
A Statistical Error in the Estimation of the RDA for Vitamin D - arthur2e5
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/
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Kirth
Yesterday's discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15867918)

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opportune
I wonder Vitamin D deficiency is to blame, or a major factor, in the
increasing rates of depression. My personal hunch tells me that it's not
simply due to people becoming more willing to seek treatment. Wikipedia [0]
mentions that vitamin D supplementation typically shows no effect for patients
with depressive symptoms and only moderate effect for patients with
diagnosed/diagnosable depression, but from reading the linked article [1] it
seems like the studies they base this research on perhaps weren't using enough
Vitamin D according to the new research

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Other_conditions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Other_conditions)

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008710/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008710/)

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dmichulke
TLDR;

> It also estimated that 8895 IU of vitamin D per day may be needed to
> accomplish that 97.5% of individuals achieve serum 25(OH)D values of 50
> nmol/L or more.

Compare that with 600 IU (current "Recommended Dietary Allowance").

A word of caution though:

> As this dose is far beyond the range of studied doses, caution is warranted
> when interpreting this estimate. Regardless, the very high estimate
> illustrates that the dose is well in excess of the current RDA of 600 IU per
> day and the tolerable upper intake of 4000 IU per day [1].

