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Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

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Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#201

Post by thewebguyd »

Theodores wrote: post #150
djtango wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing how thanks to the war on cholesterol the UK unravelled a lot of egg eating habits - a natural source of vitamin D. The UK also consumed a lot more liver than it does today I imagine...

Vitamin D supplementation in the UK - now there is a fascinating topic. With the industrial revolution there was a problem of kids in cities getting rickets. This was due to a lack of vitamin C and that was due to a lack of daylight due to the smog. The solution was to take the kids out of the city so they could spend time in the countryside. However, along with the industrial revolution came steam trains, and, with…

> Maybe following their example for this winter could be my next 'nutrition experiment'

Anecdotal and a sample size of 1, but I tried supplementing Vitamin D last year in the winter months. I live in the PNW, which between October and March, the sun is too low to trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin to see if it had any effect on my energy levels and mood, I suffer from seasonal affective disorder pretty severely.

Taking 5,000 IU daily had no noticeable effect for me. A slight increase in energy levels but not significant enough that I'd be confident in attributing it to supplementation. I was hesitant to supplement more without medical advice and a blood test.

That's not to say Vitamin D isn't important (it is), and the scientists in Antartica definitely know what they're doing, but it's more to say YMMV.

For me, just making an effort to do more physical activity outdoors during the dark months had more of an impact

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#202

Post by xwowsersx »

johnisgood wrote: post #84
xwowsersx wrote: post #58

Supplementing with vitamin D is honestly one of the easiest things you can do... it's cheap, available everywhere, and makes a real difference. Just make sure you're also taking magnesium citrate (or another good form of magnesium) with it, since your body needs magnesium to properly use vit D

And K2. As for magnesium, I would go with magnesium glycinate or magnesium threonate.

Absolutely. And you're totally right about magnesium glycinate. That's what I take. I don't know why I said citrate.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#203

Post by LtdJorge »

Theodores wrote: post #150
djtango wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusing how thanks to the war on cholesterol the UK unravelled a lot of egg eating habits - a natural source of vitamin D. The UK also consumed a lot more liver than it does today I imagine...

Vitamin D supplementation in the UK - now there is a fascinating topic. With the industrial revolution there was a problem of kids in cities getting rickets. This was due to a lack of vitamin C and that was due to a lack of daylight due to the smog. The solution was to take the kids out of the city so they could spend time in the countryside. However, along with the industrial revolution came steam trains, and, with…

> This was due to a lack of vitamin C and that was due to a lack of daylight

I think you also meant Vitamin D there

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#204

Post by thewebguyd »

hinkley wrote: post #109
nickff wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I find your comment enjoyably pithy, in the case of vitamin D, many humans are currently living at latitudes which they are not suited to (skin being too dark to generate enough vitamin D given the insolation), and eating diets which do not provide them with sufficient amounts of it (the carnivore diets of Inuits and similar groups being a good contrast).

It’s criminal that the US sent Somalian refuges to live in Minnesota. Those are some seriously brown people in the land of no vitamin D. Pretty big population in Seattle as well, which is worse due to cloud cover.

> which is worse due to cloud cover.

Not just cloud cover. Most areas in the PNW, the sun is so low in the sky between October and March that you can't synthesize vitamin D through the skin at all during those months, even on a bright sunny day.

Even during the summer up here, you really only get a window of roughly 10am to 3pm where enough UV-B rays can penetrate the atmosphere, in July. It's estimated that >80% of the PNW population are deficient (compared with 40% nationwide in the US).

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#205

Post by bluGill »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #123
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doors are such an important invention that multiple unrelated animals have evolved modified body parts to serve as doors to burrows¹. Being able to store food is critically important for surviving low-food periods like winter without migrating. "Indoors" lets you store food without insects or other animals getting to it & stealing it. Fire allows for hardening clay, which lets you make a special tiny "indoors" called…

> "Indoors" lets you store food without insects or other animals getting to it & stealing it. This isn't true of human doors; insects are very small. We've had the technology to keep things in wax-sealed clay jars for quite a while, but I'm not aware that this was done with grain, where preventing spoilage would have been most valuable. Granaries are open to the air. (And devote quite a lot of effort to slowing the s…

Every different food idem needs to be stored differently. There sometimes more than one option that will work, but you cannot treat everything the same.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#206

Post by bluGill »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #189
bluGill wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most retirement communities don't have that much supervision. Regardless, you can get a lot of data, but of it is from people who have other significant differences in lifestyle from the average person and so it is questionable how it applies. Military gets more physical fitness (we already know most of us need more). Boarding school implies young - children or just older, and so while not useful there are difference…

> Most retirement communities don't have that much supervision Retirement communities in India are relatively new. Most older folks get taken care of at home by domestic staff, which, given India's demographics, are incredibly cheap and thus plentiful.

I forgot this was India, my mistake. Though that means there are essentially no retirement communities to work with there.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#207

Post by bluGill »

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #187
bluGill wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people just eating a good balanced diet and they are good to go. There are a few with genetic/biological issues and they need more - ask your doctor. Vitamin D is one that modern lifestyles likely don't get enough of and so probably worth it - again talk to your doctor.

If eating a "good balanced diet" were easy/normal, we'd have close to zero disease. Supplements are definitely a way to get as close as possible to balance when day to day food intake is chaotic.

there is no reason to think a good diet will prevent disease, nor that supplements will help in most cases. Good diet will prevent some disease, but disease is natural in the environment and good diet is mostly your immune system has what it needs to fight it off after you get it.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#208

Post by thewebguyd »

bluGill wrote: post #20
thrusong wrote: post #4

I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba where it is quite cold for a big majority of the year. I have dabbled with supplements because I get a couple of major colds every year. I've heard things like you only need 15 minutes of sunshine per day to get your recommended dose of Vitamin D, but I've also heard it can be quite bad for you if you have too much in your system (and it's hard for your body to flush excess amounts). If t…

I've heard the 15 minutes is all you need. I've also heard that in winter the sun is so weak that no amount of sunshine gives you any. (even if you were naked outside in winter - risking frostbite). I'm not a medical doctor. I cannot evaluate any of the above claims. I wish I could find a source I could trust.

Depends on where you are. Latitudes above roughly 35 degrees N, the sun is too low in the sky roughly between October and March to allow for UV-B rays to penetrate, which is what your skin needs to synthesize vitamin D.

So yes, if you live in the northern regions, you don't produce any at all from sun exposure, even on a bright sunny day, during most of the year.

Up here in the PNW, even in the summer, you only have a window of roughly 4 to 5 hours where the sun is high enough, in July.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#209

Post by more_corn »

gilfoy wrote: post #27
efsavage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably have to really try to take too much Vitamin D with any over the counter supplement ( It should be part of your standard blood tests so you should know if you're running high or low and your doctor can recommend or prescribe a good dose.

I’ve had a prescription twice and it was 50,000IU of D2 once weekly. Usually the OTC one people buy is D3.

If you dry your mushroom the sun they generate a crap-ton of d2. There was a study earlier this year.

Re: Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels

#210

Post by hinkley »

lisbbb wrote: post #192
hinkley wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s criminal that the US sent Somalian refuges to live in Minnesota. Those are some seriously brown people in the land of no vitamin D. Pretty big population in Seattle as well, which is worse due to cloud cover.

It was never about doing right for people, it was about making unbelievable gobs of money using them as pawns.

I mean I guess they could have dumped them in West Virginia or Kentucky and that would have been much much worse.
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