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People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
by docflabby 3y ago
People who avoid the sun more likely to take vitamin D supplements?
- Gibbon1 3y agoTweedledee: People with less sun exposure both intentional or unintentional may supplement more. Tweedledum: Low Vitamin D weakens your immune system. Having a weakened immune system increases your odds of skin cancer.
- jasonsb 3y agoThis is the most plausible reason.
- experimenting 3y agoThe most plausible reason is that the scientific peer-reviewed result is correct, not the tiring "correlation does not imply causatian" commenter on HN who at most skimmed the paper. 2009: > Epidemiological data show an inverse relationship between vitamin D levels and breast cancer incidence. In addition, there is a well-documented association between vitamin D intake and the risk of breast cancer. Low vitamin D intake has also been indicated in colorectal carcinogenesis. A vitamin D deficiency has also been documented in patients with prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, as well as multiple myeloma. Larger randomized clinical trials should be undertaken in humans to establish the role of vitamin D supplementation in the prevention of these cancers.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoit’s a small difference in a small group. And relying on self reporting for sun exposure.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago> The most plausible reason is that the scientific peer-reviewed result is correct, not the tiring "correlation does not imply causatian" commenter on HN who at most skimmed the paper. Quite the odd take given the last sentence in the abstract of this paper is essentially "correlation is not causation": > In conclusion, regular use of vitamin D associates with fewer melanoma cases, when compared to non-use, but the causality between them is obscure.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoThey could be just saying they don’t know why.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoWhich is literally the exact same thing as "correlation is not causation".
- ericmcer 3y agoYeah… doctors recommend supplementing vitamin D if you don’t get much sun. This almost feels comedic.
- cj 3y agoDid the study not control for confounding factors?
- alsobrsp 3y agoIt did, they state that right in the summary.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoBut they don't necessarily say what those confounding factors are in the abstract (I'm assuming they do in the full paper but I don't have access). It's easy for me to imagine tons of confounding factors that are associated with vitamin supplementation, e.g. wealth (wealth is associated with better health outcomes nearly everywhere you look), diet in general, exercise levels, etc. I highly doubt they accounted for all of these.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoThen the confidence levels would blow up.
- lowmagnet 3y agoDoctors recommend supplementing vitamin D if you have a measured deficiency. Most people naturally settle to 20 ng/mL or higher, and just incidental exposure, or eating certain foods can help you either absorb or synthesize it. There are also people, like me, who no matter what, we can't make as much vitamin D for whatever cluster of genetic factors causes that. Some of us are always tired unless we take 50,000 IU of D3 a week.
- 3y ago
- reader5000 3y agoPeople who avoid the sun are less likely to care about health overall and therefore less likely to take vitD supplements?
- jmckib 3y agoI don’t have access to the full paper, but I would expect that they at least tried to control for sun exposure. In general, if you can think of an obvious confounding factor in about five seconds, then it’s a safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too.
- Gimpei 3y agoThey probably have, but that doesn’t mean they have the necessary data to actually address the confounds. Often there is a trade off between what is most provable and what is most novel. Publishing incentives being what they are, novel invariably wins.
- surfpel 3y ago> safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too Research should be able to stand up to scrutiny. The scientific process depends on it. Given the ongoing reproducibility crisis and plethora of garbage research coming out of academia, I’m not assuming anything about any research I see.
- Calavar 3y ago> In general, if you can think of an obvious confounding factor in about five seconds, then it’s a safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too. I work in academic medicine. I read a lot of papers. This is not at all a given in my experience, except maybe in the tippy top journals (Nature, NEJM). When in doubt, read the paper, see if they mention the confounder you thought of.
- Iulioh 3y ago>it’s a safe assumption that professional researchers thought of it too. It's a safe assumption that they though of it BUT Testing for it and getting useful data of something like a survey is a different story. For example for a thing like that a survey could do more harm than good if the principles aren't really strict. It wouldn't surprise me that some researchers could have just ignored not measurable data like that for the analysis. (staring if ofc)
- 3y ago
- krona 3y agoI think just as likely is the general problem of people who take supplements being generally more conscientious and less likely to engage in risky behaviours (e.g. wearing sunscreen in summer)
- DoesntMatter22 3y agoOr they are supplementing because they don't get much sun to begin with
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nemo44x 3y agoYeah my immediate thought too. Give 2500 rabid tanners vitamin D and let’s look at skin cancer rates in 10 years vs the population of rabid tanners.
- rayrey 3y agoI assume the rabies will get them first
- beowulfey 3y agoHere is the description how they measured the impact of sun exposure to the results: > The exposure of skin to UV radiation was clarified with different questions. The self-estimated lifetime exposure was studied with the following question ‘How often have you exposed yourself to sunlight during your lifetime?’ The answer options were (1) ‘seldom’, (2) ‘occasionally’, (3) ‘often’, or (4) ‘very often’. The sunburn history was studied with the following question: how often has your skin been burned due to sunlight during your lifetime? The answer options were (1) ‘seldom’, (2) ‘occasionally’, or (3) ‘often’. The answer options for the question of ‘Main environment in working history’ were (1) ‘outdoor’, (2) ‘indoor’, or (2) ‘variably both’. They saw approximately the same distribution of sun exposure across the different test groups, it looks like.
- itake 3y agoI wish they asked exact rates and timelines. Like living in Florida, getting a bad burn only once per year might be considered seldom. But if you lived in Alaska, I’m sure that would be qualify as often.
- psychphysic 3y agoConversely, those people who refuse to ever cover up "cause you need vitamin D".
- mlinhares 3y agoOr people that frequently supplement vitamin D live in places where there isn’t much sun hence the supplements.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoSo do people who live in high latitudes where there is very little sun in the winter and it is too cold anyway to reveal enough skin.