The Cancer Society recently issued a sweeping recommendation that people take 1,000 IU of vitamin D every day to prevent certain types of cancer. This recommendation is interesting, because it was worded much more definitively than the usual cancer announcements. I did some research, and it seems that the vitamin D will almost certainly not hurt (apparently you'd need 40,000 IU a day to overdose), so I actually started doing it myself because it's so easy and they seem so certain it will help.
But what if vitamin D doesn't help at all? What if it's just a massive placebo?
It's easy to convince people that they don't get enough vitamin D, what with living and working indoors and wearing clothes. Plus taking vitamin D is easy enough - the pills are small and inexpensive (I paid like $7 for 250 doses). It's not difficult or a major lifestyle adjustment, like quitting smoking or getting an hour of cardio a day or eating 12 servings of leafy green vegetables. I just have to pop one tiny pill in the morning with my birth control and my multi, and, voila, I've prevented cancer.
So what if they just had a big strokey-beard meeting, identified the supplement that would make the easiest and most convincing placebo, and launched a massive campaign to convince people that if they take this one supplement, they won't get cancer? And then maybe cancer rates will drop because of the placebo effect?
3 comments:
The 1000iu/daily Vitamin D3 is indeed a conspiracy.
The level of Vitamin d status associated with the lowest cancer incidence is 130nmol/L. 52ng/ml
The average UK citizen has a status around 60nmol/L and each 400iu raises status between 7-12nmol/L so the average UK adult needs more than 2000iu to keep them free from cancer.
So the cancer promotion people are keeping themselves in business by making sure we don't get anywhere near the levels of Vitamin d sufficiency that keep us free from cance.
Risk Assessment For Vitamin D shows us that up to 10,000iu/daily is perfectly safe so you can be sure there is evil afoot when folks try to persuade you that 1000iu/d is all you really need.
If you needed to spend $4000 daily would paying $1000 into you bank account keep you solvent?
Google "Human serum 25-hydroxycholecalciferol response to extended oral dosing with cholecalciferol"and tell me how many iu your body uses daily?
that's quite an answer there from mr hutchinson.
what's the motive behind the conspiracy, i wonder.
That's all teetering on the far limits of my ability to critically analyze science. I never took science past high school and never took bio at all (and fumbled my way through OAC chem without actually groking it). The one big question I see is what about regular daily intake from diet and environment, but apart from that I can't actually confirm any credibility or lack thereof.
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