A Statistical Error in the Estimation of the RDA for Vitamin D

Yesterday's discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918

I wonder Vitamin D deficiency is to blame, or a major factor, in the increasing rates of depression. My personal hunch tells me that it's not simply due to people becoming more willing to seek treatment. Wikipedia [0] mentions that vitamin D supplementation typically shows no effect for patients with depressive symptoms and only moderate effect for patients with diagnosed/diagnosable depression, but from reading the linked article [1] it seems like the studies they base this research on perhaps weren't using enough Vitamin D according to the new research

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Other_conditions

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008710/

TLDR;

> It also estimated that 8895 IU of vitamin D per day may be needed to accomplish that 97.5% of individuals achieve serum 25(OH)D values of 50 nmol/L or more.

Compare that with 600 IU (current "Recommended Dietary Allowance").

A word of caution though:

> As this dose is far beyond the range of studied doses, caution is warranted when interpreting this estimate. Regardless, the very high estimate illustrates that the dose is well in excess of the current RDA of 600 IU per day and the tolerable upper intake of 4000 IU per day [1].