[ml_more]

I'm fascinated by Vitamin D and it's effect on the immune system. Particularly the association between deficiency and increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. We put together a tool that scrapes semantic scholar, summarizes and key word extracts and then maps keywords in relation to each other. We chose that topic as one of our sample dashboards.

https://summit.groundedai.company/vitamin-d/

One weird thing I noticed was that Vitamin D supplementation, while it improves outcomes in terms of cancer, does not seem to improve risk of cardiovascular disease. Maybe it's just that people who get sufficient Vitamin D from sunlight are more likely to get outdoors and exercise ;-) But it made me wonder if there's some additional benefit of sun exposure, some vitamin we haven't discovered yet.

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It's not too weird if you think about it. Vitamin D boosts calcium serum levels in the blood. There are other factors, like adequate vitamin K, that prevent that calcium from precipitating on artery walls as plaque. So if someone's calcium metabolism is leading to calcification, vitamin D alone could accelerate that.

But incidentally, that's one of several reasons vitamin D is thought to protect from bad covid outcomes: in studies, people with higher blood calcium levels were also shown to do better. Other electrolytes were also positively correlated with better covid outcomes as well.

Aside from raising calcium serum levels vitamin D also directly modulates genes involved in the regulating angiotensin-renin system, including ACE-2.

The third thing, vitamin D is involved in circadian rhythm signaling. Good sleep is important for overall well-being! Especially if you're sick.

There are lots of papers and books about this stuff yet for some reason people still doubt that adequate vitamin D is important.

The real atrocity of it is that some people with more melanin in their skin store less vitamin D, since more melanin means their skin can make it quicker in the presence of sunlight. But in regions where there's less sunlight, these people aren't keeping around as much vitamin D. I'm convinced this is one reason for disparity in COVID outcomes and it really bothers me that the early studies and theory papers about the vitamin D / calcium / COVID connection got so ignored in the face of blatant racial disparities in COVID outcomes.

Vitamin D3 + K2 had huge potential to save lives, and people who knew what they were talking about advocated for this early on. I'm still frustrated that it took so long to catch on.

[eemmiillyy]

Vitamin D also requires magnesium to metabolize. Magnesium is very important for heart health so that might also contribute to the lack of positive effect of Vitamin D on heart disease

[snapplebobapple]

It's not that surprising when you consider the major effects are usually co-dependent on another variable (i.e. K2), or small over shorter time periods. I just take my 5k iu of d3 and what would be considered a megadose of k complex and keep my head down and my arteries relatively clear.

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I realized I forgot to mention one more thing, vitamin D modulates certain relevant cytokine levels too, if I'm remembering right!

[anonuser123456]

I don’t have the source, but on a podcast I listened to recently I recall the guest discussing that vitamin D is just one byproduct of sun exposure, and that the correlation between endogenous D levels and cancer/CV health is a function of the other related molecules produced due to sun exposure.

[reducesuffering]

Nitric oxide being another big one.

[rapjr9]

This researcher does think sunlight exposure does more than manufacture vitamin D:

https://theconversation.com/secret-to-health-benefits-of-sun...

[FullMetalBitch]

Vitamin D is incredible, from time to time my mind starts the day with negative thoughts and if I take a Vitamin D suplement they go away, I feel happier, act happier and have more energy to start my day.