You raise two issues here. One is about vitamin D, and the other is about trust.
Regarding vitamin D, there is an optimal dose for general population health that lies somewhere in between “toxically deficient” and “toxically high.” The range from the high hundreds to around 10,000 appears to be well within that safe zone. The open question is not whether 10,000 IUs is potentially toxic—it clearly is not—but whether, among doses in the safe range, a lower dose can be taken to achieve the same health benefits.
One thing to understand is that in the outdoor lifestyle we evolved for, we’d be getting 80% of our vitamin D from sunlight and 20% through food. In our modern indoor lifestyles, we are starving ourselves for vitamin D.
“Supplement a bit lightly is safer than over-supplementing” is only a meaningful statement if you can define the dose that constitutes “a bit lightly” and the dose that is “over-supplementing.” Beyond these points, we’d have “dangerously low” and “dangerously high” levels.
To assume that 600 IU is “a bit lightly” rather than “dangerously low” is a perfect example of begging the question.
On the issue of trust, you could just as easily say “so you don’t trust these papers, why do you trust your doctor or the government?”
The key issue at hand is that in the absence of expert consensus, non-experts have to come up with their own way of deciding who to trust.
In my opinion, there are three key reasons to prefer a study of the evidence to the RDA in this particular case:
The RDA hasn’t been revisited in almost a decade, even simply to reaffirm it. This is despite ongoing research in an important area of study that may have links to our current global pandemic. That’s strong evidence to me that the current guidance is as it is for reasons other than active engagement by policy-makers with the current state of vitamin D research.
The statistical error identified in these papers is easy for me to understand. The fact that it hasn’t received an official response, nor a peer-reviewed scientific criticism, further undermines the credibility of the current RDA.
The rationale for the need for 10,000 IU/day vitamin D supplements makes more sense to me than the rationale for being concerned about the potential toxic effects of that level of supplementation.
However, I have started an email conversation with the author of The Big Vitamin D Mistake, and have emailed the authors of the original paper identifying the statistical error it cites, to try and understand the research climate further.
I want to know why it is difficult to achieve a scientific consensus on these questions. Everybody has access to the same evidence, and reasonable people ought to be able to find a consensus view on what it means. Instead, the author of the paper described to me a polarized climate in that field. I am trying to check with other researchers he cites about whether his characterization is accurate.
You raise two issues here. One is about vitamin D, and the other is about trust.
Regarding vitamin D, there is an optimal dose for general population health that lies somewhere in between “toxically deficient” and “toxically high.” The range from the high hundreds to around 10,000 appears to be well within that safe zone. The open question is not whether 10,000 IUs is potentially toxic—it clearly is not—but whether, among doses in the safe range, a lower dose can be taken to achieve the same health benefits.
One thing to understand is that in the outdoor lifestyle we evolved for, we’d be getting 80% of our vitamin D from sunlight and 20% through food. In our modern indoor lifestyles, we are starving ourselves for vitamin D.
“Supplement a bit lightly is safer than over-supplementing” is only a meaningful statement if you can define the dose that constitutes “a bit lightly” and the dose that is “over-supplementing.” Beyond these points, we’d have “dangerously low” and “dangerously high” levels.
To assume that 600 IU is “a bit lightly” rather than “dangerously low” is a perfect example of begging the question.
On the issue of trust, you could just as easily say “so you don’t trust these papers, why do you trust your doctor or the government?”
The key issue at hand is that in the absence of expert consensus, non-experts have to come up with their own way of deciding who to trust.
In my opinion, there are three key reasons to prefer a study of the evidence to the RDA in this particular case:
The RDA hasn’t been revisited in almost a decade, even simply to reaffirm it. This is despite ongoing research in an important area of study that may have links to our current global pandemic. That’s strong evidence to me that the current guidance is as it is for reasons other than active engagement by policy-makers with the current state of vitamin D research.
The statistical error identified in these papers is easy for me to understand. The fact that it hasn’t received an official response, nor a peer-reviewed scientific criticism, further undermines the credibility of the current RDA.
The rationale for the need for 10,000 IU/day vitamin D supplements makes more sense to me than the rationale for being concerned about the potential toxic effects of that level of supplementation.
However, I have started an email conversation with the author of The Big Vitamin D Mistake, and have emailed the authors of the original paper identifying the statistical error it cites, to try and understand the research climate further.
I want to know why it is difficult to achieve a scientific consensus on these questions. Everybody has access to the same evidence, and reasonable people ought to be able to find a consensus view on what it means. Instead, the author of the paper described to me a polarized climate in that field. I am trying to check with other researchers he cites about whether his characterization is accurate.