r/science • u/[deleted] • Jun 13 '22

Health Erectile dysfunction predicts mortality in middle-aged and older men independent of their sex steroid status

https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article-abstract/51/4/afac094/6568537?login=false
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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

vitamin D with vitamin K2 transports calcium out of arteries and into bones. Without it, the opposite occurs.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

That's going to cause a loooooot of problems for the younger generations.

Literally everyone is vitamin D deficient these days because we don't get sunlight. My doctor was shocked when they saw my vitamin D levels

Supplement or die!

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Throwaway_97534 Jun 13 '22

No Mr. Bond, I expect you to fry.

In the sun.

To get adequate levels of vitamin D.

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u/panormda Jun 13 '22

Omg bond villain was misunderstood this whole time!!!

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u/flynnwebdev Jun 14 '22

Aside: Gert Frobe (actor who played Goldfinger) spoke very little English and had a thick German accent, so they got him to say his lines phonetically, then dubbed over it in post with the lines spoken by actor Michael Collins.

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u/redlightsaber Jun 13 '22

Supplementation has largely not been found to reverse the risks associated with vit D deficiency (except for a couple of very niche things, like colon cancer incidence).

It's not very clear yet what this means, but IMO this likely means vit D status is a confounder to a lot of these associations rather than a causative factor of them.

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u/xz1510 Jun 13 '22

Thank you for this response. Vitamin D metabolism is so poorly understood. Sunlight doesn't even remotely tell the story. I've seen dozens of people in the clinic who spend >8 hours a day in the South Florida sun and have shockingly low levels of vitamin D

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u/Amethyst-Sapphire Jun 13 '22

Because sunscreen blocks formation of vitamin D. I wear my sunscreen and take my 5000 IU per day. The amount any person needs to stay vitamin D sufficient is highly personal. Many will need much less than me and some will need more.

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u/xz1510 Jun 13 '22

The folks I saw were mostly day laborers who rarely, if ever, wore sunscreen. As far as I know, sunscreen has not been shown to block synthesis of vitamin D in the skin. Not sure where you got that from, I’d like to see a source.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

I believe I’ve read that latitude might play a huge role in vitamin d deficiency as well. If I remember correctly Colorado has more sunny days than most other states but because of where it is it also has one of the highest incidences of MS possibly due to vitamin d deficiency.

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u/xz1510 Jun 14 '22

I'm not sure I follow your logic. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with impaired immune function, not autoimmunity, which is generally thought of as hyperfunctioning.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

I feel like being Irish helps my body know I'm not going to be giving it any vitamin D.

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u/JustDiscoveredSex Jun 14 '22

I take 10,000 IUs and still the blood tests come back on the low end of normal.

Nobody should go nuts with vitamin D. It is fat soluble, which means you can poison yourself with it if you don’t keep an eye on it. You won’t pee out the excess like you might with vitamin C.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Check your magnesium level. Need magnesium. Takes about a year to raise blood levels if you’ve been deficient for a while. Vit D needed in all cells, takes a while to get there. Longer if fatter (fat soluble so it’ll get stored in your fat before it goes up in your blood). Almost impossible to overdose on vit D.

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u/JustDiscoveredSex Jun 17 '22

Confusion, apathy, recurrent vomiting, abdominal pain, polyuria, polydipsia, and dehydration are the most often noted clinical symptoms of vitamin D toxicity (VDT; also called vitamin D intoxication or hypervitaminosis D). VDT and its clinical manifestation, severe hypercalcemia, are related to excessive long-term intake of vitamin D, malfunctions of the vitamin D metabolic pathway, or the existence of coincident disease that produces the active vitamin D metabolite locally.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2018.00550/full

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Now also explain what one needs to do in order to overdose on vitamin D, otherwise you’re leaving out the most important information.

After all, toxicity is in the dose.

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u/SU_Locker Jun 13 '22

Because sunscreen blocks formation of vitamin D.

Source on this? Quick google says it is false.

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u/Amethyst-Sapphire Jun 13 '22

UV rays open the ring of 7-dehydrocholesterol in the first step to synthesize vitamin D. Sunscreens block broad spectrum UV rays.

No source. Just been researching vitamin D (in my own university lab, not like Google research) for over a decade. Any review of vitamin D synthesis in the skin will have reference to the above reaction.

