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Comment by ErikAugust | Hacker News Reader

As a Vermonter, I have to ask - does the locale have anything to do with the low Vitamin D levels, any more than most of the rest of the northern United States?

Would 5000 - 10000 IU/day be toxic?

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devboone has previously said that less than 3000 IU per day should be safe, but again this should be determined with the help of a physician, not self-selected. She said she has definitely seen toxicity in some of her patients with doses of over 5000 IU per day.

Thank you very much for the straight answer. I'd prefer not to poison myself via Vitamin D! I worry with COVID-19 other people are going to be overcompensating as well.

The easiest solution is just to be stable at a level of supplementation for a few weeks (even zero), then get a test. They're like $40 for the blood test, and then you can tell if you're in the normal range, high or low.

> seen toxicity in some of her patients with doses of over 5000 IU per day.

I believe she said "per day for years".

Yes, the assumption was that this is a daily supplement, meaning an indefinite period of time.

Your body makes its own vitamin D in response to sunlight exposure.

Well, yes. But does the region have significantly less sunlight than others? Or is it just the people in question didn't get nearly as much exposure?

Latitude, local geography and weather will all play a role in how much sunlight you get. If you're living in a valley you can have much shorter days than your latitude would suggest. And if the weather is shitty enough to keep you inside much of the year that will obviously have an impact.

Yes, age and skin color also have a large influence on whether your body can utilize the sunlight you receive.

Yep, there were studies that Somali refugee populations in MN and Sweden have very low vitamin D levels (and associated high rate of children autism)

How does the autism follow?

while we don't know "how", there is growing body of work showing a correlation between low level vitamin D - in particular winter pregnancies in Northern Europe countries correlate with higher rate of autism as well as the mentioned studies of the 2 clusters of Somali refugees.

Not all sunlight exposure works though. It needs to have enough UV-B in it. And that’s dictated by the time of year, the location, and the time of day. In some places, you may only get an hour or so of the right kind of rays.

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