November 11, 2016 general

I planned to follow up the election returns by writing today about my hopes for the new administration. However, vitamin D popped up in the newspaper today and I started getting questions. Even though the two stories are related in a way, I’ll wait until next week to talk government. (You probably need a rest from that topic anyway.)

The following italicized quotes are from an Associate Press article that I link to here. After each excerpt, I give my opinion. Note that the only thing new in the article is that people are now paying more attention to vitamin D.

• “Correctly interpreted, less than 6 percent of Americans ages 1 to 70 are deficient and only 13 percent are in danger of not getting enough.” (A) “Correctly interpreted” according to whom? In the past, lab results showed a blood level of 20 as the minimum. The minimum is now usually listed as 30. So, we should worry about those folks who had scores of 20-30 and were told not to worry. Moreover, thirty is still low. For example, if you want to prevent breast cancer, you might want to shoot for a blood level between 40 and 60. (Listen to our show on that topic.) Many experts that I respect say that up to say 75 or 80 is better. (B) There is a big difference between avoiding deficiency and having enough of a nutrient to support optimum function and prevent disease.
• “Blood tests for vitamin D levels — not advised unless a problem like bone loss is suspected…” (A) That implies we should wait for a problem to be diagnosed rather than prevent it. (B) It also shows that the authors are only looking at vitamin D for one issue—bone loss. As the chart at this link reveals, vitamin D is crucial for a lot of other health problems. Look also at the variety of topics on this index at Vitamin D Council (VDC). (Both of those groups have advisors that are top experts in the vitamin D field.) Interestingly, even the researcher who is source of the information in the AP article is involved in a vitamin D study to see if “higher levels lower the risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, memory loss, depression, diabetes, bone loss or other problems”.
• “Too much vitamin D can lead to high levels of calcium in the blood, which can cause nausea, constipation, kidney stones, an abnormal heart rhythm and other problems.” (A) That is technically true. However, they should mention how very rare it is for a person to get too much vitamin D. See the quote below. (B) They might also point out that there may be more concerns about supplementing too much calcium than supplementing D. (What is in food seems okay.) Also, they might note that many of the problems listed can be due to having too little magnesium that helps balance calcium. And they could mention that vitamin K₂ is needed to keep the calcium going into the bones instead of arteries where it causes the side effects noted.
• “To be safe and ensure that everyone gets enough, they set the RDA at the high end of the spectrum of the population’s needs — 600 to 800 units, depending on age.” This is not the only RDA I think is highly questionable. Hmm…the same researcher who was the source for the article stating those low levels is using 2,000 IU per day in her study on the wide-ranging effects! Vitamin D Council’s notes on overdose say that taking 40,000 IU of vitamin D per day for 3 months might cause trouble. VDC also says that consuming 10,000 IU a day or less (that is the high end of the normal dose range) is safe. People can indeed get too much D when there is an industrial accident or an uninformed doctor prescribes too much of Calcitriol, which is a much different form of vitamin D than that available in stores. On our October 22 show, Carol Baggerly said that testing blood levels of vitamin D is very important since people react so differently to supplements and even sunshine. She also reported that the consensus of her prestigious experts was that the “average person” (not one is) should get about 7,000 IU a day including what is in food. Since there is not much in food, the typical supplement might be 5,000 IU.

Bottom line: From everything I have discovered in my search, I still think we are at much greater risk from getting too little vitamin D than too much. The only reliable way to know if we are hitting the mark is to do a blood test.