Vit D assoc w better cognition in those w sleep disturb + mild cognitive impair

bbookofjoe about 4 hours ago 24 commentsRead Article on sciencedirect.com

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

56% Positive

Analyzed from 872 words in the discussion.

Discussion (24 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Aurornis•about 3 hours ago

Study was in an elderly cohort with cognitive impairment. This is a cohort more likely to have nutrition and diet problems and spend all of their time indoors. I haven’t found the full study but the results look marginal for a narrow group.

Then there’s this important note in the highlights:

> Higher daily Vitamin D intake may impact cognition in persons with sleep disturbance and MCI.

More is not better with Vitamin D. Correcting deficiencies is good but the mega dosing trend is not.

3eb7988a1663•about 1 hour ago

Don't go overboard, but you have quite a bit of margin for error. I am finding one claim that the upper maximum daily dose for Vitamin D is 4000 IU. A Costco daily multivitamin is 400 IU (most adults are recommended at 600 IU).

If you start supplementing with a traditional, OTC Vitamin D option, likely very low risk of complications.

phoronixrly•about 3 hours ago

I'd like to add that correcting deficiencies implies seeing a physician to get your dosage right. This is necessary both for Vitamin D and Melatonin.

If you're not a sedentary geriatric with MCI this study is probably not for you.

zulux•about 3 hours ago

Sadly, many people in northern areas who are otherwise healthy are vitamin D deficient. It can be a side effect of trying to protect from skin cancer.

phoronixrly•about 2 hours ago

I am not arguing against that. I argue that correcting this deficiency is not in the competence of people who are not medical professionals no matter how many articles they've read on the front page of HN about vit. D.

OutOfHere•about 3 hours ago

This guy will get you killed. It is reasonable to maintain a blood level of about 45 ng/mL. This often requires 5000 IU/day, perhaps less in seniors with weaker kidneys, or those with heavy sun exposure which is dangerous for other reasons. You don't need to see a doctor for this, but you do need to get the test done every year or two. Personally I prefer not involving a doctor for any of it.

Nobody disputes that excessive vitamin D is not good, but maintaining a blood level below 45 ng/ml also is not good. Covid studies had ascertained that a level of at least 50 ng/ml was optimal.

rfgplk•about 1 hour ago

> 5000 IU/day

Ironically these "IU/day" estimates are bogus. Direct ~noon sunlight at the equator for fair skinned individuals produces (full body exposure) 15-50k IU/hour of D3 equivalent, depending on the estimate. You clearly don't see people dropping dead after two hours in the sun.

GPT response For a fair-skinned adult, nude or essentially whole-body exposed, at solar noon near the equator under a clear sky, a reasonable order-of-magnitude estimate is:

Exposure Approx. D3-equivalent produced ~3 min ~2,500–6,000 IU ~5 min ~4,000–10,000 IU ~10 min ~8,000–20,000 IU ~10–15 min / ~1 MED ~10,000–25,000 IU >20–30 min does not keep increasing linearly

The best-known experimental anchor is that roughly one full-body minimal erythema dose (1 MED)—enough UV to cause faint redness later—is associated with a vitamin-D effect comparable to ingesting about 10,000–25,000 IU (250–625 µg) of vitamin D3. Reviews note that this estimate has also received support from outdoor solar-exposure studies, although the original experiments used artificial UV sources. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3257661/ study

Aurornis•about 2 hours ago

> This guy will get you killed

Yeah, no. Advising people to correct Vitamin D deficiencies but to avoid overdosing is correct.

I quoted the study. The study agrees that excessive Vitamin D consumption is not good.

AlawamiAZ•about 2 hours ago

Not an interventional RCT. This belongs to the useless pile of Vit D observational studies.

WalterGR•about 3 hours ago

The shortened title is incorrect: the “/“ should be “+”.

bookofjoe•about 2 hours ago

Fixed

OutOfHere•about 2 hours ago

All those professionals (scientists, doctors, etc.) who for decades told you not to supplement a good dose of vitamin D have been trying to get you killed. Often they work for big pharma or industry interests, and want to peddle million dollar medicines that don't even work right. They would have us live and die in ignorance. It's also no surprise that healthcare expenses are through the roof. Supplemental vitamin D is hurting the business of endocrinologists most of all.

rfgplk•about 1 hour ago

Too extreme of a take. They're ignorant at best. In fact after cholecalciferol/calcitriol and the whole vitamin D receptor family, ignorance of the importance of bacterial balance and mineral intake are the next two biggest categories.

phoronixrly•about 3 hours ago

Before you start self-medicating -- "participants had a mean age of 67.2±8.9" and this is a study focusing on people with mild cognitive impairment.

You should see a physician before attempting to treat your poor sleep with vitamin D or melatonin.

OutOfHere•about 2 hours ago

This guy is another murderer. You don't need to see a doctor to take vitamin D or melatonin, although you do need to empirically optimize the dose for what is both optimal and safe.

jimmaswell•about 3 hours ago

"Self-medicating" with a standard multivitamin is harmless at worst, and so is additional vitamin D supplementation if it's not in the extreme over a long period of time. It has a nonzero chance of helping, and it's a cheap and easy thing to throw into one's routine.

phoronixrly•about 3 hours ago

Spoken with such confidence! Are you a physician?

rfgplk•44 minutes ago

> Are you a physician?

This sentence spoken on an engineering forum is pure... idiocy. Physicians are nothing more than bio-engineers, and if you apply sufficient reasoning you'll see that there is very little functional difference between the human body and a computer program (monadic equivalence)

stevenhuang•about 1 hour ago

FYI most physicians would find parent's advice agreeable. My physician said as much.

It doesn't take much reading about a topic as contentious as vitamin d supplements to come to similar conclusions. Have you done any review at all of the relevant literature?

sublinear•about 2 hours ago

Why does every health topic on HN attract so much comment spam?

This was posted 2 hours ago, and right now it's the fearmongerers and pedants. I'm expecting the next wave of comments to be the promoters of bad supplement advice and personal blogs. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned peptides or whatever else yet. That's when you know the discussion has really gone to shit.

Nobody wants to honestly discuss vitamin deficiencies and their impact on quality of life? Most people do have deficiencies. Many of them have otherwise unexplained minor symptoms that are proven to be related to mental health. Vitamin D is at the top of the list. It's worth getting checked out in your routine bloodwork during a doctor visit.

The recommended amounts are what is optimal, but what is strictly necessary is usually far lower. That's why people aren't keeling over and why most of them don't care. Most people have suboptimal diets for a million tangential reasons not worth arguing about. Intake may not even be the problem if you have an undiagnosed endocrine or metabolic issue. Lots of people are prediabetic, drink too much, etc.

I don't think this short list of facts will help, but can we get back on track?