Shocking News about Vitamin D (September 2018)
For many years the medical community has offered various recommendations regarding the dosage of Vitamin D for bone health and the prevention of various medical conditions.
Doses are associated with a person’s exposure to sun, dietary consumption, age, skin color, and the latitude of the country. Body size has an impact on the amount of Vitamin D that a person is required to consume.
For some people, 400-600 International Units per Day (IU/d) may be sufficient but, for others, a higher dose is necessary to maintain recommended levels.
New Developments on Recommended Vitamin D Intake
It was recently discovered that a statistical error was found regarding the recommended dietary allowance (RDA).
According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), it was found that 8895 IU/d was needed for people’s values to reach 97.5% to reach values of >50 nmol/L.
Another study demonstrated that 6201 IU/d was required to reach 75 nmol/L and 9122 IU/d to reach 100 nmol/L.
Finally, the largest meta-analysis between the years of 1966 and 2013 demonstrated that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <75 nmol/L could be too low for safety and was correlated with a higher risk for mortality.
All of these research studies came to the same conclusion: that the recommended daily intake of Vitamin D is much lower than it should be.
These studies also all recommended the following:
- 1000 IU/d for children <1 year on enriched formula,
- 1500 mg for breastfed children older than 6 months, ‘
- 3000 IU/d for children >1 year, and
- approximately 8000 IU for young adults onward.
Why Does Vitamin D Matter?
Research in Finland shows incidences of Type 1 diabetes have been doubling every 20 years. Additionally, the dosage ranges of Vitamin D have been reduced from 4,000 to 5,000 IU/d from 1964 to the present dosage of only 400 IU/d.
However, the rate of Type 1 diabetes in Finland has also begun to reduce, and now decrease, since they began fortifying milk with cholecalciferol. This is a fat-soluble vitamin that helps our bodies absorb more nutrients such as the calcium and phosphorous contained in milk.
In a large cohort study, the rate of Type 1 diabetes was reduced by 78% with an intake of 2000 IU/d of cholecalciferol. The study also showed that the symptoms of Type 1 diabetes improve with intake of >100 nmo/L of oral calcitriol. This dosage can help to improve insulin secretion and help with preventing beta-cell destruction.
It is clear that Vitamin D intake can have beneficial results on health, particularly for those with Type 1 diabetes or immune system issues.
More research is required to evaluate whether or not a universal dosage recommendation should be created but, regardless, it is clear that Vitamin D consumption is important.
References:
- Veugelers, P.J., Ekwaru, J.P. (2014). A statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin D. Nutrients, 6:10, 4472–4475.
- Heaney, R., Garland, C., Baggerly, C., French, C., Gorham, E. (2015) Letter to Veugelers, P.J. and Ekwaru, J.P., A statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin D. Nutrients, 7:3, 1688–1690.
- Garland, C.F., Kim, J.J., Mohr, S.B., Gorham, E.D., Grant, W.B., Giovannucci, E.L. (2014), et al. Meta-analysis of all-cause mortality according to serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D. Am J Public Health, 104:8, :e43–e50.
