Should we be supplementing, or not?
As is often the case, the science is iffy. I’m taking 5000 IU of D3 daily (or at least when I remember to take anything). No idea if it’s helping, but I don’t generally spend a lot of time in the sun. In fact, I have a solar-powered watch whose battery occasionally runs down because I spend so much time in my office. So it seems likely that I’m somewhat deficient.
Seven years ago, my doctor recommended that I take 1000 IU of vitamin D a day, based on blood tests. I did for a while, but then stopped. Subsequently, I began a long period of time working at my computer, most of the day. My knees began to ache, and within three months I almost could not walk. The problem then subsided, only to return later. I went through several cycles of this over the years. It was the result of patellofemural syndrome, caused in my case by a buildup of calcium behind the kneecaps.
Last year, my neurologist did a comprehensive blood panel on me. The only problem was my vitamin D level. He put me on 15,000 IU of vitamin D (prescription!) every other day for three weeks. I noticed that every time I took a dose, the pain in my knees would subside greatly. When I went in to see my neurologist again, I told him this, and he said “Of course,” and then told me how the same thing began to happen to him in medical school. And early in the industrial era in England, he told me, the children who worked in mines would become crippled with rickets, all due to vitamin D deficiency.
I still take 1,000 IU a day, and though my knee problems won’t go away completely without some other intervention. It did, however, ward off the onset of arthritis in my left hand.
I wish I had listened to my first doctor.
I’m on the 5,000 IU of D3/day regimen too. The gelcaps are small and I just take them along with the rest of my daily pill intake in one gulp. At roughly three cents a day, it’s the cheapest thing I take too. Can’t say I’ve noticed any big difference in well-being, but it’s cheap insurance. And with millennia of North European ancestry along my genetic backtrail, I tend toward a vampire-esque existence here in sunny SoCal.
My wife and I take 5,000 i.u. per day. When we miss we notice a definite drop in energy, especially in the winter when we don’t get much sun here in the Pacific Northwet. (Spelling deliberate)
When I went to California it was pretty easy to find milk supplemented with Vitamin A and Vitamin D. It seemed to be enough for me.
Few years ago there was this Vitamin E craze. Take megadoses of E for the anti-oxident an dother benefits. It was a craze. Everyone was doing it.
I procrastinated.
Finally I went for my yearly physical one year and asked the doctor if I should be taking lots of extra E.
He laughed – that fad has come and gone 😉
Getting enough vitamins is important. Too many may not be so good. I’ve also heard that your system flushes out any A thru D that you don’t use.
I take a little extra D3 but I’ll probably procrastinate on the big dose.
There was also a study a few years ago that said that people who take multi-vitamins tend to have shorter lifespans than those who don’t. One possible explanation that was offered was that cancers love vitamins, and will take as much as you give them to grow as rapidly as they can. That seemed a reasonable inference to me. Not proof, but enough to make me leery of doing something just to be doing it.
As I have gotten older, and people I know start dying off, they seem more often than not to be the last ones I expected to die young. They were the most fit. They exercised sometimes religiously. And, they took supplements.
I don’t know. I’d say, if you see a benefit from taking D, then by all means, do so. I just don’t want to be a lab rat. I’ll take my chances with what I was given when I came into the world.
Bart,
I, too, am leery of megadoses of anything. I’m no doctor but I would think the body needs a reasonable level of a pile of things and if you get those reasonable levels most people will be fine.
Back in 1983, I took a vitamin E pill. The effect was larger than taking three caffeine pills at once, and I really thought I was going to die. I didn’t take another one for several years, but that one had no effect. I don’t take vitamin E, or as many of the “antioxidants” as I can avoid.
Vitamin D3 is also often prescribed to people who are being treated for depression. Feeling mentally refreshed after a bit of sightseeing and hiking might have more to do than with the fresh air and the scenery. Maybe getting some much needed sunlight and subsequent vitamin D production is beneficial mental health as well.