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Comment by draugadrotten | Hacker News Reader

Agree. Vitamin D supplements may be healthy for people living north of New York.

http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_weller_could_the_sun_be_goo...

I remember reading that about half of people in Miami were deficient in vitamin D. It makes some intuitive sense if you consider that our bodies evolved in conditions that made us exposed to sun quite a bit more than even people living in sunny places, in good part because we spend so much time inside buildings (A/C helps) and with clothes on.

There's also a difference between not being deficient in vitamin D, and having the optimal amount of vitamin D available. People tend to confuse the two, as if as soon as you aren't deficient you can't possibly improve on that.

Systemic inflammation stops vitamin D synthesis or utilization, and a large fraction of the US population is inflamed due to lousy diet. You could be taking tons of vitamin D and getting daily midday sun and still measure deficient if you're living on cola and potato chips.

I agree. I got relatives living in Florida. They spend most of their time in air conditioned environments. Their idea of "going out" is taking a walk in a mall or mega-store (Wal-Mart, Sam's Club). I once gave an uncle some Vitamin D3 with some magnesium citrate. He got better sleep. Wasn't even interested in how that worked.

> I once gave an uncle some Vitamin D3 with some magnesium citrate. He got better sleep.

Assuming anything meaningful happened there, that was almost certainly the magnesium. Magnesium is linked with sleep improvements (actually, literally today a Google Alerts told me about such an experiment: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703169/ ).

(Vitamin D, on the other hand, probably not so much since it sounds like you gave it to him in the evening, where, at least for me, vitamin D screws up my sleep http://www.gwern.net/Zeo#vitamin-d-at-night-hurts .)

When I first started taking vitamin D (I was deficient), I noticed sleeping better immediately, and I'm not normally the type to notice this kind of thing. After googling it, I've seen a lot of people reporting the same. That's interesting about magnesium though, I'll have to look into that.

Your site is amazing by the way.

> When I first started taking vitamin D (I was deficient), I noticed sleeping better immediately,

When were you taking it?

Any thoughts on Vitamin D3 being re-classified (by some) as a hormone? http://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/09/donald-w-miller-jr-md/con...

It's always been a steroid hormone, has it not? I didn't realize there was any controversy about that. Personally, I don't care if it's a "black cat or white cat, as long as it catches rats".

Usually in the morning, occasionally at lunch if I didn't remember it until then.

So that's consistent with my two self-experiments, then.

Take magnesium citrate instead of the cheapo magnesium oxide. The magnesium oxide is useless. The magnesium citrate works. It's suppose to de-calcify the pineal gland and allow proper melatonin production. You can google all of this since I'm just a stranger on the Net.

Using some vitamin D calculators, I've found that the limiting factor is generally not amount of sunlight, but clothing. During summerish months, If you wear a tank top and shorts, a fair-skinned person can produce all the vitamin D you need in any of the lower forty-eight within thirty minutes.

multiple sclerosis is more prevalent in areas with less sun (basically in the north, since not many people live at low southern latitudes).

i have ms and vitamin d is suspected to be important in reducing the chance of suffering from that disease (it's an immunomodulator - has some connection with your immune system - and ms is basically your immune system attacking your own nerves). other risk factors include being a woman, and having had glandular fever or chickenpox (or both). i am prescribed quite high doses (about double what i see as recommended for supplements). i understand that, along with the medication i take, it helps reduce further outbreaks.

i found it kind of weird that this kind of knowledge is still ongoing research. seems like the kind of thing people would have worked out by now.

anyway, consider getting a little sun each day (according to http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/vitamin-D-sunl... you don't need long), and maybe a supplement in winter, if you're in the north.

The epidemiology of MS is incredibly interesting. There's three groups of people with low rates of MS:

1) People born in northern latitude areas (europe, USA), who then move at a young age close to the equator.

2) People who live their whole lives in an area close to the equator

3) People who were born and raised in areas close to the equator then moved to northern latitudes in adulthood.

Compare to people who are more suspectible to MS:

1) People are born in areas close to the equator then move at an early age to northern latitudes

2) People who live their whole lives in northern latitudes

3) People who live their childhood in northern latitudes then move to the equator.

So there is a correlation between growing up, regardless of what happens in adulthood, near the equator (maybe from Vit D dosage) and having a lower risk for MS. Cool stuff.

I understood that dietary Vitamin D isn't well absorbed and is of limited benefit in high quantities - It's far better to get daily sunlight, even in Northern climes.

Disclaimer: not able to watch the video

Vitamin D is well absorbed if you take it in gelcap form, as it's fat soluble. Many people take it from "dry" tablets and that's why it's not well absorbed.

This can be verified with blood tests.

Having a substance in your blood doesn't imply that your body is benefiting from it, or even using it.

No, but it's better than not having it even get to your blood, especially if you test for the bio-available compound in the blood.

Northern climes don't get enough sun.

Vitamin D supplements (at normal daily doses) are recommended.

This is especially important for pregnant women and children under 5. Also for people with limited access to sun ('cultural dress' for example.)

Somali women are dressed in all-over black covers, and as a consequence, there is even something called "the Swedish disease" among Somali immigrants to Scandinavia. It's autism and there is a suspected link with vitamin D deficiency.

http://www.thelocal.se/32862/20110328/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-a...

It shouldn't be a problem if you have enough vitamin K in your diet: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/03/2...

Sunlight comes with increased cancer risks so even if it's more efficient and cheaper than D it's not nessisarily better. Also, studies have demonstrated that eskimos get significant quantities do D from there diet so diet can work.

I met a doctor recovering from a very bad breast cancer. Her opinion, for what it's worth, was "get lots of sun, and inspect for skin cancers - they are easy."

you can balance both. the amount of sun you need is quite limited, apparently. see http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Summerhealth/Pages/vitamin-D-sunl...

15 min, 3 times a week is enough to give you all the D you need. Not nearly enough sun to worry about skin cancer.

Vitamin D is critical to health and should be called something else, not a vitamin.

BTW, as you get older, your body loses the ability to convert sunlight to Vitamin D. Of course no one who reads HN would have this issue :-)

All vitamins are crucial to health.

But less crucial than a normal diet. I mean a diet consisting of a little piece of meat with fat bought on the market, cooked at home with some fresh vegetables, etc. Etc.

What? I don't understand what you mean. What do you mean by "vitamins"?

That little bit of meat and vegetables will contain vitamins.

Those vitamins are a crucial part of a normal diet.

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