Vitamin D benefits

Last night on 20/20, they were shouting the benefits of Vitamin D. My doctor insists I stay on a supplement of 800mg daily, even though I take a daily multiple vitamin with 400mg Vitamin D. This brings it up to 1200mg daily. Research has shown it helps the body in many ways. However, be careful of too much Vitamin D. Below is a snippet from the informative link...

Magnum

http://hepatitis-c.emedtv.com/hepatitis-c/hepatitis-c-and-vitamins.html

Vitamin D

When taken in normal amounts (such as in diets with plenty of milk), vitamin D plays an important role in maintaining good health. The body can also make vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Taking supplements of 800 IU of vitamin D daily may be helpful for people with poor diets, those dealing with long winter seasons, or people who are housebound. For people with hepatitis C, supplements with doses greater than 2,000 IU should not be taken.

[Marcia2202]

Thanks Magnum. The best source of vitamin D is the sun, if you can get hold of it or if you are NOT on tx. For fair skinned people 20 minutes is enough, as then the skin is saturated and cannot produce more vitamin D. For darker skins more is needed. You should get out of the sun, as soon as the skin becomes slightly pink. Anything more than that can be dangerous. The more protection one uses, the less vitamin D one gets out of it.

I personally only use sun screen when I'm out on the beach. But I'm NOT on tx, yet. I'm trying to get as much vit d as possible from the sun, before I start tx.

Over dosing on vit D can be dangerous. But you cannot overdose on the vit D you get from the sun.

You can get your vitamin D levels tested, the correct test to ask for is the 25-hydroxyvitamin D test as it gives a more complete picture of your values. The values stated as normal are actually not optimal, according to Vitamin D researchers. The low value of the normal is too low and the high value of the normal is just a little too high.


Optimal 25-hydroxyvitamin D values are:

45-50 ng/ml or
115-128 nmol/l


Normal 25-hydroxyvitamin D lab values are:

20-56 ng/ml
50-140 nmol/l

Marcia

[susan400]

For those of us who cannot get out in the sun at all, then, it's supplements or nothing.  That's me.

Susan400

[GreatBird]

My endocrinologist put me on vitamin D and it has made a HUGE difference. There were days when my bones ached, but those days are gone. I thought that was the hep. It wasn't apparently.

[Marcia2202]

People who live in northern countries like we do, where there is not enough sun exposure, can be vitamin d deficient and that is really bad. There have been so many recent studies showing that vitamin d is very important.

I understand the fact, that one cannot be in the sun during tx and the more sunscreen one uses the less vitamin d one can get from the sun anyways. So yes, one should take supplements, if one cannot get adequate sun exposure due to any reasons and also during all the months were there is no sun.

What I was trying to point out is, that when one takes supplements, one should monitor ones levels, as one can end up overdosing and too high levels of vitamin d can become dangerous, too.

I asked my GP to run the test, when he was doing the other tests and mine came back the lowest limit 50 nmol/l, so that is just on the border of  'normal', but way below the 'optimal' level I mentioned above. So I am working on it.

Marcia

[alagirl]

I think I eat way too much cheese to be vit d deficient.  I eat an insane amount of cheese and cottage cheese every day.