[PLUG-TALK] Vitamin D and Depression

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:37:12 -0700
Keith Lofstrom <keithl at gate.kl-ic.com> dijo:

>My wife the doctor says that low Vitamin D is associated with
>depression (and worse). 

If you add supplemental vitamin D get the D-3 type, and take it in the
morning.

Best to get tested, although adding a reasonable amount is pretty
unlikely to be a problem. The normal range is 30 - 80 mg/dL (or
something per something, I forget and I'm too lazy to look it up). 

When I was tested a couple years ago I was at 29. It was late summer
and I was sitting in the doctor's office in shorts and a t-shirt and
open sandals. That's my normal attire for hiking, which I do for two
hours every day, weather permitting. In other words, I had massive
exposure to UV-B, but was still low. According to Wikipedia 100 IU per
day should raise you 1 point. I started taking 5,000 IU a day. A couple
months later I was retested and had gone up only to 40. My (admittedly
quasi-scientific) opinion is that I am probably not absorbing it well. 

Last winter there was a young woman in my class at PSU from Saudi
Arabia. For religious reasons she covers every part of her body except
her eyes. Her doctor had her on 50,000 IU a day in order to keep her
level in the normal range.

The point I am trying to make is that there is no "one dosage fits
all." Skin color, age, and the body's ability to absorb it vary from one
person to the next.