An 89-year-old retired businessman died from an “overdose” of Vitamin D supplements that did not warn about the risks of excessive intake.

David Mitchener from Oxted, Surrey, reportedly had fatally high levels of Vitamin D when he was brought to the East Surrey Hospital last year in May and was suffering from hypercalcaemia – a build-up of calcium in the body associated with taking too much vitamin D.

He died ten days later.

  • sir_this_is_a_wendys [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Just wanted to note that the USA has a massive (basically) unregulated supplement industry. Most vitamins and supplements are ineffective (at best) and unnecessary unless you have a deficiency.

    • BoxedFenders [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Most people in the developed world are vitamin D deficient though. And it’s even worse for melanated people as they live further from the equator. 30 minutes of sun exposure in the summer will give you over 10,000 iu of Vitamin D so that’s a good daily number to shoot for with supplements if it’s winter or you’re stuck indoors. Vitamin D and fish oil are the only supplements I take as all of the other essential nutrients are easily obtained with food.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Yeah I’ve always been weirded out about the phrase “FDA approved” since that implies that supplements and the like can be sold… Without approval? Surely that can’t be right? You can’t just put a bunch of pills in a bottle, call it a vitamin supplement and sell it without some pharmaceutical rigor. I heard someone say you basically could do that, and then at some point the FDA would crack down, but they couldn’t do it premptively. Never looked into it, because that sounded crazy.

      • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        You can literally make any claim as long as you slap on “Not FDA approved.”

        I came across some crap that “treats” cancer, but it had a little star next to it. And at the bottom on the back of the label, you can see “these statements are not FDA approved”

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          That’s just wild to me. I feel like you should have to get approved before you are allowed to sell medicinal supplements.

  • IvanKaramazov [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Article leaves out a very important bit

    Excess D wasn’t the only cause of death listed — the coroner also blamed congestive heart failure, chronic kidney failure, hypercalcemia, and Ischaemic Heart Disease — when blood no longer flows efficiently to the organ.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/man-dies-of-vitamin-d-toxicity-experts-warn-the-risk-of-overdose-is-real/ar-BB1jaWCw

    Vit D toxicity can only occur with very high doses. Recommended daily intake is 600 IU. Taking upto 1-2k IU daily will never cause toxicity.

    • Evilphd666 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOP
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      4 months ago

      Yeah normaly people can adsorb fairly high levels. The long term high D exasperated other issues and a contibuting factor. Not making the post to poo poo on Vit D. Body needs it. Good for health.

  • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I’ve been noticing a lot of people recently taking absolutely massive daily doses of vitamin d. I know the flccc and anti-vax people are wild about vitamin d and think that’s all you need to cure covid so I’ve seen a number of them taking these monster doses, but I’ve also noticed some in the long covid community also taking these monster doses I suppose in an attempt to find anything that makes them feel better. I don’t think they’re taking quite this much, and I don’t actually know what constitutes an unsafe dose, but I’ve been thinking is that really safe to be taking that much vitamin d? Especially daily? Idk, but just a trend I’ve anecdotally noticed recently.

    • Sleve_McDichael [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      A doctor once prescribed vitamin d to me because I was deficient, I took 5,000 IU daily for a few months and felt fine. Wonder how much these people are taking

      • rootsbreadandmakka [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        okay I found one guy saying he was doing 30,000 daily

        another person saying 20-40,000 daily

        another person saying 10,000 3x/day

        another person saying he was doing 100,000/day for a while but now at 20-30,000 daily

        a lot of other people saying they’re taking massive doses, but only for temporary time periods

        I know nothing about vitamin d but I take like 1000 daily. I was doing 2000 daily for a long time but my doctor said that’s probably unnecessary. I was mostly just astounded at seeing how much vitamin d some people were taking.

        edit: this from r/covidlonghaulers sub

    • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Here at the 45th parallel we definitely need Vitamin D supplements.

      But it does feel like November-February is spent living down a hole so that tracks.

    • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Do you live in a place with winter?

      Non-white people are a lot worse at synthesizing vitamin D into their body through sunlight. To get enough vitamin D you need 30 minutes outside if white, 2 hours if black.

      Winter depression is a thing because you go to work when it’s dark, you leave work it’s already sunset if you have an office job.

      idk if those times even work in the winter when you don’t even expose your entire face because it cold.

    • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Hmmm. I’m less convinced of this being a fact.

      There have been at least a couple of studies done on surfers in Hawaii who are semi-professional or who report getting at least 15 hours of sun exposure per week (and we’re talking a lot of time spent with their entire backs to the Hawaiian sun here too) and these studies have shown a surprising amount of vitamin D deficiency in the subjects.

      Most people aren’t getting anywhere near that amount of sun exposure and I’d hazard a guess that most people aren’t consuming much liver in their diet.

      • SuperZutsuki [they/them, any]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        Vitamin D synthesis with sun on skin doesn’t just convert all sunlight into vitamin D. Your body will stop synthesizing it at a certain point. It’s not possible to overdose from sunlight.

        • ReadFanon [any, any]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          I’m not saying that it’s possible to overdose on vitamin D synthesised by exposure to sunlight, I’m just saying that I’m unconvinced that exposure to sunlight is in itself sufficient to meet vitamin D needs without dietary intake (especially for people who live a modern lifestyle where they don’t necessarily get a lot of sun exposure).

    • penitentkulak [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Really depends on where you live. Just read a study by a university at my latitude where we get as little as 10 hrs a day of sun in the dead of winter. Even taking 1000IU’s per day, healthy adults were losing vitamin D all winter, and some were falling into low levels by spring when levels naturally rebound. 2000IU’s kept levels steady all winter. It’s not like it’s expensive either, I just bought a bottle for 10 bucks that will last me almost two years.

      There definitely needs to be better regulations and clearer packaging on all vitamins and supplements though

    • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      We don’t need vitamin D supplements unless we are living down a hole

      Yeah the anti-cracker-aktion biome is typically a frozen wasteland with about 20 minutes of a sun a year

      One week at 36 degrees would wipe out most of the UK

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      Some people live places were the sun doesn’t shine a whole lot for long periods of time. Those people often do need vitamin D supplements no matter their skin color and no matter the elevation of their home.