A bunch of QS people have observed that the timing of vitamin D supplements matters a great deal.
Matters for what?
Your links say that the timing of vitamin D intake affects sleep. Fine, but that’s not really what most people take vitamin D for. There is a variety of claims for vitamin D supplements which generally have to do with bone health, viral infections, CVD, etc. I don’t want to get into evidence for and against these claims, but are you saying that the timing of vitamin D affects these outcomes?
Looking at it in the most general fashion, the overall claim is that taking vitamin D supplements affect mortality. Crudely, you live longer. That may or may not be so, but do you think that timing of vitamin D ingestion would affect that? What evidence do you have? Sleep disturbance is a time-local short-term effect, it isn’t obvious to me that it indicates problems with long-term consequences.
I do claim that the medical establishment is stupid for assuming that it’s in the blood level.
Why? “Stupid” is a strong word. If your hypothesis is that timing matters but the blood level doesn’t matter, what’s the underlying biochemical mechanism? Is there any evidence that the right time in the circadian cycle is crucial?
Also, if you are taking vitamin D supplements wouldn’t you be interested in your blood level? How would you know how much of vitamin D do you need?
If your hypothesis is that timing matters but the blood level doesn’t matter, what’s the underlying biochemical mechanism? Is there any evidence that the right time in the circadian cycle is crucial?
I see evidence that both matter to sleep. It seems that the blood level of vitamin D is linked to excessive daytime sleepiness. (Warning: the authors of this paper overfit the data, so you can ignore their conclusions about race and very low vit. D levels, but their data does show a negative correlation between serum vitamin D levels and excessive daytime sleepiness.)
My own serum vitamin D level was pretty low, but since supplementation, it has increased appreciably to within the normal range. So far, I don’t think it has had an effect on my daytime sleepiness, but I have not been keeping track of the appropriate factors, so take what you will.
It also seems that taking vitamin D at night seems to disrupt sleep for some individuals. My experience suggests taking vitamin D at night has no effect, but (as before) I have no hard data to justify this. It is possible that the sleep disruption only applies to those who have adequate blood levels of vitamin D. The explanation that I have seen (which I can’t find right now) is that vitamin D influences your circadian drive as sunlight would because your body synthesizes it from sunlight; taking vitamin D is like getting “concentrated sunlight”. I’ll agree with ChristianKI, though, that no mechanism needs to be identified to validate an observation.
For other things (i.e., not sleep), I haven’t seen any evidence of timing effects.
It seems that the blood level of vitamin D is linked to excessive daytime sleepiness. (Warning: the authors of this paper overfit the data, so you can ignore their conclusions about race and very low vit. D levels, but their data does show a negative correlation between serum vitamin D levels and excessive daytime sleepiness.)
I haven’t read the paper, just looked at their plots, and my impression is that there is nothing there but noise.
It also seems that taking vitamin D at night seems to disrupt sleep for some individuals.
We have anecdata, but have there been actual studies?
And speaking of timing of vitamin D supplementation, it is well-known that the absorption of it varies, in particularly depending on whether you take it with fats (in your food) or not. That would have to be controlled for in any experiments designed to figure out timing effects.
I haven’t read the paper, just looked at their plots, and my impression is that there is nothing there but noise.
That may be true. The correlation is at best weak. There appears to not necessarily be a causative link between vit. D and daytime sleepiness; increasing my vit. D levels had no perceptible effect on my own sleepiness. Though others have had different experiences.
We have anecdata, but have there been actual studies?
I have not seen any studies into that. The closest that I’ve seen is gwern’s tests.
Sleep disturbance is a time-local short-term effect, it isn’t obvious to me that it indicates problems with long-term consequences.
Why do you think humans sleep at all if sleep disturbance has no long term effects? I think it’s fairly straightforward to think that humans do undergo processes that further health during restful sleep. After quick Googling http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19961/ is a study that says so.
Your links say that the timing of vitamin D intake affects sleep. Fine, but that’s not really what most people take vitamin D for. There is a variety of claims for vitamin D supplements which generally have to do with bone health, viral infections, CVD, etc.
Bone health might be just about Vitamin D’s role in calcium absorption.
From the paper I linked above:
Sleep Loss Is Associated with Cardiovascular Morbidity
Sleep loss and sleep complaints are associated with heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and perhaps stroke, according to several large epidemiological studies
I can’t find talk about viral infections on that page but I would assume that you can also make a case that a sleep deprived individual is at higher risk for them.
Why? “Stupid” is a strong word.
Investing tens of millions in experiments based on a hypothesis that you don’t really test is stupid. To use the words of Feynman you could also say cargo cult science with Feynman used to describe the rat psychology experiments of his time.
If your hypothesis is that timing matters but the blood level doesn’t matter, what’s the underlying biochemical mechanism?
When I say blood level I mean the level you measure when you give a individual a blood test every month and make a study based on that data. I don’t mean the level you would get if you measure every minute.
