Reaction To CBS News Vitamin D Segment 10/24/2012 | Revises Recommendations For Vitamin D

CBS Airs Video Of A Study That Revises Recommendations For Vitamin D Supporting A Lower Number. What?!

Once I heard that this segment would appear on CBS, I was eager to see what these recommendations were. What it actually did was leave me scratching my head. The doctor in the video refers to a “recent” recommendation from the Institute of Medicine for the minimum level of vitamin D (25-OHD) to be 20 ng/ml.

This recent recommendation is from 2010. This is a conservative recommendation in comparison to the recommended daily allowance “RDA” of 600 IU of vitamin D, and 30 ng/ml called for by the lab that provides my blood test results. Currently 80 million Americans would test as deficient under the 30 ng/ml guideline.

Aiming For A Minimum Amount of Vitamin D Is Baffling To Me.

I find it intriguing for a doctor to aim for a the recommended minimum level of vitamin D in the blood, whether that is 20 ng/ml or 30 ng/ml. The range tested for by the lab that does my blood work is from 0 – 100 ng/ml. Below 30 ng/nl is considered deficient and over 100 ng/ml is considered excessive.

According to the National Institutes of Health, vitamin D levels that are consistently over 200 ng/mL are “potentially toxic.” Now it states “potentially toxic,” not that it is definitely toxic. And 200 ng/ml is a far cry from the 100 ng/ml my blood test results would label as excessive.

Some recent studies suggest that healthy adults can tolerate more than 10,000 IU of vitamin D per day. IU or “International Units” are recommended dosages of vitamin D with minimal sunlight to keep a person above the minimal recommended level of vitamin D in the blood. 600 IU is the current RDA for vitamin D. John Jacob Cannell, MD, executive director of The Vitamin D Council, notes that the skin makes 10,000 IU of vitamin D after 30 minutes of full-body sun exposure.

He suggests that 10,000 IU of vitamin D is not toxic. Now whether you use this high number as the accepted number, or even half of that, 5000 IU, this is far more than the present RDA of 600 IU of vitamin D to maintain levels of 30 ng/ml, nonetheless 20 ng/ml.

Vitamin D was primarily regarded as an important nutrient for bone health do to its ability to regulate calcium and phosphate in the bloodstream. New and ongoing research supports that vitamin D receptors are present in the majority of tissue cells in the body, and vitamin D is involved in many more processes in the body than previously thought.

Ongoing research supports that vitamin D deficiency is linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, depression, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, obesity and others. Newer recommendations of 50-70 ng/ml as the minimum level are being suggested. I am aiming for the 50-70 ng/ml range.