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Ask HN: Resources on vitamin D supplements and studies

37 points by caio1982 ↗ HN
Hi there, would you share your experience with taking vitamin D supplements and resources & studies you found about the subject? The only good summary of research I've found is from several years ago: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908269/

What did you take it for? Did it work or improve your condition? Any regrets ("not taking it sooner" counts)?

16 comments

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fillskills
Two of my family members take Vit D3. It has really helped them a LOT. Going from continuous pain in the legs to negligible pain.
pwman
Have you had your levels checked by your doctor? My doctor said I was low for a year, as they came up I started sleeping much better -- can't see many other differences.
otakucode
There was a bit of research just recently that I believe was posted here about the RDA values for vitamin D being far lower than they ought to be due to statistical errors in past studies. The errors resulted in underestimating the levels of vitamin D necessary to avoid negative health effects pretty dramatically, and they recommended changes to health and diet recommendations ASAP. I believe that they estimated that most people should probably be taking 10,000 IU/day supplementally.

Personally I was diagnosed as vitamin D deficient a few years ago and my doctor prescribed gelcaps that were 50,000 IU to be taken twice a week. Upon switching doctors, my new doctor noted the deficiency in my records and said that she recommends everyone in my state (West Virginia) take vitamin D supplements as nearly everyone is deficient. And that was by the older, lower, standard. She didn't renew my prescription but I have begun taking 10,000 IU/day OTC supplements, especially after reading that research I've been considering doubling up.

mhkool
Dr David Perlmutter is a neurologist who pratices "functional medicine" and makes a lot of articles and videos. The articles on his website often refer to scientific literature and you get get a list of articles by doing a search on his site: https://www.drperlmutter.com/?s=vitamin+d

You will see a list of articles what Vitamin D does to prevent and heal diseases.

I am taking 15.000 IU/day and have regular blood tests to make sure it stays below 150. I take a lot of other vitamins and minerals and the nodules in my thyroid went from stage 4 to stage 3.

I went to see 2 doctors and they had different opinions: one said it is better to take 30.000 IU every 2 days for better absorption and the other one said it is better to have a stable level. I prefer a stable level.

ddorian43
Please list "take a lot of other" ?
ngrilly
A lot of interesting research and opinions has been published during the last ten years. Here are a few links:

"Vitamin D deficiency in undifferentiated connective tissue disease". https://arthritis-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.118...

"The Big Vitamin D Mistake". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/

"For health professionals: Position statement on supplementation, blood levels and sun exposure". https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/for-health-professionals-pos...

"The effect of vitamin D supplement on the score and quality of sleep in 20-50 year-old people with sleep disorders compared with control group". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28475473

"A Statistical Error in the Estimation of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for Vitamin D". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/

"Dosage of Vitamin D Needed To Achieve 35 to 40 ng/ml (90-100 nmol/L)". https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/589256_8 (open in an incognito window to avoid the login screen)

"Vitamin D Status and Acute Respiratory Infection: Cross Sectional Results from the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2001–2006". http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/7/3/1933/htm

"Additional 4 ng of vitamin D reduced chance of infection by 7 percent". https://www.vitamindwiki.com/Additional+4+ng+of+vitamin+D+re...

"Vitamin D supplementation to patients with frequent respiratory tract infections: a post hoc analysis of a randomized and placebo-controlled trial". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553208/

I have more links to relevant material, but I have to stop somewhere ;-) As you can see, the body of evidence is growing.

repsak
Examine.com is a good starting point https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-d/

If you scroll down to human effect matrix you can find links to studies based on results found.

The summary at the bottom is also pretty good.

repsak
To add some anecdotal evidence... We basically get no sun for half of the year where I live. I find my subjective wellbeing has increased somewhat, especially during the winter months, since I started supplementing with 5000UI D3.

Other potential benefits are harder to measure, but the cost in terms of money and likelihood of adverse effects is so low I feel I might as well continue.

To add another data point, gwern has done some more rigorous self experiments https://www.gwern.net/zeo/Vitamin-D

DoreenMichele
Look up info on cod liver oil. It is high in vitamin D and is how we discovered vitamin D. If you dig a bit, it is known to help a number of conditions, though the Wikipedia article makes it sound like we have hand wavy, vague guesses and nothing definitive. Search for inflammatory conditions, like arthritis, and vitamin D or cod liver oil. Trying to dig up what I saw recently also led me to a piece on PCOS and cod liver. The known benefits of vitamin D seem to not be well advertised or well understood.

The Wikipedia article makes no mention of the fact that people with cystic fibrosis are generally deficient. It is a fat soluble vitamin. People with CF are typically deficient in all fat soluble vitamins and are frequently prescribed supplements for A, D, E and K because of it.

In a nutshell, CF predisposes people to chronic infection and average life expectancy in the US is currently around age 37. Most scholarly articles do not blame the symptoms on things like vitamin deficiency. They basically say having CF causes deficiencies, not that deficiencies cause the symptoms of CF. Which seems pretty dumb to me.

Your bone marrow is an important part of your immune system. Vitamin D plays an important role in bone health. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that a deficiency would undermine your immune system.

It interacts with a bunch of stuff, like calcium and magnesium. Taking a lot of one thing in isolation probably won't have an optimal effect, though there are a lot of confounding factors because if you start eating calcium rich foods because you crave them, you may not realize that you are getting more of other things. Most people don't think of diet that way.

Anyway, if you have reason to think you need this, you should also read up on the other nutrients it is known to significantly interact with. If you need one of them, you like need all of them. If a vitamin D deficiency exists, you likely aren't really on solid ground for things like calcium and magnesium either.

open-source-ux
"...resources & studies you found about the subject"

The UK's Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (a body that advises the UK government on health matters) published a review on vitamin D and health in 2016.

They recommend that everyone over one year of age should consume 10 micrograms of vitamin D daily.

The full report is 304 pages (PDF, 4.2MB)

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

The NHS website has an excellent summary of the findings:

https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/the-new-guidelines-on-...

jeffshek
I always shrill about my passion project whenever I see this, but I suffered a lot of issues of quantifying supplements and habits to improvement so I wrote https://betterself.io (open-sourced)

It proxies a lot of improvement to productivity and sleep, (which are somewhat flawed as metrics).