Hacker News Reader

Comment by emmelaich | Hacker News Reader

I have a fun bit of anecdata. My wife and I are not Dutch but our son was born in Amsterdam. He was over 6' (183cm) when he was 13 and is now about 6'5 at 17 years old. I never reached 6' myself, and only a few cousins/uncles have.

One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years.

It's vital for the darker skinned citizens (Moroccans/Algerians) but probably pointless for the 'average' white Dutch person.

My standard joke to Dutchies is that they grow tall to compensate for the fact that much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level.

View on HN

Hey there I'm Algerian. I find height to be an interesting topic in Algeria because a lot of people grew much taller after france left algeria, so i think environment and nutrition are big factors. My mom, her sister, and her brother were all born in the early 50s during the war and french rule and they were all relatively short. 5'0 5'2 and 5'7 for my uncle, while her other two siblings a sister and brother who were born after the war were much taller. My aunt was 5'6 and my uncle 6'0, and now his son is 6'5.

I think people grew taller generally after the 60s ? Richer nutrition globally certainly, lots of meat (also leading to earlier puberty I seem to remember) ?

Earlier puberty normally results in a shorter adult - since kids tend to grow slowly before puberty and stop once it finishes.

Algerians didn't have access to adequate nutrition while under french rule.

I'm French and I notice the exact same thing in France with the second and third generation of immigrants from North Africa. You see the older guys that first immigrated to France in the 60's hovering around 5'2 or so and the sons and grandsons are all around 6'2" / 6'3".

yep it's definitely a nutritional issue. One of the biggest issues about the french occupation was that the native was literally starving. The natives were pushed off the fertile lands, and it was given to european colonists.

>One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years.

just googled, dairy products of course - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895

Bigger body is beneficial in colder climate and milk is the key in building the bones to enable it - thus whole North Europe and Eastern Europe consume a lot of milk, and lactose intolerance is rare there while being the norm everywhere else on Earth.

Countries like India are heavy users of diary products. Lactose intolerance is rare too. But always fare very poorly in the height rankings. So it cannot be concluded that it is diary products alone.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/Three-out-of...

Many Indians because of poverty dont get access to good food.

milk(calcium) just enables for bigger stronger bones, thus it provides that advantage when there is a pressure for it. The selective pressure for bigger body is present in cold climate and not present in India and even more - due to poverty one can see a pressure for smaller body there. Milk in India is used for another reason - it is a source of cheap (compare to meat) animal protein.

Dietary vitamin D is a relatively low dose and doesn't absorb as well. If you have SAD, for example, the treatment is a humongous needle of VitD and then getting some sun.

> much of the Netherlands is lower than sea level

interesting fact, actually from this site http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm it said "Half of the country lies below 1 meter above sea level, with an eighth of the country lying below sea level."

Have just caught up with a friend who was employed to extract gas onshore in Holland. The "10s of centimetres" of subsidence they caused was not popular.

It wasn't the subsidence, it was the earthquakes that made the gas extraction unpopular.

More specifically, the damage these cause in a country that has no natural earthquakes to speak of (so houses aren't build for that kind of damage), and the political denial about this issue (because natural resources equal convenient state income).

Along the same lines, while travelling in Asia I often see asian-american teenagers visiting their asian family. They are usually much bigger than their asian cousins.

Everyone benefits from additional vitamin D. Nearly everyone is deficient. I take ~3 times the 'suggested' daily dose in supplements, because the suggestion is weirdly low. It reduces the risk of cancer, among other things. You can actually safely take 10 times the suggested daily dose every day without risks, but there aren't any known benefits above ~4 times (100 mcg a day)

I'd like to see you back that one up with proof :). My doctor told me a vitamin D deficiency is not problematic in Caucasian Europeans.

The field of medicine is much too large for doctor's to know everything. They are usually not very knowledgeable about dietary needs, following the very conservative general guidelines.

See, for instance the NIH at https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessiona...:

  In 2011, The Endocrine Society issued clinical practice 
  guidelines for vitamin D, stating that the desirable 
  serum concentration of 25(OH)D is >75 nmol/L (>30 ng/ml) 
  to maximize the effect of this vitamin on calcium, bone, 
  and muscle metabolism [37]. It also reported that to 
  consistently raise serum levels of 25(OH)D above 75 
  nmol/L (30 ng/ml), at least 1,500-2,000 IU/day of 
  supplemental vitamin D might be required in adults, and 
  at least 1,000 IU/day in children and adolescents.

1500-2000 IU/day corresponds to 37.5-50 mcg.

See the section on Cancer in the following article from the Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(13)0.... But compare to what the previously mentioned NIH page says about vitamin D and cancer.

Find more references, read them and make up your mind. There is plenty to be found. Next up: Potassium. Magnesium. Calcium.

Not my post you responded to, but during winter months in northern Europe, vitamin D in diet is recommended.

http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:704251/FULLTEX... Page 351.

Vitamin D is distributed to babies and young children all over Europe (E.g. Ireland, Poland). And it is not pointless for whites, quite the opposite, white persons have more trouble producing them from the sun than darker ones.

I agree that it's not pointless, but I have to disagree with your second claim. Could you provide a reference for your assertion?

The science I have read on this indicates the opposite: "Increased skin pigment reduces the capacity of skin to synthesise vitamin D3" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673682...

That would make sense - an evolutionary adaptation to lower light levels.

> One thing the Dutch do is give doses of vitamins particularly D to all children for the first few years.

We do? I'm 200cm (nearly 6'7") and was not given vitamin supplements as a matter of course.

I think it's the increased oxygen from being below sea level, myself.

Weirdly though huge IU doses of vitamin D are only by prescription there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com