Hacker News Reader

Comment by tw334 | Hacker News Reader

what is this saying in plain english? That we all need to take vitamin D supplements?

The recommended daily intake of Vitamin D currently seems to be ~600 IU for adults. This article is arguing that this recommended dosage should be increased thirteen-fold to 8,000 IU for adults.

Aye. My Vitamin D pills are 1,000 IU and recommended to use 1 per day. I will up that now.

This sort of info is awesome. Thanks, HN.

Summary is adults need at least 8000 IU of Vitamin D per day.

This confirm what I have suspected since almost a decade. I have been taking 5k Vitamin D per day since one of my cousin had serious health issues because of low vitamin D for 3 years and as soon as she started having 5k IU per day, they disappeared within a month.

Has it had any effect on you?

Basically yes. I didn't read the paper, but the abstract says that our current recommendations were designed to get us past a threshold of 50 (nmol/L, but the units aren't that important).

But they claim that we should be aiming to get above 75, and it would be best if we could get above 100. So drink more fortified milk.

Edit: oops, looks like I read it wrong. 50 nmol/L isn't the threshold the current RDA gets us to, it's way lower than that.

Milk costs more than a vitamin

I assume the article is about milk since it's very common to drink milk in Finland. I'd wager most adults drink milk both with lunch and dinner as long as it fits the cuisine.

You would need to drink over 4 gallons of fortified milk per day to get the recommended 8000 IU. Milk just isn't fortified enough, because the current daily recommendations are so low.

Leave some mushrooms out in the sun, gills up, and enjoy ;). Though you may want to calculate it out first. This research survey at least makes me more confident in taking larger doses of vitamin D.

Except the majority of people on the planet cannot digest lactose, and drinking more milk can cause all sorts of unpleasant digestive symptoms.

The current RDA (recommended daily allowance) for Vitamin D is 600 IU. This paper is basically saying that number should be 6000 IU.

Yes, this is exactly what the article says. In many countries, children under the age of 1 get supplements, but not after

Something like 10x the RDA

or better, just spend more time outside.

If you wear clothes and/or aren't near the equator it's not gonna make a big enough of a difference. Also you're gonna have to balance that with negative sun exposure. Salmon is probably a top vitamin d source, but supplements are probably the cheapest way to pack it in.

What if i don't wear clothes and is at the equator

That drastically increases your odds of skin cancer. If you want to reduce your risk of dying overall, stay covered up and take supplements.

Melanoma correlation with sun exposure is tricky; regular (non burning) exposure tends to correlate with lower risk (eg in outdoor workers). Non-melanoma skin cancers are usually curable. It's plausible to argue the benefits of regular non burning sun exposure overweight the risks.

The amount of disinformation commonly expressed about vitamin D is quite amazing.

Bogus claims:

1. Spend a couple of minutes outside and you will be OK.

2. It is absorbed through the eyes.

3. Deficiencies are rare.

When in fact:

1. Does not apply at any time when your body is covered up mostly. Wear trousers and a T-shirt and you've cut yourself off severely already. Add weather with less sun, sunscreen, and/or more clothes and you've cut yourself off almost entirely unless you are outside for very long periods of time.

2. Fuck no.

3. They are extremely common even in sunny places. In the developed world a majority of people are.

You'd think sunny places would fare better - however after moving to Key West from Montreal I discovered people here spent a lot of effort avoiding the sun (skin cancer is big down here).

As someone with fair skin, I’d be harming myself if I tried to get vitamin D from the sun. And very badly.

This does not work if you have dark skin and do not live in the tropics.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com