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nkozyra • yesterday at 6:58 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

They're talking about vitamin D, which accumulates due to being fat soluble and is indeed toxic at a certain level[1]

It became something of a panacea nutrient, recently around COVID.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_toxicity


Replies

mhurron • yesterday at 7:28 PM

Your own link shows that what is considered toxic levels are far higher than most people would expect. Vitamin D toxicity is not that easy to accidentally hit.

Overdose has been observed at 1,925 μg/d (77,000 IU per day). Acute overdose requires between 15,000 μg/d (600,000 IU per day) and 42,000 μg/d (1,680,000 IU per day) over several days to months.

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nomel • yesterday at 7:06 PM

And, if you drink a glass of carrot juice a day, you'll receive toxic levels of vitamin A!

~40% of people don't get enough vitamin D [1]. It's not useful to categorize it as some trend, based on people just not following general recommended dosing (with more precise dosing depending entirely on personal sun exposure and skin color).

edit: As an office worker, I take 10k IU per day when I'm entirely indoors (most of the time), but vary it based on sun exposure. I based this on recent studies, and have my doctors approval with an exactly center-of-the-nominal-range vitamin D serum level.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9573946/

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kenhwang • yesterday at 7:09 PM

My doctor added vitamin D test to his patients recurring blood work since the start of COVID, and found out just about all his patients was deficient or near it.

If you don't have a primarily fish based diet or spend hours under direct overhead sunlight every day without a shirt on, you're probably deficient as well.

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drop_star • yesterday at 7:03 PM

I've also heard about it 'hardening' in the bloodstream and that you should really be taking it with K2 as well. This is anecdotal so someone please do more research than basing anything from this comment

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