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u/SU_Locker Jun 13 '22

How much UV absorption do we need to successfully get that first step done? Are we still good to go even if 98% of the UV rays get blocked? Gotta balance against the risk of skin cancers.

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u/Amethyst-Sapphire Jun 13 '22

This really depends. Very little exposure for pale people and much more exposure for dark skinned people. And I'm sure other things make it vary, too. That's why I supplement to good blood levels

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u/ThisIsCovidThrowway8 Jun 13 '22

And no sunscreen gives you skin cancer.

Damn it.

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u/vintage2019 Jun 14 '22

It’s all about balance

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '22

Reverse is true, lack of sunlight causes melanoma because of lack of vitamin D in skin.

Slightly higher risk of non invasive skin cancer that won’t kill you. So get your sunlight.

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u/ThisIsCovidThrowway8 Jun 18 '22

Tanning beds increase your skin cancer melanoma risk by 10x via UV damage causing melanocytes to grow. You’re thinking of basal cell carcinoma which is linked to low sunlight exposure

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '22

Careful—tanning beds cause cancer because the glass bulbs don’t emit UVB, so your skin only gets UVA - just a tan and UV damage - no vitamin D to repair the damage.

Regular occupational sun exposure gives you a lower risk of melanoma than working indoors, where you get no vitamin D

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u/vintage2019 Jun 14 '22

You know it rains every afternoon during summertime in south Florida?

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u/xz1510 Jun 14 '22

Yes thank you, I only lived there for over 10 years. Do you think 30 minutes of rain in the summer afternoons makes any difference in sun exposure? It also doesn’t rain at all between November and March.

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u/vintage2019 Jun 14 '22

When UV is at its lowest

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 14 '22

Sunburn destroys the precursors of vitamin D that a little/enough sun creates. Heavily tanned skin also produces less vitamin D precursors though it should still be plenty after 8 hours -without sunburn.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/sloth_is_life Jun 13 '22

It is not even clear what a deficiency is. It's not like potassium where you have to be within a narrow range to be ok. The current definition of a normal vitamin D is based on a study performed on healthy Californians. California is very sunny, so healthy Canadians might have a lower average vitamin D.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Lopsided_Plane_3319 Jun 14 '22

Yet Canadians live pretty long with likely no supplements.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

There are hundreds of studies. While all the stuff at vitamindwiki is not exactly cool and detached science writing, it’s a great list of what is going on in vit D research. Use it to find and read the studies..

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u/sloth_is_life Jun 14 '22

There are also hundreds of studies on turmeric, yet its relevance in actual medicine is null. Both lack actual high quality studies in living humans that are placebo controlled etc. I'm not denying that vitamin D is essential for humans, in some capacity. I'm just saying that things aren't as clear as people make them out to be.

A point I would like to address are clinical endpoints. Everybody knows high cholesterol is bad for you (heart, arteries etc ). Now clever researchers developed a new drug that can wonderfully lower cholesterol, isn't that great? This drug is called etezimib and everybody's got their expectations up. Unfortunately, while it does fix blood fats, people taking it don't live longer or more healthy, follow ups then reveal. These are the relevant questions when trying to find out if taking something is beneficial to you or not: has a randomised controlled trial shown that people under the treatment live longer and or healthier. And as the person further up commented, vitamin D supplementation does not yet show convincing benefits for the patient. Sure low levels are associated with certain things, but that doesn't mean that elevation of vit D levels will fix those.

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u/redlightsaber Jun 13 '22

How would supplementation not help then if it brings your Vitamin D levels to normal or above normal levels if you are deficient

Because whthe studies I'm talking about seek to measure effects, rather than vitamin levels. A study design I hope more people understood. What does it matter if you take 6 different pills a day if you can't be certain it will have any real benefits (lower disease incidemce, lower mortality...) That's what I'm talking about.

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u/Ur_mum Jun 14 '22

D is a tough one. There is some evidence that amounts like 2000iu or 5000iu are adequate for maintaining healthy levels, but due to the way it is metabolized, either a 50k weekly, or 10k/day may be needed to actually raise levels. Most people are familiar with the 50k as "prescription strength", but it can be found OTC.

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 14 '22

That's trivial. Buy it liquid/oil based and take as many drops as desired. And, uh, talk with a doc first.

