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Lack of Sunlight Could Lead To Early Death
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Members of this community may want to venture out of the basement more often, because Dr. Harald Dobnig and his team have found that vitamin D deficiency leads to increased mortality. These results still hold when they take into account such factors as exercise and heart disease. Low vitamin D status has 'other significant negative effects in terms of incidence of cancer, stroke, sudden cardiac death and death of heart failure,' Dr. Dobnig said. The evidence of ill effects from low vitamin D 'is just becoming overwhelming at this point.' Vitamin D3 is usually produced by exposure to the UV-B in sunlight, but in high latitudes, especially in the fall and winter, insufficient UV-B gets through the atmosphere to produce enough vitamin D3, even with hours of exposure. The researchers are recommending that people at risk for deficiency take 800 IU of vitamin D3 daily. Just don't go overboard — as a fat-soluble vitamin, D3 is more capable of causing adverse effects at unnaturally high dosages. The human body tops out at producing about 10,000 IU per day." According to the Wikipedia entry linked above, the D2 (ergocalciferol) version -- available as a vegan product -- works approximately as well to supply humans with their needed vitamin D.
This is EASY, people. It's not like they don't sell UVB 2% up to 10% daylight CPF screw in light bulbs at any decent pet store that carries reptiles.
Actually all the studies that address "too much" involved sever sunburns in teen years.
There is no peer reviewed study that suggests normal exposure to sun imposes a high mortality.
Yet the press, over-reacting as usual, have scared people out of the sun and created a sunscreen industry overnight by failing to actually read the studies that were done.
Cancer rates caused by sun exposure only show significant rise in direct relation to bad burns. Avoid the bad burns and you are fine.
60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight.
Go out and play. Get a tan. Drink some coffee. Have some beer with those salty chips. Lets see, did I forget any of the other discredited cancer scares?
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Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.
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Low levels of vitamin D have been implicated in the susceptibility and severity of attack in patients who have auto-immune diseases. Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis are two of the diseases that seem to show a link. Coversely, patients suffering from Sarcoidosis ( another auto-immune disease ) where the body produces too much vitamin D, may benefit from staying out of the sun and cutting vitamin D out of their diet.
The problem with saying "60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight" is that life expectancy has greatly increased in recent centuries. Maybe skin cancer didn't matter back when you died in your 30's or 40's. Also, you can get your vitamin D from supplements. Not to mention the exposure of even 5 minutes in the sun per day matches the minimum vitamin D requirements to remain healthy. There is no need to go sunbake for hours on end, or not slip-slop-slap.
Disclaimer: IAAJD (I am a junior doctor) but this is NOT medical advice. Please consult your physician for your specific situation.
Vitamin D supplements come in two forms: ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol. Studies suggest that cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) increases serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH-D) more efficiently than does ergocalciferol (vitamin D2). Milk in the United States has been fortified with vitamin D3 (the natural form made through sunlight) since the 1940. This was mandated and reduced the incidence rate of juvenile rickets by 85% in the United States.
Calcitriol is the most active metabolite of vitamin D. It can frequently cause hypercalcemia and/or hypercalciuria, necessitating close monitoring and adjustment of calcium intake and calcitriol dose. Therefore, it isn't recommended that calcitriol be given for vitamin D supplementation in osteoporosis. However, calcitriol or other vitamin D analogs are an important component of therapy for secondary hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease.
Now to the meat and potatoes of this post. The intake at which the dose of vitamin D becomes toxic is not clear. In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences defined the Safe Upper Limit for vitamin D as 2000 IU/day. Newer data however indicate that higher doses are safe at least over a several-month period. Doses as high as 10,000 IU per day for up to five months were not associated with toxicity. It is important to inquire about additional dietary supplements (some of which contain vitamin D) that patients may be taking before prescribing extra vitamin D. Excessive vitamin D, especially combined with calcium supplementation may cause hypercalcemia, hypercalciuria, and kidney stones.
So be careful and only take the amounts listed on your supplement bottles and inquire with your doctor before starting anything. We have a mentality here in the United States that more is better. When it comes to the human body moderation is key.
As a side note, I also don't really understand the significance of Vitamin D's fat solubility making it any more or less dangerous in higher dosages.
Vitamin D is produced by the skin in response to certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light, and as such is not a true vitamin (since vitamins are substances we can't naturally produce -- it's a hormone). Vitamin D is also found in certain fats (e.g. cod-liver oil).
This basic form of Vitamin D gets processed by the liver into an second form (25-hydroxyvitamin D3), and then by the kidneys into the active form 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, which tells your body how much calcium to draw out of your food. If you don't have enough calcium in your diet, but enough Vitamin D, the body can even draw the calcium out of your bones. Calcium is also required for the correct transmission of brain signals, so too little vitamin D can also lead to seizures.
To veer back to the OP's question: whether the synthetic vitamin D additive to milk products (as opposed to the vitamin D we used to create in foods in the 1920's and 1930's using mecury lamp ultraviolet radiation) is Vitamin D or Vitamin D3 is pretty much irrelevant for our body, but I believe it is the latter, yes.
Aside: Did you know we can cure cancer with Vitamin D? Sadly, the dosis required is lethal to humans... they're working on it.
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Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that the problem with lipophilic substances is that they can lead to poisoning easier because they tend to accumulate in the fatty tissues of the body and cannot be excreted easily; an excess of water soluble vitamins on the other hand would be flushed out the next time you urinate. :)
Disclaimer: I'm not even a little bit of a doctor, so this might be completely wrong or misremembered...
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There was a study which said that Cancer will be disease of the future. Not because we are doing something to encourage cancer, but because other causes are being defeated. In olden times people used to die of typhoid, cholera etc., at a younger age. Cancer rarely got a foothold. Now with people living to 70s or 80s easily diseases like cancer are becoming more noticeable.
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Don't fall for the error in statistics that cause human lifespans to seem short before modern times -- average lifespans were short because of massive infant mortality, not because people who survived to be adults didn't live to old ages.
There's no evidence to suggest people died earlier 5,000 or 50,000 years ago -- and there's strong counter evidence for that during historical periods of the last 3-5k years.
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The best way is to look at the median lifespan - the age to which 50% of people reached or to look at life expectancy at age 20. Life expectancy at 20 didn't reach the 60's till the last century. There were certainly some lucky people who survived to age 70 or 80, but that was the exception rather than the rule. However the biggest gains in life expectancy in the modern era weren't because of level 1 trauma centers and ICUs. The big improvements were due to things like public sanitation, improved nutrition, vaccinations, refrigeration, and simple prenatal and antenatal care.
There's no evidence to suggest people died earlier 5,000 or 50,000 years ago -- and there's strong counter evidence for that during historical periods of the last 3-5k years. Um. No. The life expectancy at birth in the Bronze age, Upper Paleolithic, and Neolithic was all 33 years or less. If you assume a 30% infant mortality it still doesn't average out to approach modern life expectancy. And until the early 20th century, the average life expectancy at birth didn't cross 40. That's not even cutting edge research, that's textbook/encyclopedia data. However if you have some citations supporting your argument, please provide them..
Hobbes was right: life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish and short".
Just go outside for 10 minutes every day. It's not that bad.
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