Top all-time · #2635
Deva Boone
Personal blog · devaboone.com/posthealthscience
Deva Boone's personal blog at devaboone.com covers health and science. Since 2020, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 35 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Physician Deva Boone's Vitamin D series (basics, overdose toxicity, the evidence) plus Covid and study-reading posts. Commenters recommend them as a real doctor's counter to supplement misinformation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 35 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The personal website of Deva Boone, MD—a parathyroid surgeon writing about medicine, evidence, and clinical reasoning.
Most-linked posts?
- Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-08-24
- Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-09-08
- Vitamin D, part 1: back to basics5 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-08-13
- Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2020-08-24
- /post/vitamin-d-and-covid3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-09-30
- Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-09-08
What Hacker News says?
Came here to link to the follow-up article. Thanks. https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story
on “The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19”Submitted Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story as a story · 420 points
HN discussionWe actually have an expert on this comment here quite often, too high Vit D dose can cause problems with calcium: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=devaboone And she's done a series on it: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basi...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics
on “The First Randomized Controlled Trial on Vitamin D and Covid-19”Submitted Vitamin D, part 1: back to basics as a story · 395 points
HN discussionI'm the physician who wrote the article. And I agree with you. Vitamin D deficiency is a problem because it leads to bone loss (see part 1: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basi... ). And Vitamin D supplements can be very helpful for those with a deficiency. The point that I am trying to make is that Vitamin D should not be thought of as a dietary supplement. I am seeing more and more people w…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics
on “Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story”Submitted Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence as a story · 296 points
HN discussionPart 1: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basi... HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 It's nice to see a real blog post about this from a real doctor. There's so much misinformation and terrible writing about supplements online, thanks for writing this.
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics
on “Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story”Submitted Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022) as a story · 152 points
HN discussionHer post about someone with serious health problems with over-dosing vit d (in this case, just 5,000 UI): https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st... Her post about vit d in general: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basi...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basics
on “Vitamin D Supplementation Improves Cognitive Function: 12-month RCT”Submitted Vitamin D and Covid: A Review as a story · 5 points
HN discussionWill do, she set it up on Wix herself to learn a little about how to do all of this. I'm surprised they don't offer an RSS feed, I'll help her out with that. edit: The feed is apparently https://www.devaboone.com/blog-feed.xml and the Wix editor gives you no ability to add <head> tags, but there it is.
Comment linking /blog-feed.xml
on “Vitamin D, part 1: back to basics”Submitted Vitamin D, part 3 – The Evidence as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe headlines on Vitamin D and Covid far surpass the actual data. Here is my summary on the latest research: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-and-covid
on “Adequate Vitamin D Levels Cuts Risk of Dying from Covid-19 in Half, Study Finds”Submitted African American Kidneys: Why is race used to measure kidney function? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionA couple great posts about vitamin D posted to HN: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24138590 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261124 -And her part 3 (which links to tons of studies and is quite informative): https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence My TLDR from reading those posts: Vitamin D overdosing is possible, can have some pretty severe consequences. Vitamin D deficiency is co…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence
on “Adequate Vitamin D Levels Cuts Risk of Dying from Covid-19 in Half, Study Finds”Submitted Vitamin D, part 2: Shannon's story as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI just spent a few minutes surfing her blog, and she actually has a really good answer to questions along the lines of "What do you think of study X?": https://www.devaboone.com/post/evidence-and-intuition-in-the... No affiliation, not a doctor, etc., just thought this particular essay was well stated.
Comment linking /post/evidence-and-intuition-in-the-icu
on “Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]”Submitted We don't need better Covid tests as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI've mentioned this before, but my wife is a parathyroid surgeon (parathyroids are the glands that regulate the calcium in your neck) and would beg you to PLEASE monitor your calcium levels if you are supplementing with Vitamin D. She often sees patients on high doses of Vitamin D from well intentioned doctors, but with out of whack calcium levels because of it, and the patients can be very sick without understandin…
Comment linking /
on “Vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality [pdf]”I'm not arguing against this paper, or that Vitamin D could be very helpful for covid-19 and other things. But for casual readers it's good to know that Vitamin D is quite potent (it's a steroid hormone, in the same category as estrogen, testosterone and cortisol). Too much is also harmful. https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-1-back-to-basi... https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st...…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence
on “SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating Vitamin D levels”I’d suggest reading this series of blog posts on Vitamin D by Dr. Deva Boone (they were also shared here before): https://www.devaboone.com/ If you’re deficient or not getting enough exposure to the sun around midday, then supplementing could be useful. As a preventative measure for COVID-19 or as a measure to make COVID-19 less severe (or for reducing the risk of any other ailment), the blog posts cited above concl…
Comment linking /
on “SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating Vitamin D levels”Well, there's this article, also posted earlier on HN: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence... My personal experience with Cod Liver Oil (usually taken in Norway due to its high contents of Vitamin D) is that it really helps against dry lips. But you get a rather fishy breath from it...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence?postId=5f4e8bf673d853002ded6cd3&fbclid=IwAR20eDNcj1qsa6lkPCkJTYDV4ql0FEPSNiASbZ-j9xyD8RC8lot5vcSqsKg
on “SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating Vitamin D levels”Careful with high doses of hormones like Vitamin D -- it can have other deleterious downstream effects. https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story
on “Vitamin D and Depression (2020)”My point was that the submitted article was weak evidence . That is not the same from saying their conclusions are wrong. It very well may be the case that Vitamin D supplementation is effective against COIVD-19. But the submitted article is not strong evidence for that. As I pointed out elsewhere, a measured take: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-and-covid
on “Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients”I think we should be more measured in our conclusions. See https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-and-covid
on “Vitamin D improves survival in Covid-19 elderly patients”not even two months ago there was a big HN discussion about a blog post, including comments here by the author: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st... which would appear to contradict this article quite directly, if I'm reading correctly (I'm a know-nothing here taking 2000 iu /day, just trying to understand the topic)? "Her Vitamin D was low at the time, so her physician started her on over…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story?postId=5f39453f8d01fe00170023fe
on “The Big Vitamin D Mistake (2017)”For those interested in Vitamin D and Covid, here is a summary of the research so far: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-and-covid
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-and-covid
on “How Much Vitamin D Is Too Much? A Case Report and Review of the Literature”I see Vitamin D toxicity at MUCH lower doses than in this case report. Here is my description of one patient: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-st... Most of the patients I see with vitamin D toxicity are on 5000 units daily or more. And it can take a while (years) for toxicity to occur. Vitamin D builds up during that time since it is fat-soluble. If you want to take Vitamin D over a long pe…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-2-shannon-s-story
on “How Much Vitamin D Is Too Much? A Case Report and Review of the Literature”You can add a bunch of paper from here: https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence...
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence?postId=5f4e8bf673d853002ded6cd3
on “Covid-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status”There is a long history of Vitamin D deficiency being linked to cancer, heart disease, respiratory infection, stroke, diabetes, and death. For a detailed discussion of the subject see the blog post: Vitamin D - The evidence https://www.devaboone.com/post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence... > "We now have results for over 1500 RCTs on Vitamin D supplementation. Some of the largest and most significant trials are listed…
Comment linking /post/vitamin-d-part-3-the-evidence?postId=5f4e8bf673d853002ded6cd3
on “Covid-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status”
