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.

Worse in northern hemisphere

.. since pollution decreases sunlight penetration, whereas down south we have cleaner air and a lovely big ozone hole.

Re:Worse in northern hemisphere

There are also fewer roads in the Southern Hemisphere, so less accidents with lorries at night.

Particularly over the Pacific Ocean.

UVB CPF anyone?

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.

Re:UVB CPF anyone?

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.

You cold blooded insensitive clod!

Re:UVB CPF anyone?

You cold blooded insensitive clod!

That would be clod-blooded, I guess.

Re:UVB CPF anyone?

You insensitive cold!

Clearly wrong

If this were true, then Vampires would die young. But they're immortal. Thus this theory holds no water.

I should like, totally do science for a living.

that's the beauty of the natural world

scientists try to scare us about global warming, but nature has a way to balance things out, we don't have to do anything to fight global warming:

with hotter temperatures, vampires get more sun, thus dying off. with less vampires to prey on pirates, pirate numbers explode, thus lowering global temperatures [venganza.org]. with global temperatures down, vampires get less sun, rebound in population, and begin keeping piurate populations in check again

see the beauty and wonder of the natural world?

Re:Clearly wrong

This may shock you:

vampires are dead!

This just in...

you should live a healthy life if you don't want to die early.

Careful with too much Vit D

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.

Whassat?

Sun...light?

Now you're just making stuff up!

I used to believe you, Slashdot. But now you're all 'sun' this, and 'outside' that, like all those other nutbags! Screw you guys! Go ahead, go outside, see if I care! Maybe you'll get eaten by one of those 'wild animal' things you people are always going on about. Like a..uh..what was it...beer? Bar? Oh, right... A bear! Maybe you'll get eaten by a bear! It'd serve you right!

This post was brought to you by the latter hours of a horrible caffeine bender which failed to see anything accomplished. Enjoy!

Re:Oh no!

We'll all going to die!

Scream a bit louder, then someone walking past the basement might hear you and let you out.

Re:Sunlight

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?

Re:Sunlight

Cancer is only one potential risk. The sun worshipers I've known still are wrinkled way beyond their years.

Re:Sunlight

60 thousand years of human existence can't be discounted overnight.

60 thousand years of short lifespans and high mortality rates.

Re:Sunlight

I am not sure about 60thousand years - I studied once history of my family and got back to the end of 18th century. The records in this particular part of Europe end or should I say start then.

What I saw is that my grand grand born in XVIII century got married second time and had a kid in late 80ties of his life. He was a simple farm worker. The life span of others were similar. It changed when the area they lived got industrialized - life span of working men went down to 40 around end of XIX and beginning of XX century. It recovers significantly afterwards sign of reaction to bad working conditions (sick worker = not efficient worker). I suppose this varied a lot from place to place and time to time so talking about short lifespan and high mortality rates is not entirely correct.

Re:Sunlight

I think for every generation the mortality rate turns out to be about 100%...

Re:Sunlight

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.

Re:Sunlight

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.

Re:Sunlight

sever sunburns

I didn't realise it was possible to get such severe sunburn that your limbs fell off. Ouch.

Re:Milk as subsitute?

Only if you're Gisele Bundchen and pour it all over yourself.

Crash course in Vitamin D

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.

Re:In other news:

Seriously, you only have to go to northern sweden/norway to see this in action. You'll find a combination of zombies and nutcases!

OK wise guy... now explain California!

Re:Bullshit

Going out an hour a day is enough to produce enough vitamin D.

But we don't wants to, Master. It burnss us. Don't make uss go away from preciouss...

*huggles his monitor*