Late reply: I'm curious to see the results, but scientifically speaking Vitamin D is a tricky substance.
Determining if you have 'the right levels' is tricky, considering that the same sample can lead to 20-33% false positive rate of being misclassified as Vitamin D deficient[1], despite being measured using the same method, in two independent laboratories, compared with a different, gold standard: mass spectrometry.
Moreover, even in cases with low Vitamin D, where medical professionals are unsure if treatment with Vitamin D would be beneficial at all (in this case: for osteoporosis prevention)[2].
Finally, recent randomised, double-blind clinical trial (n=5108) assessed if monthly administration of a high dosage (100.000 IU) of Vitamin D for more than a year would in any way prevent cardiovascular disease, and found no benefit in patients receiving treatment or placebo after a 3.3 year follow-up period[3]. Another study (n=2303, 4-year long, 2000 IU/d), testing the efficacy of Vitamin D to prevent cancer, actually suggests that low dose of Vitamin D is may increase cancer.[4]
Taken together, I hope that this helps illustrate how 'making a prediction' or 'expecting a certain result' is neither scientifically ethical, nor possible, given the controversial results in the literature so far.
> How do you deal with international companies and billionaires who are richer than your entire nation?
I think drawing correlations between country size/population/gdp/wealth and corruption is going to be difficult. However, arguably, looking at smaller countries we should see this trend at a similar rate. I'd suggest comparing with extremes: two, much smaller European countries.
- Andorra; pop: ~90k, GDP per capita (2016, est.) ~36k USD
- San Marino; pop: ~35k, GDP per capita (2017, est.) ~45k USD
I spent a while looking in to them, but then started thinking "how do you measure corruption"? I came across a 'corruption perception index (2017)'[1], which aggregates different measures of corruption across various sources, but sadly they have no data for either countries. Comparing them with neighbouring countries however, would put them right in the ball park of Malta.
Moreover, even in cases with low Vitamin D, where medical professionals are unsure if treatment with Vitamin D would be beneficial at all (in this case: for osteoporosis prevention)[2].
Finally, recent randomised, double-blind clinical trial (n=5108) assessed if monthly administration of a high dosage (100.000 IU) of Vitamin D for more than a year would in any way prevent cardiovascular disease, and found no benefit in patients receiving treatment or placebo after a 3.3 year follow-up period[3]. Another study (n=2303, 4-year long, 2000 IU/d), testing the efficacy of Vitamin D to prevent cancer, actually suggests that low dose of Vitamin D is may increase cancer.[4]
Taken together, I hope that this helps illustrate how 'making a prediction' or 'expecting a certain result' is neither scientifically ethical, nor possible, given the controversial results in the literature so far.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21395958
[2] http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMcp1009570
[3] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/article-abst...
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28350929