Low Vitamin D levels may not play as big a role in preventing/treating diseases | Hacker News Reader

Low Vitamin D levels may not play as big a role in preventing/treating diseases

scientificamerican.com

Vitamin D boosts calcium in the blood, which is important for coherent intercellular communication. However, if your calcium metabolism is off due to low magnesium/low vitamin K the extra calcium in your blood might deposit in the wrong places. Vitamin D is also interlinked with circadian rhythm signalling so the time you're exposed to it could potentially modify how it effects you.

It does a bunch of other things too. Like specific things. That can be and have been shown to be beneficial in the right contexts for the right people.

So what purpose do these kinds of articles serve?

This is disappointing in various ways. The piece starts off with mention that exposure to sunlight is the most recommended way to boost vitamin D levels, but then focuses exclusively on oral supplements. Then the recommendation against population wide testing mention none of the exceptions such as evidence of weak immune system function. Just because a pill is not a miracle cure does not mean there are no important health effects to investigate.

Anytime I see these vitamin D (negative) studies I am inclined to yawn and just assume we are trying to deflect attention from “stay inside and don’t get sunlight and try not to get sick” covid mandates.

We aren’t even scratching the surface of how contra-evidentiary the instructions to the general population (since elites didn’t follow them) were.

You are seeing Covid associations where none exist.

I guess I can be forgiven since society did that for 3 solid years or more.

Weren't the mandates to actually avoid being /indoors/ and amongst large groups of people? Personally, during lockdowns in the U.S is actually when I've spent the most amount of time outdoors and in the sun during my life, since there was not much else to do.

No. The mandates were to shelter in place. Stay indoors. Wear masks outside.

I’m just sticking to a high daily D dose. It’s cheap, there is no risk, and it seems to bother the medical press and tabloid science journalist alike.

Medicine is going to become more and more personal as we enter the age of AI. Vitamin D may be beneficial for certain individuals but may not show any significance in major populations. The same thing as diets, certain drugs, and other vitamins/minerals. What I find saddening is that certain researchers will jump straight into a RCT of vitamin D for upcoming diseases as if that will do anything of significance. There are some devout vitamin D followers out there just like there were with vitamin C. One of the biggest risks of vitamins is contamination similar to the tryptophan incident in the 90s. Nobody has to prove safety or efficacy to sell them although they are generally safe to use until some accident happens and they aren’t.

Please explain, outside of searching for population level patterns, AI will help here.

Population level statistics has lead to a large number of algorithms that have been proven wrong for medical conditions.

BMI, dietary cholesterol, vitamin D, etc...

Auto differentiation is an incredible tool, but I don't see how it will truly be a 'miracle' like vitamin D, which in hindsight is clearly over fitting combined with a correlation that wasn't acausal connection.

ML is extremely powerful, but not for individuals for the same reason statistics is great for populations but not individual.

This is the 'common sense' problem that both fields struggle with and need to correct for. Ethical problems with empirical testing in humans complicating the problem when applying ML or statistics to medical problems complicates that too.

Predictive analysis of Vitamin D deficiency & potential disease progression based on the individual.

Personalized intake recommendations.

Comprehensive health assessments from various health sources (labs, wearables, etc).

Monitoring vitamin trends through health assessments w/ time & overall wellness.

Reading and applying latest research/clinical trials to all the above.

Has the title changed or was this submission title editorialized?

The title that I see is "How Much Vitamin D Do You Need to Stay Healthy?".

Yes, it was editorialized to make it a more relevant one.

It's not more relevant.

Also, it's against the guidelines:

> please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

TLDR; Vitamin D pills are a poor substitute for sunlight.

Ten bucks says that Vitamin D is worthless, and only shows up as important because it correlates with sunlight, which turns out to be hugely important to health.

For example - our skin is constantly covered in bacteria and molds, surely sunlight impacts these.

It shows up as important because it means you're well enough to go outside and be active. In other words, it's mostly correlation. The question is: is _all_ of it correlation or is there actually something else there too?

There's definitely something else there because it's been shown to improve things for people at extreme latitudes during their respective winters. But supplements are probably not necessary for most people in regions where you can get at least some access to sunlight every few days.

So while there is a decent bit of established evidence from more extreme environments that Vitamin D is important, there's only now really been enough research covering whether a supplement is necessary for people who can source it through "normal" pathways.

Ehhhh Vitamin D is pretty important even if it isn't the cureall that some people believed. There's a reason why people stationed in Antarctica during the winter regularly take mega doses of vitamin D as directed by medical staff.

This seems like a strange example. Unless you're walking outside in the nude, only a small area of skin will get any direct exposure to sunlight.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com