SAD and vitamin D? Or light box?

[Fingerbobs]

Hello
My DP suffers from SAD, we have (finally, doh) realised. I really want to avoid another descent into full-on depression so i'm looking for advice.I've seen some fairly limited research that suggests vitamin d may help, but nothing reliable about dosage. Has anyone tried this? What worked? We've started takAlso has anyone found light boxes to help? How did you fit the time into your day?
Many thanks in advance.

This is a very interesting thread. As I suffer from SAD I appreciate knowing that lightboxes are not as helpful as they are made out to be. They are also very expensive!

I will definitely be looking into taking vitamin D in conjunction with magnesium and omega 3. It might mean I don't have to go back on ADs for a while.

Well Ted, I have to say it's a bit like being berated by an irate school teacher. Do you mean to sound rude or is it an unfortunate posting style?
Yes, thank you, I have read up on serum calcium and vitamin d. Anyway, my reaction is quite unusual. Perhaps your extensive research has pointed you towards the explanation for my reaction and you would like to precis it on here for my benefit.
Unfortunately none of your no doubt interesting links work on my phone but I will try to go online elsewhere and read up. Only today I was reading another interesting article about the dangers of excessive vit d and the dangers of promoting 10000 iu daily doses without knowing a person's vitamin d status. I will try to link to it later. I'm sure ypu will enjoy it and can add it to your extensive collection of articles.
I do find it rather ironic that you are quite so full on with someone who essentially agrees with your main point (many people are vitamin d deficient and would benefit from supplements) but advises people to stick with the standard doses (not the rda as that is far too low) suggested by mainstream endos. Maybe more people will be converted to your cause if you stop sounding angry and patronising in your posting style.

It is, as others have said, a very interesting and informative thread. And it's rare to see someone able to put the common sense complementary health view without being successfully shot down in flames.

I have asked MNHQ for a "safe" area to discuss complementary health, and I live in hope.

Complementary health treatments or advice can be extremely helpful but only where the person giving the advice understands the context, understands the limits of their own knowledge, and is careful to check for formal guidance which will take into account all sorts of things that an individual with a keen interest in the area might not be aware of.

It can be tricky to distinguish evidence-based, sensible advice from well-intentioned but bad advice. There are often problems with high dose supplements - they should generally only be taken on medical advice as they can be harmful. For instance, some people who offer nutritional advice assume that if vitamins are 'good' high doses must be 'good'. Actually some reputable research showed high doses of antioxidant supplements increased the risk of lung cancer in smokers. Weird but true.

Supplements also have effects that the same nutrient consumed as part of your diet does not have - and may be less effective at whatever positive intervention you are trying to make than foods containing those nutrients.

Just read these discussions. Please note that Light Boxes DO NOT provide Vitamin D3. If you are looking to combat SAD/depression, you can buy a LiteBox, which replicates daylight. However, you will need a UV low-band lamp to obtain Vitamin D3, which normally comes from the sun penetrating the skin, not the light through the eyes.