Lack of Sunlight Could Lead To Early Death 304
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.
Sunlight (Score:3, Interesting)
Milk as subsitute? (Score:3, Interesting)
Makes sense (Score:2, Interesting)
If your vitamin D level gets down during winter and you catch a rainy summer, you're doomed!
Re:Sunlight (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sunlight (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Worse in northern hemisphere (Score:2, Interesting)
...so we either go out into the big blue room to avoid dying sooner, but risk getting cancer that could kill us too. I for one would rather bath in the cool non-skin roasting rays of my flat panel monitor and just increase my intake of once a day vitamins!
Re:Crash course in Vitamin D (Score:5, Interesting)
I started taking fish oil (containing both vitamin A and D -- they work together) and immediately reduced my pain levels. Since then I have tried a combination of mostly synthetic D + fish oil (did not work as well, yet got the symptoms of over consumption) and eventually found the lowest level that took away all pain -- about 1,500 IU per day or about double what the article suggests.
In addition to the risk factor we geeks share for being outside less than average, vitamin D absorption declines with age and the average slashgeek seems to be in their forties or fifties.
Increasing my intake of vitamin D has saved my life, and especially the quality of my life. Frankly, I'm surprised the medical profession let this information out.
And now back to the vampire and sunburn jokes...
Re:Sunlight (Score:2, Interesting)
Before a few hundred years ago almost everyone was outside all the time. This gave your skin a chance to slowly tan at the end of winter and into spring ready for the summer. My little sister who's fair like me starts to get a tan in March even though she lives in Wales (cloudy and wet weather). She spends most of her free time surfing, while I'm in front of my computer with no tan at all.
The mistake we make now is spending hours outside on the sunniest days in mid summer without being outside all day in the cooler months. The worst thing you could do is go to sunnier climes and spend a week in the sun like so many western holiday makers. Sunburn = skin damage.
Excess Vitamin C can be peed out, Vitamin D *not*. (Score:4, Interesting)
The hydrophilic substances will happily circulate in the blood stream and excess will be flushed out by the kidneys. That's why, when you read closely the composition of most vitamin supplements, they advertise quantities as stupidly excessive as 3'000% the daily recommendation or Vitamin C (which is hydrophilic). Most of the excess will simply get peed out.
Lipophilic substances, if not handled properly (binds to blood transporter - like albumin or substance specific transporter - and processed in liver - which will convert them into soluble substances) tend to accumulate wherever there's fat :
skin, nerves, CNS, also in organs : inside the liver, inside the kidney (but get stuck in the basal membrane instead of getting flushed out), etc...
The fact that Vitamin D seem to be tolerated at high concentration despite being rather hydrophobic is probably due to the fact that this is a naturally occurring substance and the body has ways to deal with it anyway.
Sunscreen increases cancer risk (Score:3, Interesting)
At first I heard that "sunscreen increases cancer risk" from an unreliabel source (but it was on the internet, so it had to be true!) but I then did my own searches.
Indeed it seems that there is a /slight/ correlation between sunscreen use. There is no solid explanation as of yet, but there are two basic theories:
So it seems sunscreen is at best called a "sunburn inhibitor" as that is all it really does. Current recommendations are to limit exposure, wear hats, and develop a tan without sunscreen and without burning.
But there is one thing for sure: use sunglasses. UV light speeds cataract formation. Cataracts are a normal part of the aging process, so if you live long enough you'll get them. But you can slow the development with UV protective glasses.
sunlight MEANS death where i live (Score:3, Interesting)
in antalya, mediterranean coast, southwestern turkey, it gets 40 degrees celsius in shadow, and 99% humid in the summer.
Re:UVB CPF anyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
would that actually work? genuinely wondering.
It's a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is why you need to drink your milk, children.
Re:Worse in northern hemisphere (Score:5, Interesting)
Most multivitamins do not provide sufficient vitamin D. Heck many calcium and vitamin D supplements do not provide enough, ie. oscal D only provides 500mg calcium and 200 IU vitamin D.
As a physician, I suggest anyone that is not regularly outside take Calcium 600mg with vitamin D 400 IU twice daily. Taking 800 IU of vitamin D daily is the minimum needed to maintain a healthy level without sun exposure. Up to 2000 IU a day is thought to be safe. vitamin D3 is actually superior to D2, although anything is better than not enough. In the winter, I take Caltrate D twice a day (actually I take the generic version from Kroger which is much cheaper but has vitamin D3).
There are some dietary sources of vitamin D but most Americans fall far short of consuming enough to make up for no sun exposure so these recommendations should always be adjusted according to diet and amount of sun exposure.
Re:Lifespan (Score:3, Interesting)
You forget one important thing for men - war. Men tended to get sent to wars, which at least evened out the mortality with women and childbirth.
Similarly, since myopia is a hereditary trait, why do you think it wasn't passed down to all of us yet? People that couldn't see got their head bashed in.
How is that different from today?