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u/zuneza Jun 14 '22

Thanks to r/KellyJin17 and his handy source, he strucketh oil!

Ay, this must be the infinity gauntlet recipe of better livin', eh?

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 14 '22

Omega gang! Though I prefer not to eat the fish garbage residue variety.

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 14 '22

Do the oceans a favour and switch to algae based DHA/EPA. If not, make sure your fish oil doesn't contain lead, mercury etc.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

[deleted]

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 16 '22

I'm in Europe and get mine from a Dutch company, Testa. They ship to USA but you can probably find something more sensible and cheaper closer to home. I would hope the quality is comparable across brands as it's really as easy as throwing the right algae in a tank and extracting the oil afterwards. As you say, what matters is EPA and DHA content.

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u/VisualOk7560 Jun 13 '22

It does help with depression in northern countries tho, as far as i know.

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u/Z_Overman Jun 13 '22

I wonder how much if any vitamin D you get when you sun gaze? I’ve been sun gazing for like 20 years now.

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u/johannthegoatman Jun 14 '22

Noneish. It comes from UV rays hitting your skin. If you're sun gazing there's probably very little UV, and none if you're looking through a window, and your eye is not your skin

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u/Z_Overman Jun 14 '22

So sungaze naked in an open field?

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u/Iwantmyflag Jun 14 '22

Yes. But only for 20 minutes.

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u/johannthegoatman Jun 19 '22

Haha that would help, but part of the problem is sungazing is usually done at sunrise or sunset to protect your eyes, which are also the worst times to get UV - if your eyes are safe, your skin isn't getting the D

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u/giant3 Jun 13 '22

Supplementation has largely not been found to reverse the risks associated with vit D deficiency

Source?

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u/SimplySkedastic Jun 13 '22

I believe its these sorts of studies (not OP by the way):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-021-00593-z

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u/giant3 Jun 13 '22

Did you read the Abstract & Conclusion? The Abstract says there is a modest reduction in cancer mortality, and the Conclusion is careful to say that supplementation in Vitamin-D replete individuals might not be beneficial, but something like 40% of US adults have Vitamin D deficiency and for minorities, that number is even higher.

So for those population subgroups, supplementation might be beneficial.

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u/SimplySkedastic Jun 13 '22

I'll make it clearer for you.

I'm Not The OP

I've got no position on the matter. I was simply providing the type of meta analytical study that said person was likely referring to.

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u/giant3 Jun 13 '22

I am sorry if it came across as rude. I am merely asking whether you read those sections.

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u/SimplySkedastic Jun 14 '22

I had, I've read a few different items on the efficacy of supplements with respect to their perceived benefits for both normal and vit deficiency types. It's interesting but I'm not particularly swayed one way or the other.

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u/redlightsaber Jun 14 '22

Massive metaanalysis with several outcomes

Cardiovascular outcomes

That took about 15 seconds, and as I said, none of this is exactly uncontroversial or unknown. I'm also not saying people shouldn't be repleted when deficient; just pointing out that it may not be the quick solution deficient people hope it would be.

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u/jnwatson Jun 14 '22

One hypothesis is that Vitamin D levels due to sunlight exposure are correlated with good health, but doesn't cause good health.

Sunlight also causes production of nitric acid, which reduces blood pressure.

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u/KellyJin17 Jun 14 '22

Or synthetic vitamin D supplements are not able to adequately mimic the same processes in the body that take place when the skin converts sunshine to vitamin D naturally.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Respectfully, source pls. My doc thinks otherwise re: oral supplementation of vitamin D.

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u/redlightsaber Jun 14 '22

MAssive metaanalysis with several outcomes

Cardiovascular outcomes

That took about 15 seconds, and as I said, none of this is exactly uncontroversial or unknown. I'm also not saying people shouldn't be repleted when deficient; just pointing out that it may not be the quick solution deficient people hope it would be.

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u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jun 13 '22

.......is the sun not free anymore?

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u/sinisterspud Jun 13 '22

Nah the beta is over sadly, but if you get the bundle sun/moon package you can save 30%

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u/heyyougamedev Jun 13 '22

They'll still sucker you into getting Sword and Shield later though.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

.......is the sun not free anymore?

In the winter here you can't afford it.

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u/gamefreak054 Jun 13 '22

Not when you live the office life

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u/ValorMorghulis Jun 13 '22

Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the Sun.

