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I've seen a well explained video about a study[1] saying vitamin D3 helps in reducing severity of COVID19. What's your argument(s) against it? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ks9fUh2k8
OP's article does not address Vitamin D's effects on COVID.
Don't over-think (unless you're a researcher, in which case that's your job). It's pretty simple: Low levels are bad. If your levels are low, supplement. Err on the high side because the risks are low, but don't go crazy for long periods of time without testing.
Shouldn't they be looking at getting vitamin D via sun exposure, rather than supplementation? If the real benefit is sun exposure, which also increases vitamin D, then just supplementing vitamin D won't show any benefits.
Very hard to quantify sun exposure and do this in a controlled way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are thousands of reasonable hypothesis, and it is extremely costly (and in some cases, nearly impossible) to test. e.g. our bodies need sunlight and cholesterol in order to synthesize vitamin D; This process also apparently has some other outputs like NO which are much harder to measure since they get used quickly. It is possible that vitamin D is merely (mostly) a measure of the prevalence of this process, and…
The NO production might explain most of this through it's anti-inflammatory properties. The instant reduction in blood pressure is likely just the tip of the iceberg for UV's effects on the body.
So Vitamin D deficiency is linked to cancer, heart disease, respiratory infection, stroke, diabetes, and death. But taking it as a supplement helps with none of the above. What is a reasonable hypothesis then? That having an active lifestyle that brings you outside in the sun both causes your Vitamin D to go up, and is correlated with better physical health in general?
It might just be that the production of vitamin D via sunlight has other effects on the body, perhaps vitamin D has been a proxy for those effects but for obvious reasons taking it as a supplement doesn't trigger the same outcome. It's unfortunate that exposure to UV is so harmful, I'm left wondering if trials using UV lightboxes to stimulate vitamin D production would change the kinds of outcomes (cancer, heart dise…
This is an extremely popular simplification. The scientific jury is still out on this one, as it seems that paradoxically people with constant exposure to sunlight are less likely to get skin cancer as compared to those that get sporadic exposure.
I'll probably carry on with this then. I was taking a single 4000 IU pill every four days (which was the suggested dosage) but once a week for around 570 IUs a day should be fine. Frankly I hate blood tests and don't believe I'm D deficient, so I'd rather take a lower, even if useless, amount.
So Vitamin D deficiency is linked to cancer, heart disease, respiratory infection, stroke, diabetes, and death. But taking it as a supplement helps with none of the above. What is a reasonable hypothesis then? That having an active lifestyle that brings you outside in the sun both causes your Vitamin D to go up, and is correlated with better physical health in general?
I would frame it in the opposite direction: having a serious illness is correlated with low levels of Vitamin D. People with a serious illness may stay inside more, and go outside less. It's possible that "low levels" of Vitamin D are still within the healthy range, and they merely are an indication of how much time the person has spent outside during the day. In other words, it's possible that Vitamin D is pure symp…