Higher- than-recommended doses of Vitamin D reduced risk of atrial fibrillation

https://www.uef.fi/en/article/taking-higher-than-recommended-doses-of-vitamin-d-for-five-years-reduced-the-risk-of-atrial

by CharlesW • 3 years ago

108 29 3 years ago

uef.fi

koboll• 3 years ago

Will results from Finland, which sits at a rather extreme latitude, generalize to the rest of the world?

adrian_b• 3 years ago

They should generalize to people who stay most of the time indoors, regardless of latitude.

TaupeRanger3• 3 years ago

This is one of those terrible studies that looks at every disease under the sun and inevitably something comes back with a positive association (even though it's probably just statistical noise) and they publish that single result. Take it with a huge grain of salt.

Looking at their other study using this same data, they found an INCREASE in major cardiovascular events among people with lower-than-average BMI with Vit D supplementation which was statistically significant: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/115/5/1300/6496028

In other words: if an HN reader clicks on this thread and has the question "should I take Vitamin D?", the answer is: no one knows, and this study likely can't inform your decision.

nabla93• 3 years ago

You write like they have some agenda to promote vitamin D3.

Instead, they publish both negative and positive results related to things they were interested in from the start. They find how things are.

The Finnish Vitamin D Trial (FIND) is very large randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 5-year supplementation study of the benefits and risks of vitamin D in the primary prevention of cardiovascular (CVD) and cancer among 18000 men 60 years or older and women 65 years or older. https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01463813

TaupeRanger3• 3 years ago

They don't find how things "are", they do the typical useless epidemiological study which I described and find spurious connections in statistical noise. This is why nutrition epidemiology is largely a failed science - it can't actually tell us anything useful: https://metarationality.com/nutrition

thisismyswamp• 3 years ago

They definitely have an incentive to publish results people will care about, as any other researcher that is part of an academic environment.

bsder• 3 years ago

Green jellybeans and all that: https://xkcd.com/882/

If you don't prepublish what you are specifically looking for, you can eventually find something that will match.

mg• 3 years ago

In most countries, the officially suggested intake of Vitamin D per day is 800 IU.

There is a study that showed that running around naked in the sun for 30 minutes is equivalent to taking 15000 IU:

https://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/9/3495.long

Considering that our ancestors were doing that for more than 30 minutes per day, I wouldn't be surprised if the suggested amount of Vitamin D intake will increase in the coming years.

class4behavior2• 3 years ago

In most countries

You claim this based on what data?

kurthr• 3 years ago

It's the same 20-25ug daily for adults in all the major western sources: EFSA, NIH, NHS, Mayo, Harvard. Yes, there are recent studies (2020s) suggesting it should be higher and likely the RDA will rise, but you should really be taking vit K with it for proper utilization.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-d/

kevin_thibedeau• 3 years ago

The catch is that your body wont overproduce if you already have sufficient levels. Supplementing when you don't need it is a bad idea.

semerda• 3 years ago

Step 1. VD3 blood test is a must to determine whether one is deficient. If you work indoors all day there is a high chance you are deficient. Your GP can help you boost it up using 70K IU prescription VD3.

Step 2. Then maintenance. This is all a trial and error and more blood tests. 800 IU / the national recommendation is a joke. Dr. Fauci takes 6,000 IU each day. (see FOIA docs with his email saying what he takes).

I work in tech and take 10 IU each day and have maintained a ~ 60 ng/mL.

Anything over 50 ng/mL shows benefits in fighting respiratory viruses and keeping mortality close to zero. ref: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34684596/#&gid=article-figur...

senectus1• 3 years ago

Is the difference not, that when your body generates it in the sun it'll stop when its got enough. where as when you ingest it you're force feeding yourself the vitamin..?

atombender• 3 years ago

The current, very low RDA of 400-800 IU is based on a statistical error in the analysis done by the Institute of Medicine back in the 1960s; see "The Big Vitamin D Mistake" [1].

Finnish researchers have determined that the previously recommended serum concentration of 50 nmol/L should probably be adjusted much higher, probably closer to 100 nmol/L, at the very least to 70 nmol/L. For adults, especially those living in the higher latitudes, that requires around 8,000-10,000 IU per day.

Nobody has done more research on vitamin D than the Finns. Back when the low RDA was adopted (pretty much worldwide), Finland saw an increasing rate of rickets and type 1 diabetes. After they started fortifying milk with vitamin D in the early 2000s, rates have fallen significantly.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541280/

LAC-Tech• 3 years ago

It occurs to me that I'm probably not getting enough vitamin D.

First off I work indoors and it rains a lot here, so there's not a lot of outside time.

And even when it is sunny and I get out - I live below the hole in the ozone layer and I'm fair skinned. Meaning I cover up a lot to avoid skin cancer.

Think I'll get this checked out.

thenerdhead• 3 years ago

Definitely worth checking out. I went from 20ng/ml to 50ng/ml within a year and noticed some mood stability and energy increases. Your mileage may vary.

For what it is worth, I live in Texas and get plenty of sun each day(30+ minutes) but for some reason not enough showing on blood work.

lumb63• 3 years ago

It’s possible you’re not getting enough precursors to allow for sunlight to greatly increase vitamin D production. How much fat do you eat in a day? Skin tone is an additional factor as well.

Also, an aside, it’s humorous to me that you describe 30+ minutes a day as “plenty of sun”. By todays standards, definitely. But the natural state of humankind is “however many minutes there is sun” worth of sun per day.

zuuuuuh• 3 years ago

Possible to get hypercalcemia from too much and hypercalcemia is not fun at all, speaking from experience.

anjel• 3 years ago

Same

alejohausner• 3 years ago

Hypercalcemia is extremely rare, and is linked to hyperparathyroidism. The association between hypercalcemia and vitamin D is vastly overstated.

Our ancestors in Africa got hours of sun exposure, and synthesized tens of thousands of IUs daily. How they managed to survive to reproductive age without getting hypercalcemia is a miracle! In fact, the very existence of our species proves that God exists. Given the dangers of hypercalcemia, that has to be the only explanation.

Higher- than-recommended doses of Vitamin D reduced risk of atrial fibrillation

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