"The New Super Nutrient!"

[elfs]

Unblinking unirony.

There's something special about seeing this little, unblinking claim that "Vitamin D is the New Super Supplement." It's on a rack of milk jugs at the local grocery store, reminding people not that milk is a healthy food to be drunk in moderation, like all foods, but that the media and opportunistic marketers once again take a scientific result out of context, hype it to the extreme and feed it to us as gospel.

We've known about vitamin D for years. Want to handle your vitamin D deficiency? Go outside. I don't care if it's cold. The vitamin D metabolic pathways are so goddamned weird they're a sure sign the Intelligent Designer was drunk as a skunk when he came up with them, and supplements are a poor substitute for sunlight. It's pretty damned amazing when a site that hypes supplements tells you "Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body." (The same article informs you that sunblock causes diseases such as prostate cancer by depriving you of Vitamin D.)

Amazing because it's all bunkum. Reynold Spector's article, Science and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutrition Research and Practice, documents what we do and don't know about human nutrition and the simple fact is: we know squat. Spector concludes:

The answer, notwithstanding thousands of positive EOS (epidemiology/observation studies) and, in some cases, small inadequate clinical trials, is there is no rigorous scientific evidence for the utility of dietary supplements, including megavitamins in normal-weight (nonpregnant) adults with a stable BMI of 20-25 eating a diet containing adequate amounts of nutrients.

He goes on to state that there are known RDAs for some vitamins, such as B-12 and D, that you will need to supplement when you get past age 60, but for most of us, just going outside and eating well is enough.

The photograph documents a cynical attempt to sell more milk, but you'd need ten glasses a day to replace whan sunlight can do in 20 minutes. Just go outside already.

Comments

[mauraanderson.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately being on a course of medication that leaves me sun-sensitive, a family history of skin cancer and a great case of rosacea leaves me drinking milk and taking supplements.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Yup, what this person said. 20 minutes of sun a day is detrimental to my health and contraindicated based on other conditions. Not to mention there is frequently not enough sun here in the winter to be reliable.

I have to have my D levels monitored by my doctor, and yes, I have to take supplements. Interestingly enough, I had a number of chronic health problems improve once my D deficiency started being treated.

I appreciate what you're saying, Elf, and I agree that for most people, especially living in the lower US, sun exposure is enough. But not for everyone.

[(Anonymous)]

Well there are always conditions which make exceptions for just about everything.

That said amusingly I heard there was a study claiming there was a health risk involved in excessive dairy consumption. Not sure whether it was accurate or taken out of context, I also know that one study doesn't constitute proof.

Amen!

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

People look at me wierd at work when I head out to the smoker's nook.

It has a bus-stop heater for the winter months, we get a stiff breeze on that side of the building during summer months, but it's on the side of the building that gets the morning through noon-time sun, and I work midnight to noon.

I tromp my arse out there, sit up on the tabletop in the sun in a bastardization of the lotus pose, set my alarm on my phone for 15 minutes, and pass the heck out every day in short sleeves while facing into the sun.

And people think I'm crazy. =^.^=

Re: Amen!

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I wish we had something like that at work. I have to totally bundle up to go out and bask in the winter sun here in MN, and for about a quarter to a third of the winter it's a moot point because of the danger of frostbite on exposed skin. I used to go sit in the sun in front of the only window on the south side of the building that didn't have polarizing film on it but since IT moved into that space my basking spot has gone away. :-(

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

Of course, that 20 minutes/day depends on where you live and your skin tone. A person with dark skin and/or in high latitudes requires more sunlight than a person with light skin and/or in low latitudes. Dark skin in high latitudes is the worst combination for producing vitamin D (which, indeed, is why most high-latitude peoples were light-skinned, the Inuit being an exception due to their high consumption of vitamin D-rich fish)

[jenk]

Yes...Boston is far enough north that one can go months (Nov-Feb) without getting any vitamin D from sunlight.

Seattle is at a higher latitude than Boston. ;)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[urox.livejournal.com]

One thing to be careful of is that you *can* overdose on supplemental vitamin D but not naturally occurring vitamin D.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[jenk]

Speaking as someone with a diagnosed deficiency in vitamin D, "drink some milk" doesn't cut it as a solution.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

DAMMIT! LJ just ate my comment. And it was a long one.


I don't wanna retype it. So, in brief: heard an interview with a physician researching vitamin-D deficiency. He described correlations between too little vitamin-D4 and several things, including immune function. Pointed out that correlation!=causation. Also pointed out that, over the past 50 years, the people of the industrialized nations are getting less and less direct sunlight.

His recommendations were: Get Outside and do stuff, for at least 1 hour, each day. Doesn't need to be 1 hour all at once. The activity's good for you, anyhow. Just get 1 hour overall of direct sunlight. If you can't, take a vitamin-D4 supplement (1000-2000 units), and eat a handful of nuts (almonds, walnuts, or similar) or sunflower seeds for their magnesium contents. (Those nuts are good for you in other ways besides.)

I'm going to give it a try, to see if it helps with all of my winter colds. But I'd agree (as would this doctor I heard) to beware of quackery cure-all claims.

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

Yeah, although some supplements work in some cases for some of us. I know I have a problem with magensium even with a "normal" diet, so I was force feeding myself some nuts every few days just to keep up. However, it's started to be a problem - I'm actually sick of the nuts again, almost all of them.

*sigh*

Thankfully I found a decent magnesium supplement that isn't just magnesium oxide, so for the last month I haven't had to eat the nuts. The lack of back pain seems to prove that it's being digested, so I hope that I can start balancing the nuts with the pills soon.

Stupid digestion.

Oh, and milk? I just happen to like milk a lot. So what if there's Vitamin D in it, I drink it because it's milk. Mmmm, milk.