Most people naturally have good vitamin D levels. Overhyped claims that the compound helps to fight diseases from cancer to depression aren’t borne out by recent research

For a while vitamin D was looking like a bona fide health elixir. It was recognized a century ago as the cure for rickets, a childhood disease that causes weak and deformed bones. Then, in the early 2000s, researchers began amassing a pile of studies suggesting that low vitamin D levels could be a factor in cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, fractures, respiratory illnesses and Parkinson’s disease. It seemed reasonable to think that raising our levels of this simple vitamin—one that our bodies make when lit up by sunshine and that we can get more of from supplements—could cure practically whatever ailed us.

Then the bottom fell out. Although thousands of studies had linked low levels of vitamin D to an assortment of medical conditions, when scientists tried administering it as a means to prevent or treat those problems, the wonder supplement failed miserably. The notion that our lives would be better if we all just raised our vitamin D levels began to look like a fantasy. The idea that vitamin D deficiency was widespread also crumbled. It turned out that notions of what constitutes a deficiency were based on a dubious understanding to begin with. National population sampling showed that most people were already getting enough of the vitamin.

There’s no question that vitamin D plays an important role in health. It helps your body absorb and retain calcium and phosphorus; both are critical for building bone. But except for a few subsets of the population (such as breastfed infants and people with particular medical conditions), most people probably don’t need supplements.

  • @[email protected]
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    111 months ago

    How interesting. How quickly would doctors start to argue against extra vitamin D I wonder

    • Ghostface
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      -811 months ago

      Vitamin D is stored in the fat, you can’t really take too much.

      A friend needed to take 50k iu’s one a week for being low in the vitamin a while ago

      • @[email protected]
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        1311 months ago

        You absolutely CAN take too much, and it being fat soluble is part of the reason for that. Water soluble vitamins just give you expensive pee when you take too much.

        The good news is that you really have to try to overdose. Like, roughly entire bottle of vitamin D, every day, for more than one month.