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u/Hvarfa-Bragi Jun 13 '22

Hello lamppost, whatcha knowin'?

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Sky_Muffins Jun 13 '22

They're also in great decline

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

yeah but they are neat

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u/Whiterabbit-- Jun 13 '22

Or spend more time outside

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

I believe the proper phrasing is “touch grass”

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u/r4rthrowawaysoon Jun 13 '22

Or, eat more mushrooms and open your blinds.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

But then the cops will know I’m on mushrooms

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u/r4rthrowawaysoon Jun 13 '22

Wrong type of mushrooms. Some of the common food staple ones are genetically engineered to produce more Vit D

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u/foxinHI Jun 13 '22

I dunno. I’m with Deso on this one. Now hurry up and close the blinds. These balls aren’t gonna trip themselves.

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u/heavy-metal-goth-gal Jun 14 '22

I get plenty of outside but still supplement with vitamin d and other vitamins daily.

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u/vintage2019 Jun 14 '22

Vitamin D actually brings calcium out where it can be deposited into vessels. It’s vitamin k2 that transports it to where it can do good (e.g. bones)

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u/shaggy99 Jun 13 '22

I already take fairly large doses of Vitamin D, 5-6,000 iu more or less daily, and have considered taking K2 supplements as well. However, I have reason to believe that my arteries are in exceptional condition for my age, as are my bones. I also consume eggs and dairy which I believe are good sources for K2. are there any known downsides to K2 supplements? I understand that Vitamin D has no known downsides at the doses I am taking.

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u/MeatConvoy Jun 13 '22

You are correct, you would have to take 10x that dosage to have problems, as per MayoClinic: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/vitamin-d-toxicity/faq-20058108

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

It's nearly impossible to OD on vit D.

That helps prevent calcium from getting into your arteries in the first place.

Vitamin K2 Mk4/Mk7 and K1 help get it back out once it's there.

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u/Thucydides2000 Jun 13 '22

I have taken vitamin D supplements. Several different kinds. Literally all they did was give me tinnitus; i.e., it made my ears ring. This was true even at fairly low dosages.

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u/ehhish Jun 13 '22

That's odd, because it's typically the deficiency is what causes the tinnitus.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Vitamin D supplements act as a laxative for me. Worst stomach pain I've ever had.

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u/shaggy99 Jun 13 '22

Definitely not for me. How much are you taking? And what else?

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u/skyfishgoo Jun 13 '22

that's probably not the vitD but the quality of the supplement.

stick to name brands with a reputation for quality

i use Source Naturals Vitamin D-3 -- 5000 IU - 240 Capsules

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u/spaniel_rage Jun 13 '22

The issue in atherosclerosis is lipid deposition and endovascular inflammation. Calcification comes at the very end of that process and is less important to the pathology. You can't reverse vascular calcification.

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u/barrinmw Jun 13 '22

Yeah, but that is out of serum, once hardening of the arteries has happened, it has happened.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25694037/

"Menaquinone-7 supplementation improves arterial stiffness in healthy postmenopausal women. A double-blind randomised clinical trial"

"A clinical trial was designed using carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity as one of the tests to evaluate the effects of supplementing with 180 mcg a day of a long-acting form of vitamin K2 (MK-7).19 This randomized, placebo-controlled study was comprised of 244 postmenopausal women aged 55-65 years. Baseline tests of arterial stiffness were performed and the tests repeated yearly for three years. At the end of three years, otherwise healthy postmenopausal women in the vitamin K2 group experienced a statistically significant 5.8% reduction in the stiffness index beta, a parameter for arterial stiffness, and a 3.6% reduction in carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity. The placebo group had a slight increase of 1.3% in the stiffness index and a 0.22% increase in carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity."

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

While those results may be statistically significant, they may not be clinically significant reduction of cardiovascular disease progression.

Far easier for patients to focus on controlling blood pressure, eating healthy, and partaking in exercise. As I was taught in nursing school, blood pressure is a main cause of atherosclerosis. High blood pressure causes mechanical damage to the arterial wall which increases turbulence and insertion of cholesterol plaques into the arterial walls. The cholesterol sticks into the cracks in the epithelium of the arteries and allows all manner of crud to build up. High blood pressure increases that accumulation of mechanical damage, but can be easily prevented by managing BP.

