Comments on Emotions for Engineers: Is Vitamin D a Silver Bullet?

Hi Donovan, thanks for the feedback on this. ...

2010-02-20T00:01:35.947-08:00
Hi Donovan, thanks for the feedback on this.

I take between 4000 and 8000 iu per day of Vitamin D in the winter. I think it helps. I had a cold earlier this winter, and I had one coming on this week, but I upped my dosage to 10-20,000 and think I headed it off.

I agree on the tests, it is confusing, In fact, my doctor originally prescribed the wrong one. I called and got it changed before I wasted time money and effort on that.

When my wife went to get hers, I checked to make sure that they had prescribed the right one and in fact I blogged about it on e4e a few months back.

Thanks again for you feedback.

Regards,
e4e

I found your post interesting. I must point out th...

2010-02-19T18:33:31.076-08:00
I found your post interesting. I must point out that your D serum count of 52 is right at the "magic number" cited in so many studies, especially those from the fields of cardiology and cancer research.
People who were below 52 ng/ml had cardio events/cancer and disease more often than those above 52 ng/ml. For this reason many experts are recommending you serums be maintained at 60 to 100 ng/ml.
You should also consider the fact that your serum was at this level during optimum UVB levels. This means that you are most likely dipping into deficient levels during the winter. This cycle is the reason that so many men have heart attacks in the winter - heart attacks in general peak in the winter, along with colds, flu and decrease in spermatogenesis.
(I'm not a doc, btw).
Thanks.
PS - are you sure your serum test is a result of the proper test? (25 hydroxy and not 1,25 vitamin d test that is so often given and is incorrect for reading D levels - there are 3 ways to test D and only one is correct in the context of the current research. The numbers sighted for serum levels are referring to 25 hydroxy levels. Many docs/labs are still getting this wrong.

My wife keeps telling me that my next career s...

2009-08-07T10:05:13.912-07:00
My wife keeps telling me that my next career should be public health. That might be fun...

BTW, I had my Vitamin D levels tested and it came in at 52 ng/ml. Unfortunately it was in June, rather than a lower point like March. But it is a data point.

e4e

One of these days (when I'm rich and have noth...

2009-08-07T07:33:06.990-07:00
One of these days (when I'm rich and have nothing but time for this sort of stuff) I want to do a Bayesian study of the correlation/causation thing. It will be interesting to see if you have enough correlations (e.g. from various different diseases to Vitamin D) if you can every build a case for causation.

Thanks Dave. There are so many studies out the...

2009-08-05T10:23:36.594-07:00
Thanks Dave. There are so many studies out there that demonstrate such strong correlations. That's a really interesting video.

Correlation is not causation, but it all makes so much sense.

There is a lot of energy around this. We'll see if somehow they can more formally establish causation on this...

e4e

Your experience with Vitamin D and a cold has been...

2009-08-05T07:46:33.331-07:00
Your experience with Vitamin D and a cold has been replicated by myself several times, along with other family members. And of course you can find thousands of similar anecdotes on the web. It makes perfect sense, as Vitamin D helps regulate the immune system cells that attack the cold. When you're deficient, they attack your own cells as well. Vitamin D also upregulates your body's own production of antibiotics.

The Vitamin D/cancer connection is gaining momentum. Here's a great video on the DINOMIT model:

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16941

Yes!! I scooped the Washington Post. http://w...

2009-05-12T18:37:00.000-07:00
Yes!! I scooped the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051102099.html?wpisrc=newsletter