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Comment by oppositelock | Hacker News Reader

I have some hard numbers on this in my own health. I'm a pasty north European living in California and I get plenty of sunshine, as I enjoy the outdoors. As I got older, I got increasingly more viral infections and strep throat was a twice a year affair. It didn't occur to me that I could be vitamin-D deficient, but I was, severely. For some reason, 10+ hours of sunshine a week isn't enough for me to make my own.

Over months, I tracked my blood vitamin D levels as I took supplements, and now I know that the 2500IU dose is enough to keep me at nominal levels - the higher doses cause it to build up too much and would eventually cause liver issues.

I know it's anecdotal, but in the few years since I did this, those recurrent sicknesses have vanished. I'm also taking vitamin B, which is another one you get less efficient at absorbing as you age.

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Just because you get plenty of sunlight where you live it doesn’t mean you get enough exposure to produce vitamin D.

You need to expose large areas of your body like legs, arms, and torso for several minutes to an hour. If those areas are covered, sunlight won’t do much.

The Sigma Nutrition podcast has an excellent episode on that: https://sigmanutrition.com/episode438/

Nah, for me, that wasn't sufficient. I get at least 10 hours a week of full sun on my whole arms and legs and sometimes my torso if I decide to bike shirtless; more sun than most people, and still, I was vitamin D deficient.

Did you wear sunscreen? I'm pretty sure it blocks vitamin d creation, which really makes me wonder how any of my GFs Ive had ever got any since they wear it religiously in hopes of keeping youthful skin.

> Over months, I tracked my blood vitamin D levels

OOC what did you use to do this?

Monthly blood tests prescribed by a doctor at a local bloodwork lab.

Did you have a challenge getting them to initiate that? I'd imagine once you're shown to be severely deficient it's easier, but there's a chicken & egg.

If your primary care provider won't do at least one vitamin-d test per year, and then periodic tests once a deficiency is identified, you should get a new primary care provider.

If that's not an option, non-prescription at-home tests are available in the US for as low as $49.

I don't know about monthly, I think a 60-day followup after treatment in order to titrate your supplementation might be best (it takes time for supplementation to work), but at-home tests are an option if your provider is for some inexplicable reason, reluctant.

As far as I can tell, the only harm from supplementation comes when the typical adult consistently consumes doses so high as to be absurd (50,000+ IU daily for months) so I don't know why any medical professional would be hesitant to investigate such a common health issue with such an easy, inexpensive, and effective treatment.

Where is that mythical theranos machine when you need one, smh.

What do you use for tracking your blood vitamin D levels?

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