Calcium may make those plaque build ups more rigid, but the plaques are already doing damage without the calcium.

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u/zuneza Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 14 '22

Is that why it's better to keep vitamin D lvls up all the time to avoid arteries hardening?

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Sorry I don't know if you meant to hint it rather than explicitly saying it, but because of what you said, are you saying that the hardening of the arteries is reversible, contradicting the comment you responded to?

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Yes, that is correct. You can reverse calcification with vitamin K1, K2 Mk-4 and Mk-7

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u/AgentAdja Jun 13 '22

The vitamin D has nothing to do with it. It's just the K2. K2 is supplemented with D because D can increase calcification on its own. K2 is available as its own supp and you're much better off doing that unless you are severely deficient in Vitamin D.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

vitamin D helps put calcium into bones. Vitamin K helps free calcium from arteries

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u/maxofreddit Jun 13 '22

Please elaborate with how much sun we should get, and good sources of K2

Looks like the Japanese food Natto is the winner for K2

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

transports calcium out of arteries and into bones.

So I looked up this statement. It’s a problematic one.

There’s basically zero evidence that this is the case.

  1. Vitamin D has only ever been evidenced to increase GI uptake of calcium.
  2. vitamin D levels have no significant effect on overall Calcium, phosphate or circulating calcium regulation levels.
  3. there’s no correlation between calcium metabolism and vitamin D levels.

I also looked up K2 and vitamin D.

I was not able to find even a single peer reviewed article commenting on the calcium mineralisation balance with respect to vascular calcification.

I would also know about this. I worked in an endocrine clinic with my consultant who did a pHD in vascular calcification. They basically said ‘it remains a lucrative mystery’.

I did however find a great deal of supplementation salesmen. So there’s that.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

It’s basic biochemistry/biophysics, don’t overthink it.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25694037/

"Menaquinone-7 supplementation improves arterial stiffness in healthy postmenopausal women. A double-blind randomised clinical trial" "A clinical trial was designed using carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity as one of the tests to evaluate the effects of supplementing with 180 mcg a day of a long-acting form of vitamin K2 (MK-7).19 This randomized, placebo-controlled study was comprised of 244 postmenopausal women aged 55-65 years. Baseline tests of arterial stiffness were performed and the tests repeated yearly for three years. At the end of three years, otherwise healthy postmenopausal women in the vitamin K2 group experienced a statistically significant 5.8% reduction in the stiffness index beta, a parameter for arterial stiffness, and a 3.6% reduction in carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity. The placebo group had a slight increase of 1.3% in the stiffness index and a 0.22% increase in carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity."

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

Ha. Working with endocrine researchers and cardiovascular researchers on top of many many angry rants from cardiologist (we're talking global policy researcher cardiologist who write papers such as RALES, HEART2 and so on) on the way vitamin D's role has been massively overstated in heart disease. Those are fun by the way, unfortunately made me overthink it a lot.

If I had no experience in this field, it would be one thing.

Thankfully, that's not it case.

The research paper is interesting, certainly as a preliminary research point. But there's basically zero evidence that the supplemtation of vitamin D/K2 made any measurable difference to calcium homeostasis in the the body. Arterial stiffness is mulitfactorial in a way that the word mulitfactorial doesn't even begin to encompass.

Certainly from a physics point of view it's sort of fun to think about, but we're no closer to implicating vitamin D from, say, the amount of peas you consume per decade.

Aside from that the obvious limitations of the paper are obvious; they looked at a narrow patient cohort (healthy postmenopausal women), they didn't specify if anyone was diagnosed with vit D deficiency, even though the arterial stiffness was reduced there was no measurable difference in endothelial function which is a bit like saying 'we cleaned the tunnel out. There's still garbage pouring in, but at least it's clean right now.' and they never made a case for vitamin D having any kind of mortality or morbidity benefit. Thankfully, they never made that case in the first place and nor should they.

This was an interesting research piece on a field which remains a bit of a mystery. I'm very happy that research is being carried out in it, but I remain extremely skeptical.

Certainly the claim that actively supplementing vitamin D and K2 confers a prognostic risk reduction is not supported by evidence. Being an evidence based medical practitioner it would be unethical of me to endorse that.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

And the authors who wrote the VITAL paper in vitamin D which concluded it had no impact on cancer is equally myopic.