But I don’t need to point to a biochemical mechanism to validate an empirical observation. Currently drugs get often designed based on an idea that you want to target a biochemical mechanism but when they do work, the work in mysterious ways that aren’t exactly the way the people who designed the drug would have thought beforehand. Of course most of those drugs fail anyway.
It’s much better to focus on things that produce empiric effects than going to deeply into theory.
But as far as vitamin D goes, there plenty of evidence that it can work as a hormone. It also a hormone that gets naturally produced at specific times as the sun usually shines at specific times of the day and not at night.
How would you know how much of vitamin D do you need?
The empirical method. You can take different amount of vitamin D and see the effect on yourself. That means you have either good awareness of your own body, QS tools or both.
Coming to your own judgments instead of trying to follow what some authoritative doctor or doctrine tells you is what Kant described in his day’s as his ideal of enlightenment. The way is real empiricism. Paying attention to real world feedback.
Investing tens of millions in experiments based on a hypothesis that you don’t really test is stupid.
The hypothesis being tested is that the blood level of vitamin D is relevant for the outcomes. You think they should test another hypothesis but that doesn’t mean the original researchers are stupid.
The empirical method. You can take different amount of vitamin D and see the effect on yourself.
If I am interested in the effect of vitamin D on overall mortality, it’s kinda difficult to “see the effect on [my]self”.
Coming to your own judgments instead of trying to follow what some authoritative doctor or doctrine tells you is what Kant described in his day’s as his ideal of enlightenment.
Yes, but you’re confused between blindly following authority and looking at data from people other than yourself.
The hypothesis being tested is that the blood level of vitamin D is relevant for the outcomes. You think they should test another hypothesis but that doesn’t mean the original researchers are stupid.
I didn’t call individuals stupid but I spoke about the practice they follow. I also don’t call 18st century scientists stupid even when a lot of their mental models were stupid from the perspective of knowing what I know today.
In this case, before you spend a lot of money on a long term mortality study it’s better to run a few smaller studies to gauge whether variables such as the timing have an effect.
If I am interested in the effect of vitamin D on overall mortality, it’s kinda difficult to “see the effect on [my]self”.
Until the VITAL study get’s completed it’s also impossible to get that data elsewhere directly. Just that you don’t misunderstand myself, I don’t oppose that fact that the VITAL study get’s run. It’s better value for money than many other things nutrition academics fund.
I mean at the moment we have the situation that we do have a meta review that says that we can expect to gain two years of life expectancy via daily 2000 UI vitamin D supplements.
We have other academics that are less optimistic. But nearly nobody claims that taking 2000 UI vitamin D is really dangerous. Academics have different opinions on whether you should take vitamin D supplements.
Additionally you don’t lose anything as an individual if you take your vitamin D in the morning because of anecdotal evidence. Even if the timing doesn’t matter you still get the benefit.
Yes, but you’re confused between blindly following authority and looking at data from people other than yourself.
I never said that one shouldn’t look at data from people other than yourself. I said you shouldn’t simply copy their way of modeling the problem. Even when it comes to something like hypnosis/NLP I’m perfectly willing to read academic papers and try to understand the empirical observations that they made. I might not agree with the interpretation but I’m not one to turn down good data.
There no good data at all for the claim that taking blood vitamin measurements and changing the amount of vitamin D supplements that you consume based on that data does anything for you that’s better than just taking 2000UI (or 5000UI). That not something that they studied as far as I knowledge is concerned.
Kant was explicit in his papers that one shouldn’t use his doctor has authority for one’s health to override your own self determination.
Matters for what?
Your links say that the timing of vitamin D intake affects sleep. Fine, but that’s not really what most people take vitamin D for. There is a variety of claims for vitamin D supplements which generally have to do with bone health, viral infections, CVD, etc. I don’t want to get into evidence for and against these claims, but are you saying that the timing of vitamin D affects these outcomes?
Looking at it in the most general fashion, the overall claim is that taking vitamin D supplements affect mortality. Crudely, you live longer. That may or may not be so, but do you think that timing of vitamin D ingestion would affect that? What evidence do you have? Sleep disturbance is a time-local short-term effect, it isn’t obvious to me that it indicates problems with long-term consequences.
Why? “Stupid” is a strong word. If your hypothesis is that timing matters but the blood level doesn’t matter, what’s the underlying biochemical mechanism? Is there any evidence that the right time in the circadian cycle is crucial?
Also, if you are taking vitamin D supplements wouldn’t you be interested in your blood level? How would you know how much of vitamin D do you need?
I see evidence that both matter to sleep. It seems that the blood level of vitamin D is linked to excessive daytime sleepiness. (Warning: the authors of this paper overfit the data, so you can ignore their conclusions about race and very low vit. D levels, but their data does show a negative correlation between serum vitamin D levels and excessive daytime sleepiness.)
