The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science, or Hype?

[Steven Low]

It's not.

When I was researching one of the issues I was coming up with getting adequate doses to most populations was getting 100% compliance everyday.

Since it's a fat soluble vitamin the levels stay elevated in the bloodstream about 2-3 weeks after you would even stop taking it.

Thus you can take doses every week or two if you wanted... or every other day etc. as long as they average out to around up to or about 10k IU (or lower if you're concerned about toxicity). So taking 70k once a week is the same as taking 10k once a day.

Basically, it's easier for the laypopulation to take something once every week than to take something everyday. We don't have compliance problems so once everyday is fine for us.

[Garrett Smith]

Poliquin is shooting for a higher blood value (100) than most other groups are, including the Vitamin D council.

The upper end of LabCorp's vitamin D test range is 100...I personally wouldn't push that much with patients because I would not want their PCP to freak out that they're over the top end of the range (even though toxicity supposedly doesn't start until a blood level of 200+).

Always remember that Poliquin likes to be over-the-top to get attention.

That said, I do ~25,000iu twice a week instead of every day.

[Ken Rich]

I'm up to 7000IU per day. We have a 2 year old in the house who goes to daycare and I have not been sick all winter. Like Shaf, I'm also a fan of nasal irrigation.

Ken

[Steven Low]

On another note,

Vitamin D does lower cholesterol

Anyone see any significant changes in blood panels once they started taking D or was there other confounding factors such as diet and exercise?

I'm trying to get some solid numbers to see how much of a change we are talking about since I've been asked a bunch of times about it lowering cholesterol.


LDL carries cholesterol to the skin where it gets transformed by the sun from 7-dehydrocholesterol into active forms. Reduction in need for vitamin D production from skin = lowered cholesterol. + also should decreased LDL, inflammation, etc.

[Jay Ashman]

Steven my exercise and diet has remained constant over the past 2 years. My prior blood work cholesterol numbers were 170 combined and the latest test was at 155. This was after upping my dosage to 5000iu per day.

[Wayne Riddle]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Anyone see any significant changes in blood panels once they started taking D or was there other confounding factors such as diet and exercise?

I'm due for a checkup within the next month or two, will report on my results.

[Chris Forbis]

Old thread, I know, but I have an anecdote to add...

I had been on 10kIU/day of D3 for months now. I found when the weather turned cold that my lips would get UNBEARABLY chapped. So I am currently off D3 (though there is still 600 IU in the mineral supplement I take). Next supplement order that comes in will have some 5kIU D3 and we'll see if that makes things any different.

[Steven Low]

Originally Posted by Chris Forbis

Old thread, I know, but I have an anecdote to add...

I had been on 10kIU/day of D3 for months now. I found when the weather turned cold that my lips would get UNBEARABLY chapped. So I am currently off D3 (though there is still 600 IU in the mineral supplement I take). Next supplement order that comes in will have some 5kIU D3 and we'll see if that makes things any different.

You do know that you can take 1 10k pill every 2 days and it's the same as taking 1 5k pill everyday...

[Chris Forbis]

Yeah, but 5k/day is easier to keep up with. And 5k is still enough to trigger the symptoms... even after several days of 0 D3 and then a single dose @ 5k.

Right now I am suspecting a Vitamin A toxicity issue. I have read that D3 and A are synergistic, so maybe the heavy D3 dose triggers the symptoms? I have had A toxicity issues in the past (high dose CLO). I eat MANY sweet potatoes, so I've cut those out. In a couple weeks I will try another D dose and see what happens.

[Steven Low]

Yeah, that would be an issue with A.

That's what you gotta look for on CLO, but I've never heard anyone having those issues from eating tons of sweet potatoes.

But I suppose it could happen... O_O