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Posted by cachecrab 2 days ago

Vitamin D reduces incidence and duration of colds in those with low levels(ijmpr.in)
332 points | 226 commentspage 3
zemvpferreira 2 days ago|
Heliotherapy is well-due for a resurgence. One of my favourite youtubers (conquer aging or die trying) has a great interview with a medical doctor about sunlight as a medical intervention. Well worth the watch:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8UE6cJaWQ

dlcarrier 1 day ago|
That's Doctor Roger Seheult, MD, who hosts videos for continuing education provider MedCram (https://www.medcram.com/). They post lots of free videos on their YouTUbe channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG-iSMVtWbbwDDXgXXypARQ) and several of them cover the research behind heliotherapy.
pewpewp 1 day ago||
Interesting how your government did not mention Vitamin D during the COVID scare.
oldestofsports 1 day ago||
Breaking news! Water proven to clench thirst among those who are thirsty!
AbstractH24 2 days ago||
Newsflash: When you are sick, addressing comorbid conditions helps you get better faster.
InsideOutSanta 1 day ago|
Yeah, this is a crucial point. This is studying "adults with suboptimal baseline." If you have a vitamin deficiency and get sick, I would expect supplementation with that vitamin to provide some relief, regardless of which vitamin it is.

This does not mean that the same will happen for people who did not have a deficiency.

Having said that, there is good evidence that Vitamin D deficiency is widespread, and supplementation of Vitamin D is relatively safe unless you take excessive amounts.

mberning 1 day ago||
In the US it is very easy to test your vitamin D levels. I recently had mine done and was just below normal range. Started supplementing and will test again in 6 months.
lostdog 1 day ago||
I take 10k IU of vitamin D if I feel a cold coming on. I used to get extremely bad colds very frequently, and every time I get frustrated and read whatever research might be helpful. A year ago I came across some info about LL-37, and found that vitamin D might help, and that's when I started taking it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9134243/

The big dose of D seems to help. I'm certain I'm deficient, since I already take 2-4k daily, which noticeably helpsy winter blues. It's the first time I can "arrest" a cold, and even if I get sick the symptoms aren't nearly as bad.

My full protocol for if I start feeling a cold is this:

1. 10k vitamin D 2. Stay extremely warm when I sleep. Uncomfortably warm. 3. Butyrate (probably a placebo) 4. Curcumin (almost certainly a placebo).

turtlebro 1 day ago|
Take like 2g of Vitamin C. It's a lot stronger. Vitamin D is good too, but if anything you want to take C.
canadiantim 1 day ago||
I wonder why we didn’t recommend vitamin D during Covid?
Supermancho 1 day ago||
There were a few soft recommendations. Specifically I remember an ER doctor in 2019 saying vitamin D seemed to be a differentiator in the sample of cases he was seeing in the ER (everyone was starting to panic) and the CDC walking it back as unsubstantiated. I mentioned it at work, then 10 days later my boss's boss asked me where I had heard it, because he had heard the same thing.

There have been a number of people on HN who have attributed any measurable COVID benefit of Vitamin D, to a confounding variable, as recently as 3 months ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44705486 The Big Vitamin D Mistake

dlcarrier 1 day ago|||
One of the best treatments is interferon. It's something you will also produce yourself, with therapeutic effect, if exposited to sunlight or the infrared light used in red light therapy. Here's a video about it, from a continuing education provider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRkxH56LqCo

Vitamin D therapy doesn't have such an effect.

stronglikedan 1 day ago||
Because the right people couldn't make money off of it - same reason that a lot of beneficial treatments were not recommended or flat out defamed.
croes 1 day ago||
So a vitamin deficit is bad for your health.

Shocker.

Mistletoe 1 day ago||
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/09/17/...
lisbbb 1 day ago|
What about the article that that talks about Vitamin D being the same chemical as rat poison and that the positive effects it has on our bodies may be due to the fact that we are low-level poisoning ourselves with it?

"Vitamin D3, also known as cholecalciferol, is used as a rodenticide because it is highly toxic to rodents when ingested in sufficient quantities. It functions by causing a life-threatening elevation in blood calcium and phosphorus levels, leading to severe acute kidney failure"

"Despite its use in rodenticides, vitamin D3 is safe for humans and pets when consumed in normal dietary or supplement doses. However, extremely high doses of vitamin D3 can be toxic to humans as well, potentially leading to hypercalcemia, kidney stones, and renal failure. The difference in susceptibility between rodents and humans is significant; rodents are much more sensitive to the effects of cholecalciferol, which is why it is effective as a rodenticide."

The theory is that we are just poisoning ourselves by taking it and that our bodies react to being poisoned with the positive effects that are well documented and observed.

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