Seth's Blog

I have heard many stories about Vitamin D3 and sleep, often in the comments section of this blog. From now on I am going to number them. (I retitled earlier posts.)

Elizabeth Funderburk emailed me:

I’ve always suffered, rather lightly I guess, from SAD in the winter.  In 2010 I started eating primal, which I thought would help – it helped in many ways but I still got gloomier all winter and didn’t even realize it til that first warm sunny spring day when I “woke up.” Your November post about D3 reminded me that I wanted to try it this winter, so I got a bottle and started taking it in the morning. I forgot a few times and took it in the midday or afternoon, and yes, I felt noticeably more spazzy and awake those evenings. Now, if I forget, I just skip it if I remember later than 10 am. I do think I sleep better. I take 4000-6000 IU daily.

I asked her for details.

Tell me about yourself.

I live in Reno, NV, USA, and I’m 34.  I do home renovations.

What brand?

Kirkland D3 2000 IU gelcaps. The first bottle I got was from Walgreen’s, so I guess it was Nature’s Bounty gelcaps. Both seem to work equally well. I have not tried capsules. I take the D3 while I’m waiting for my coffee, usually 6 or 7 am.

How has your sleep improved? Read the rest of this entry »

• no detectable association between heart disease and fried-food consumption
• tiny amounts of alcohol greatly lengthen worm’s life
• climate models fail to predict ocean heat content
• disgust and fermented food

Thanks to Aaron Blaisdell, Alex Chernavsky and Navanit Arakeri.

A few days ago the Wall Street Journal published a letter from 16 people saying what I say, that the case that humans are warming the planet is much weaker than you’d guess from mainstream media. An excerpt:

The number of scientific “heretics” is growing . . .  Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now.

Here is a rebuttal by a biological anthropologist named Greg Laden:

Shameful. . . . . Out and out lie, easily falsified  . . . So bad that this is what we can say about the “16 scientists” who signed this letter: They are idiots. . . . . Their ability to make even the simplest of judgements is now in serious question. . . . Let Google forever know who these jokers are.

Peter Gleick, MacArthur “genius” Fellow, also wrote a rebuttal. What about the lack of warming for the last 10 years? Here’s Gleick:

The authors claim there has been a “lack of warming” for 10 years. The reality? 2011 was the 35th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.

I have not omitted quotation marks. Here’s how Peter Fromhoff at the Union of Concerned Scientists made the same point:

The authors claim there has been a “lack of warming” for 10 years. Here’s what we know: 2011 was the 35^th year in a row in which global temperatures were above the historical average and 2010 and 2005 were the warmest years on record.

I went to the link given to support the “35th year in a row” claim. Here is the only global temperature graph at that link:

Bryan Castañeda, who lives in Southern California, told me this:

The law firm I work at specializes in toxic torts. We represent people who have been occupationally exposed to chemicals and are now sick, dying, or dead. Most of our clients have been exposed to benzene and developed some kind of leukemia. We sponsor various leukemia charities, walks, and other events. [On January 21, 2012] in Woodland Hills, CA, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society held its first annual Blood Cancer Conference. Although the speakers were mainly doctors, it was a conference meant for laymen. The chair was an oncologist from UCLA Medical Center.

After introductory remarks and the keynote speaker, there were several breakout sessions. I attended a session on acute lymphoblastic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia. The speaker was [Dr. Ravi Bhatia,] a doctor specializing in leukemia from City of Hope in Duarte, CA. His talk was almost exclusively about new drugs and clinical trials. Very dry and dull. Things got more interesting during the question period. At one point, [Dr. Bhatia] told an attendee not to experiment on his own because “you won’t learn anything and others won’t learn from it, either.”

I would have liked to ask Dr. Bhatia three questions:

1. What’s the basis for this extreme claim (“you won’t learn anything and others won’t learn from it”)? Ben Williams, a psychology professor at UC San Diego, wrote a whole book (Surviving “Terminal” Cancer, 2002) about taking an active approach when faced with a very serious disease (in his case, brain cancer). Likewise, the website Patients Like Me is devoted to (among other things) learning from the experimentation of its members. Lots of forums related to various illnesses spread what one person learns to others. MedHelp has many forums devoted to sharing knowledge.

2. What’s so bad about “learning nothing”? Why should that outcome stop one from trying to learn? It doesn’t seem like a good enough reason.

3. Do you have a bias here? In other words, what do you want? Do you prefer that your patients not self= experiment? Doctors may prefer that their patients not experiment for their (the doctors’) own selfish reasons. When a patient self-experiments, it makes their doctor’s job more complicated and makes the doctor less important. If Dr. Bhatia is biased (he wants a certain outcome), it may bias his assessment of the evidence.

A woman named Jenny West, who lives in Chiltern Hills (west of London), commented that  she “discovered independently that D3 first thing in the morning works.” I asked her for details:

I (and my family) started to take Vitamin D3 because we are all dyslexic/dyspraxic and had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, a type of depression). Previously we had tried using light boxes (minimal effect), getting out every lunchtime (more useful) and finally 5HTp — which works but is expensive and if you start it once you are in SAD you can end up ‘wired’. Our SAD symptoms were mainly sleepiness and lack of energy (= hibernation), and brain fog (= difficulty concentrating).

We started taking D3 (2000 IU, Solgar) in gelcaps. That first winter, for the first time ever, no one had any seasonal affective disorder. I had had it since the age of 21, my youngest child when only 4 yrs old, and my other two children by the time they were 18 yrs old. At this point, we were taking the D3 at random times, commonly lunchtime or later, often when everyone was together and the vitamin pot was handed around!

This autumn, all the youngsters had moved out. I found I was forgetting the D3, so I moved it to the bathroom and started taking it first thing in the morning (8-9 am). Then in September, I started taking 3000 IU (instead of 2000 IU). We’d been in Greece and had come back to a gloomy autumn and I wanted to make sure SAD didn’t kick in. In a month I started sleeping through the night most nights.

Before I started taking D3 first thing in the morning, I only slept through 10% of my nights, and had been doing so for at least 15 years. I would wake at 3-4 am, but didn’t get up unless I had been awake for more than 3/4 hr. Then I would be awake until 6 am. Now I sleep without a break (other than turning over) from midnight to 8 am. I sleep like this 95% of my nights, and that includes the odd night when I took the D3 much later in the morning because I had slept in – and consequently woke the following night.

As a coeliac, I take the supplements many coeliacs take – probiotics, minerals, vitamins – but none of these affected my sleep either way. So it really looks as if it is the timing plus the correct dose of D3.

BTW the extra daytime energy is fantastic.

She is 5 feet 4 inches, 64 kg. Notice that 2000 IU first thing in the morning did not improve her sleep but 3000 IU first thing in the morning did. I had a similar experience: 2000 IU had no clear effect  but 4000 IU did.