The article presents evidence that Vitamin D doesn't cause good health, but instead is a biomarker of good health caused by sun exposure and thus, supplementation does nothing for most people.
I'm not posing an opinion either way, but what the article says is that vitamin D doesn't cause either good or bad health, it's only a marker for sun exposure which does cause good health.
"These rebels argue that what made the people with high vitamin D levels so healthy was not the vitamin itself. That was just a marker. Their vitamin D levels were high because they were getting plenty of exposure to the thing that was really responsible for their good health—that big orange ball shining down from above."
again, low vitamin D levels do cause bad health, so it can cause bad health - your body needs vitamin d. Too much vitamin d can also cause bad health although you'd need to ingest a lot of vitamin d supplement over a decent period of time.
Having 'enough' vitamin d without having toxic levels of vitamin d is a sign of good health, but being deficient or having too much causes bad health.
Again the article is saying that bad health and not going outside causes low vitamin D and that adding vitamin D through supplementation doesn't really help. What helps is going out into the sun, according to the article - and in particular, doing so regularly, and without sunblock. In part so you can synthesize your own, but also because it yields nitric oxide which dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure.
The article says vitamin D supplements are useless as evidenced by numerous studies.
> ... vitamin D supplementation has failed spectacularly in clinical trials. Five years ago, researchers were already warning that it showed zero benefit, and the evidence has only grown stronger. In November, one of the largest and most rigorous trials of the vitamin ever conducted—in which 25,871 participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
>What helps is going out into the sun, according to the article - and in particular, doing so regularly, and without sunblock.
This is all well and good if you live in california, but residents of alaska go out into the sun without their skin covered a lot less depending on the season.
What about vitamin d supplementation for people who cannot regularly go out and expose their skin to the sun?
>participants received high doses for five years—found no impact on cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
Again, the issue isn't "does high vitamin d cure cancer", its "does low vitamin d cause issues, and do you have enough", as I already said.
But lacking vitamin d can cause illness, and too much vitamin d can cause illness. I never claimed it cured cancer, heart disease or stroke. You're arguing someone else's argument that has nothing to do with what I've said.
I looked up a few articles on semantic scholar showing that vitamin D supplements do help for some things. I suspect it’s a case of “not the whole story” instead of “the story is flat out wrong”
GP's referring to research that showed it was a good indicator of (whatever specific) health, but doesn't cause it. That it doesn't matter how well you absorb it from synthetic sources, because the benefit was from the exposure to sunlight, not the vit D that is a proxy measure for that.