My own serum vitamin D level was pretty low, but since supplementation, it has increased appreciably to within the normal range. So far, I don’t think it has had an effect on my daytime sleepiness, but I have not been keeping track of the appropriate factors, so take what you will.
It also seems that taking vitamin D at night seems to disrupt sleep for some individuals. My experience suggests taking vitamin D at night has no effect, but (as before) I have no hard data to justify this. It is possible that the sleep disruption only applies to those who have adequate blood levels of vitamin D. The explanation that I have seen (which I can’t find right now) is that vitamin D influences your circadian drive as sunlight would because your body synthesizes it from sunlight; taking vitamin D is like getting “concentrated sunlight”. I’ll agree with ChristianKI, though, that no mechanism needs to be identified to validate an observation.
For other things (i.e., not sleep), I haven’t seen any evidence of timing effects.
I haven’t read the paper, just looked at their plots, and my impression is that there is nothing there but noise.
We have anecdata, but have there been actual studies?
And speaking of timing of vitamin D supplementation, it is well-known that the absorption of it varies, in particularly depending on whether you take it with fats (in your food) or not. That would have to be controlled for in any experiments designed to figure out timing effects.
That may be true. The correlation is at best weak. There appears to not necessarily be a causative link between vit. D and daytime sleepiness; increasing my vit. D levels had no perceptible effect on my own sleepiness. Though others have had different experiences.
I have not seen any studies into that. The closest that I’ve seen is gwern’s tests.
Why do you think humans sleep at all if sleep disturbance has no long term effects? I think it’s fairly straightforward to think that humans do undergo processes that further health during restful sleep. After quick Googling http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19961/ is a study that says so.
Bone health might be just about Vitamin D’s role in calcium absorption.
From the paper I linked above:
I can’t find talk about viral infections on that page but I would assume that you can also make a case that a sleep deprived individual is at higher risk for them.
Investing tens of millions in experiments based on a hypothesis that you don’t really test is stupid. To use the words of Feynman you could also say cargo cult science with Feynman used to describe the rat psychology experiments of his time.
When I say blood level I mean the level you measure when you give a individual a blood test every month and make a study based on that data. I don’t mean the level you would get if you measure every minute.
But I don’t need to point to a biochemical mechanism to validate an empirical observation. Currently drugs get often designed based on an idea that you want to target a biochemical mechanism but when they do work, the work in mysterious ways that aren’t exactly the way the people who designed the drug would have thought beforehand. Of course most of those drugs fail anyway. It’s much better to focus on things that produce empiric effects than going to deeply into theory.
But as far as vitamin D goes, there plenty of evidence that it can work as a hormone. It also a hormone that gets naturally produced at specific times as the sun usually shines at specific times of the day and not at night.
The empirical method. You can take different amount of vitamin D and see the effect on yourself. That means you have either good awareness of your own body, QS tools or both.
Coming to your own judgments instead of trying to follow what some authoritative doctor or doctrine tells you is what Kant described in his day’s as his ideal of enlightenment. The way is real empiricism. Paying attention to real world feedback.
The hypothesis being tested is that the blood level of vitamin D is relevant for the outcomes. You think they should test another hypothesis but that doesn’t mean the original researchers are stupid.
If I am interested in the effect of vitamin D on overall mortality, it’s kinda difficult to “see the effect on [my]self”.
Yes, but you’re confused between blindly following authority and looking at data from people other than yourself.
I didn’t call individuals stupid but I spoke about the practice they follow. I also don’t call 18st century scientists stupid even when a lot of their mental models were stupid from the perspective of knowing what I know today.
In this case, before you spend a lot of money on a long term mortality study it’s better to run a few smaller studies to gauge whether variables such as the timing have an effect.
Until the VITAL study get’s completed it’s also impossible to get that data elsewhere directly. Just that you don’t misunderstand myself, I don’t oppose that fact that the VITAL study get’s run. It’s better value for money than many other things nutrition academics fund.
I mean at the moment we have the situation that we do have a meta review that says that we can expect to gain two years of life expectancy via daily 2000 UI vitamin D supplements.
We have other academics that are less optimistic. But nearly nobody claims that taking 2000 UI vitamin D is really dangerous. Academics have different opinions on whether you should take vitamin D supplements.
Additionally you don’t lose anything as an individual if you take your vitamin D in the morning because of anecdotal evidence. Even if the timing doesn’t matter you still get the benefit.
I never said that one shouldn’t look at data from people other than yourself. I said you shouldn’t simply copy their way of modeling the problem. Even when it comes to something like hypnosis/NLP I’m perfectly willing to read academic papers and try to understand the empirical observations that they made. I might not agree with the interpretation but I’m not one to turn down good data.
There no good data at all for the claim that taking blood vitamin measurements and changing the amount of vitamin D supplements that you consume based on that data does anything for you that’s better than just taking 2000UI (or 5000UI). That not something that they studied as far as I knowledge is concerned.
Kant was explicit in his papers that one shouldn’t use his doctor has authority for one’s health to override your own self determination.