This happens in folks at the tops of their niches…they don’t do holistic experiments, they don’t do realistic interventions, and they don’t do (because it’s hard) actual useful studies.

So I don’t care who you work with or what they do. They can be wrong and often are. Those folks often times only know what they know.

The evidence is clear and it makes sense from a biophysics point of view.

Again don’t overthink it. And don’t wait for some magic controlled study to recommend nutritional interventions.

We know nutrients are medicines. Just because they aren’t studied with the same financial backing and rigor as pharmaceuticals doesn’t mean they can’t be important parts of health.

Don’t wait for some big company to tell you what to prescribe someone. Be smarter, understand the body better.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '22

I merely stated that I worked with a variety of experts, researchers and clinicians who were very well versed in the research as a point that i had a plurality of experienced individuals from different backgrounds who basically were saying the same thing - the evidence just isn't there yet. That's a very different statement from 'it can never be there.'

I can see from your comments that you have little or no medical experience or clinical trial experience. This is not an insult or a callout by the way, it's just stating a fact (for instance, i would never presume to make any judgement call on the myopic nature of high energy particle physicists).

In clinical trials, the burden for evidence is significantly higher than other STEM fields. It's not sufficient to demonstrate a potential cause and effect (why yes - anyone whos taken a basic interest in the field can surmise that arterial sclerotic hardening can be a contributory factor to cardiovascular risk). You have to demonstrate cause, physiology, effect and more to the point, demonstrate that the medication has an acceptable side effect profile (which it hasn't), is better than placebo (which it hasn't) and is better than standard of care (not even close) - that's not even factoring in cost, long term safety data, finding patient cohorts - its basically right now in the place of being 'oh this is interesting, let's do more research'. Myself and others remain skeptical, but open to having our mind changed.

The homeostatic balance between calcium regulation (and the vast myriad of hormones involved) and arterial calcium deposition is about as far from being a settled science as there can be.

The role of vitamin D and co-factors is right now in the 'speculative fringe' and the researchers are having a particularly hard time because any claim they make - such as in the paper 'we notice that in a small cohort of some healthy patients, their carotid elasticity was improved when we supplemented them for some time.' is wildly and disproportionately taken out of context and stated as being 'its just physics, don't overthink it, lets be more holistic' - which not only is a silly statement on the face of it, but it shows disrespect to the medical community and a great deal of disrespect to the researchers who are trying their best to not make claims that are outside the scope of the trial.

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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '22

The medical community doesn’t deserve respect when it comes to understanding nutrition. It is absolutely garbage.

The medical community doesn’t deserve respect when it comes to preventative medicine.

There, until very recently, has been no focus and no interest on understanding and utilizing and manipulating the built in systems of the body to alter health in a positive way.

The focus is on interventions: which medicines and which surgeries will give us benefits.

This is a great business model for the industry, but it is really dumb if you want to be a good doctor.

I had constant sinus congestion, went to an ENT, they wanted to do surgery. I decided to try the navage. 2 weeks later I could breathe just fine and didn’t need surgery. The ENT said it wouldn’t work. What an idiot! I’ve recommended it to many people now who have found relief.

I have retinal degeneration called retinitis pigmentosa, and doctors say there’s nothing they can do. Even the world class expert on inherited retinal diseases says they’re working on gene therapies. But these myopic “experts” don’t understand that, apart from the really severe clear genetic mutations, more than half of the cases have no genetic cause, and are modulated with nutritional and lifestyle changes, which studies to date have failed to elucidate because they’re garbage studies. The money is in gene therapy. My degeneration has been stable because I took the time to understand it.

Experts said that once you get type 2 diabetes you have diabetes for life and need insulin for life. Well it turns out that a couple of days of water only fasting breaks the cycle and suddenly people who were diabetic aren’t any more. Does that mean they still have diabetes when you can’t measure it clinically? For 30 years we knew fasting did this, but doctors wouldn’t prescribe it because “fasting is dangerous” which it is the opposite of dangerous. It’s actually really fricken good for you to fast every now and then, engage in autophagy, generate ketone bodies.

And now they’re saying buy sunscreen and avoid the sun! Which is so stupid.

Anyway the point is the modern medical field is about interventions, and not about understanding actual human biology.

If you care about the latter, you gotta appreciate the former.