that some have tried to apply it to heart disease or asthma, or random unrelated ailments and failed is immaterial, no?

The fact that the benefit of supplementation is strongest for those with the weakest levels is not particularly surprising either.

We also know that the body can make adjustments when nutrients are low in the short term, and that can mitigate some issues and pose unintuitive outcomes in such a time frame.

Bottom line, do we want to face Covid/Flu with an immune system at full strength, or one with one arm tied behind its back due to a deficiency?

Finally, given that a large majority of folks are D-deficient, and few can or will overdose, this push back (on HN and this piece) to warn folks that it is useless/dangerous (on the whole) does more harm than those recommending it, in my opinion.

Moderation continues to be the best path, and a number of studies linked here support benefits of supplementation for bone-health and immune system, but those things only. Don't overthink it.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#173

Post by dolguldur »

baccheion wrote: post #84
RL_Quine wrote: post #14

For other reasons I get tested for vitamin D every few months and managed to get my levels just above the normally recommended amount as per doctors advice. When people are saying they’re taking 25-100k UI a day I’m just stumped why they’d be doing that without medical advice, the amount to change my levels was nothing in comparison.

RDA is 400 IU. It's actually the food RDA, with 20% expected from food. Overall RDA (sun + food) is 2000 IU. Therapeutic vitamin doses are 10x the RDA. 6x is elevated while doing "nothing" and 20x is full saturation ("but why"). 2x and 4x for minerals. For vitamin D, that would then be 20,000 IU or roughly 300 IU/kg/day. No need to take that much or be outside the 40-60 ng/mL range for no reason. On the other hand, m…

Thanks for the info!

I’m taking 400mg - 800mg magnesium daily, recently added K2 (100 mcg MK-4) together with 2000 or 3000 IU D3.

What would you change? Get my blood levels first and then increase D3?

Increase my magnesium supplementation? Don’t take calcium at all?

How did you find your own doses and what else are you supplementing?

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#174

Post by mixmastamyk »

modoc wrote: post #102
RL_Quine wrote: post #14

For other reasons I get tested for vitamin D every few months and managed to get my levels just above the normally recommended amount as per doctors advice. When people are saying they’re taking 25-100k UI a day I’m just stumped why they’d be doing that without medical advice, the amount to change my levels was nothing in comparison.

For reference I take 5,000 IU daily, recommended by my doctor. We worked up to that amount over time, testing my Vit D levels until they made into the "normal" range. I live in a very sunny state and am outside in the sun at least an hour a day during peak daylight hours, sometimes much more. Many other members of my immediate family also have amazingly low Vit D levels despite plenty of outside time.

Age, skin color, and heredity as you noticed are additional factors.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#175

Post by mixmastamyk »

jspash wrote: post #82
smolder wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dangerous amount. Vitamin D is a hormone and shouldn't be taken willy nilly. If you know anyone doing that you should warn them to stop.

The vitamin "misnomer" really confuses me. I don't think if it was called "hormone D" that people would be snaffling it up trying to self-medicate. Anyhow, I've googled and googled but still can't figure out why it's called a vitamin at all. The best I can come up with is that there IS an actual vitamin D that comes from the sun, but it helps the kidneys produces the good "hormone D" which is the what people are defi…

You can get it through food as well. The name was given when science was not as developed as today. Finally, names tend to stick once given.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#176

Post by laplacesdemon48 »

There was also an ancillary study to VITAL that focused on looking at depression & vitamin D3. Here's some good commentary on that study:

https://peterattiamd.com/randomized-controlled-trials-when-t...

tl;dr Due to the study's flawed design, you can't claim there's no connection between depression and oral vitamin D3 supplementation.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#177

Post by pmiller2 »

tarsinge wrote: post #155
citruscomputing wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to your doctor.

I’m not sure my doctor has access to better studies than what is in the TFA. My question is weirdly formulated, what I ask is is supplementation useless given what we know? Or is it safer to stay in the (arbitrary?) recommended range? What I get from the parent post is that given low vitamin D is a symptom of poor health, supplementation is useless if someone is in good health.

The thing with vitamin D supplementation is that, as TFA mentions, low to moderate doses (under 4000 IU per day) are generally very safe. And, being deficient in such a crucial nutrient certainly isn't a good thing. So, if you are deficient, supplementing in that range is probably something you could feel comfortable doing on your own. If it were me, I'd go out and buy a bottle of D3 and get my levels tested at my next checkup.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#178

Post by dcx »

ljhsiung wrote: post #151
dcx wrote: post #92

This seems like it might be a little selective. What about these [1] [2] randomised controlled trials that show vitamin D supplementation has an effect on IBS symptoms? Or this [3] double-blinded trial showing supplementation improved sleep quality in people with sleep disorders? Or this [4] one showing improvements in depressive symptoms in overweight and obese subjects? The study cited in TFA is large but only uses…

Did you read the article? > It is an essential hormone, definitely, but not a magical pill that will ward off disease. There are conditions that benefit from Vitamin D supplementation - for hypoparathyroidism, a condition that can cause dangerously low calcium levels, Vitamin D is lifesaving. For otherwise healthy adults, the benefit is less clear. Takeaways: it's not clear what preventative benefits it has. Even to…

Yes. See response to author's comment below.

On vitamin C - I stated dietary vitamin C to make it clear I was not referring to supplemental vitamin C. I was hoping to avoid this exact rabbit hole; that example was just to highlight an issue with the argumentation.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#179

Post by harterrt »

devaboone wrote: post #109
null_object wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d also like specifics about the “not statistically significant” part - because otherwise there can be a suspicion of cherry-picking the available data. Which I felt, reading parts 2 and 3 of these blog posts, was definitely a possibility.

I tried really really hard to put in all of the most significant studies on Vitamin D. Small, low-quality studies didn't make it in, but the major trials did.

To start, I appreciate your effort on this post. It looks like it took a lot of work and it does a great job of explaining difficult topics like why controls are important.

That said, I don't think it's fair to characterize the COVID study as low-quality. It's worth mentioning contrary results, even if it's an exception that proves the rule.

Re: Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence

#180

Post by pmiller2 »

zzzeek wrote: post #33

correct me if I'm wrong (like that ever happens on HN...) but even mainstream SSRIs like Lexapro (which I am taking, I'm a lifelong depressive, thanks) probably get a big red X in "prevention of depression". trying to "prevent depression" is like trying to grab Jell-O.

I don't know that there is any drug or intervention that prevents depression in otherwise healthy people, besides eating a balanced diet, maintaining a healthy weight, and getting sufficient exercise.

Preventing relapse in people whose depression is in remission may be a different story (and, one which I'm not terribly familiar with). Part of the problem is that the placebo effect in trials for depression is very strong. See, for instance https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24172161/

BTW, I am also a lifelong sufferer of depression. SSRIs have never really done anything for me, but bupropion has been a lifesafer.

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