Interesting... What benefits does this have over vitamin D supplements?
I've seen this "optimising for some perceived negative effects" thing with toothbrushes/toothpaste, where "whitening" and stiff bristles actually just means removing more (irreplaceable) enamel from your teeth.
Many people with inflammatory disease like IBD can't absorb oral vitamin D properly
Even in healthy people, oral vitamin D is not always sufficient (there was a study done in Japan where sunlight is low but Vitamin D from fish is high - can't find it right now) and sunlight exposure might have other benefits than vitamin D anyway
Vitamin D supplements are controversial on their own.
There is ample results on better health correlated with higher levels of Vitamin D, but the reverse is far more teneous: shoving in Vitamin D isn't guaranteed to be properly absorbed, and even when it is we don't see conparable results to people producing the Vitamin D themselves.
Unless you are deficient it's not the vitamin D. It's a whole host of other processes that benefit your body from sun exposure and the activities that go along with it. The Vitamin D is just a marker that we can detect that can also be related to that same exposure. So there's a huge number of things for which people with high levels of Vitamin D do not suffer but supplementing has no effect because the vitamin D is only correlated not causative.
But wouldn’t this imply that optimizing the tanning bed properties for vitamin D production is worse than looking for as-close-to-sun-like sources of light?
The paper covers a lot, some are administrating vitamin D as a prevention measure, most are on vitamin D deficient patients. e.g
> Even in the small subgroup of subjects with a poorer vitamin D status (serum 25OHD < 20 ng/mL), no effect on fracture risk was observed (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.07; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.91–1.25).
> A large RCT in Mongolian children with severe vitamin D deficiency did not find a beneficial effect of vitamin D supplementation on the subsequent risk of subclinical or clinical tuberculosis.
I have issues with low vitamin D and even really high supplement doses like 10,000iu/d do nothing at all- my level keeps dropping no matter how much I supplement. Sunlight brings it up quickly but not in the winter from Nov-Jan.
Vitamin D supplements don’t work consistently across different populations. Very few (~10%) of people can absorb dietary vitamin D. If you aren’t some form of Northern European, you probably need to take at least 10 times the daily recommended dose of vitamin D to influence your levels significantly.
Don't most people who take supplements just take 10X the RDA? It is still a tiny amount of supplement that is safer and costs a fraction of the indoor tanning or traveling often to somewhere with adequate Sun.
I’ve never talked to someone supplementing vitamin D who was aware at all.
I think that the correct approach would be start at 10x vitamin D with baseline bloodwork and adjust dosage from there.
But yeah I’m in the camp of “sun is good for you, in most cases.” I would be very unsurprised to find that there are precursor hormones released beyond vitamin D that impact efficacy. We don’t really understand the endocrine system very well.
I think that because we can see and understand the dermatological effects we overly weight them. Anecdotally older people I know who have not avoided the sun seem much better off mentally and physically, but I think because there isn’t a measurable reason we’re aware of, we completely discount any benefit.
Stiff bristles also damage your gum more easily and can lead to gum recessions. I needed gum transplants because of this and a wrong brushing technique. For me even medium stiffness is too hard.
Do you really feel plaque on your teeth with your tongue after brushing gently with a soft brush? My teeth feel perfectly clean after brushing despite using the brush with the softest bristles I could find (Meridol extra soft). I'm brushing gently (sweeping from bottom to top) with little pressure. Regardless of the brush you're using, never use more than light pressure. If the brush looks worn out after a few weeks it's too much, if it looks new after 3 months (recommend change interval) you're good.
I've seen this "optimising for some perceived negative effects" thing with toothbrushes/toothpaste, where "whitening" and stiff bristles actually just means removing more (irreplaceable) enamel from your teeth.