Category Archives: How Much D3

Children – How Much Vitamin D

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Children and vitamin D will be the discussion for the next several decades as we try to discover the true importance of how sunshine interacts with growth and disease states.  We have spent the last fifty years figuring out ways to keep children from going into the sun.  The sun, we were told is going to be very bad for your skin and will lead to skin cancer if you get burned as a child.  We were also told even if you do not burn that too much exposure to sun is not a good thing.  We have never been told that low or no exposure to sun is a not good and even a very bad thing because of infections and chronic disease.

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, there were never any of my friends that had trouble with their backs unless they had hurt themselves in some fashion.  Spine issues were minor of course except for the few cases of spina bifida or scoliosis.  I truly believe that both of these diseases are from the mother being vitamin D deficient in combination with other nutrients like folic acid for spina bfida.  Now it is impossible to talk with a teenager that does not know someone their age that has had back surgery.  This is just the beginning of a host of chronic diseases for children of the 1980’s, 90’s, 10’s that will result in mass illness of many forms.

To prevent the most of diseases, both chronic and infectious, vitamin D is a necessity.  So then the question arises how much vitamin D should we get and how should we maintain a healthy exposure to the sun.  Let me first say that exposure to the sun is still a growing science and we do not know all of the biochemical activity that is happening when we expose ourselves to the sun.  Our relationship to the sun has changed forever with the development of sunscreens and sun block.   Only with a consistent effort to redevelop this relationship will health be achieved.   I maintain that the best approach is to just use common sense.  The best common sense approach is to maintain a vitamin D level as if it is summer all year round.  If you read the medical research while using common sense you will discover that is really what the researchers that are proponents of vitamin D are saying.  From your personal perspective you do not get colds in the summertime and the reason is sun exposure.  By maintaining your level of vitamin D in the winter time to the summer level you will most likely not get colds then either.  I have not had a cold since 2004 when I started this effort.

Babies with colds and congestion?- mothers tell me your experience.  I suspect that your child will have significantly less issues if enough vitamin D is made available.

How much vitamin D does it take to achieve this summertime level?  From all that I have read a good rule of thumb is to get about 40 IU of D3 from all sources for each pound of body weight.  So it does not make any difference if you are a ten pound baby or a two hundred pound senior citizen.  For the baby this would give it 400 IU’s per day and for the two hundred pound senior citizen that would be 8000 IU per day.  This level of vitamin D intake or production in the skin should maintain your vitamin D level above 60 ng/ml, which is the bottom of the range for vitamin D for person living in a sunny country.  Work done by Grant and Holick have shown the 25(OH)D level for sunny country people to be 54 ng/ml to 90 ng/ml.

Of course the only way to know if your serum level of vitamin D is above sixty is to test!

If your total level of intake or production is not 40 IU of D3 per pound of body weight and you do not test to maintain your level above 60 ng/ml  then expect disease states.  – Pandemic Survivor

Higher Vitamin D Intake Drastically Reduces Disease

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A new study of serum levels of vitamin D shows that 4000 to 8000 IU per day are required to keep your serum level in a range that will reduce the incidence of disease. This includes cancer, type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis.  Dr. Cedric Garland says that the incidence of many diseases could be reduced by half.

Here is the news article in Business Week: “Higher Vitamin D Level Could Cut Cancer Risk”

As I have described in many post, the amount of vitamin D required is different for each individual.  The only way to know that you are getting enough is to have your serum 25(OH)D level tested.  Serum levels should be maintained above 40 ng/ml, and for best results the level should be maintained between 60 to 80 ng/ml year round.  You should only supplement with Vitamin D3.

For a better understanding of the science, here is the journal article that was published in Anticancer Research, International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment, made available in its entirety by Grass Roots Health.

Vitamin D Supplement Doses and Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in the Range Associated with Cancer Prevention

CEDRIC F. GARLAND, CHRISTINE B. FRENCH, , LEO L. BAGGERLY, and ROBERT P. HEANEY (here is the url in case you cannot go there from the above link  http://www.grassrootshealth.net/garland02-11)

“This paper provides a long awaited insight into a dose-response relationship between orally administered vitamin D3 and the resulting levels of serum 25(OH)D in over 3600 citizens. The results will allow new definition of high vitamin D dose safety and reduce concerns about toxicity. This is a landmark contribution in the vitamin D nutrition field!”

– Pandemic Survivor

How Much Vitamin D3 for Supplementation

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How much vitamin D3 should we supplement is one of the most difficult questions to answer.  With recommendations all over the board by the experts, the average person’s head is spinning.  The thing to remember, there is no harm in your serum level in the range of people in a sunny country.  That is your serum 25(OH)D should range between 50 ng/ml to 90 ng/ml when supplementing with vitamin D3.  It is also extremely important if you chose to supplement or your doctor suggest that you take vitamin D that you take vitamin D3 only.

Dr. Heaney at Creighton University has shown that the average healthy person uses about 75 IU of D3 per kg of body weight per day.  However, very few people in the population are average.  The best approach if you have not been supplementing with vitamin D3 is to take about 1000 IU of D3 per twenty five pounds of body weight per day for three months and then have your serum tested.  You goal should be to have a serum level that stabilizes in the 60 to 80 ng/ml range.  A rule of thumb for adjusting your intake is that 1000 IU of D3 should move your serum level about 10 ng/ml – again depending of lots factors.   Everyone is different in how much vitamin D they need to achieve a sunny country level.  This is because of disease states that require more D3, genetics, cofactors taken, and other activities that include tanning, exercise, and sun exposure.

Use common sense when you supplement.  If you have lots of sun exposure on a given day with few clothes on, do not supplement on that day with vitamin D.  If you go regularly into the sun and most likely for the three to four months of summer, reduce your supplementation by half to allow for casual sun exposure.

Dr. William Davis writes the Heart Scan Blog.  He states that two of his patients of similar age and body weight had to take 2,000 IU versus 12,000 IU of vitamin D to achieve approximately the same serum level.  Here is the article: The Folly of an RDA for Vitamin D

If you are taking vitamin D and are not getting the results you expected, have your serum tested.  The best thing you can do for your health is to have your serum vitamin D tested once per year and maintain it at the level of a sunny country.    – Pandemic Survivor

Worldwide Policy Change for Vitamin D

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Anthony Norman, distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Biomedical Science, Emeritus Presidential Chair of Biochemistry at the University of California Riverside, and leading international expert in Vitamin D, has proposed that a worldwide policy change is needed on the daily intake of vitamin D to prevent many diseases that vitamin D has been found to impact during the last 25 years.  These diseases include rickets, adult osteomalacia, cancer, autoimmune type-1 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and muscle weakness.  Dr. Norman leads with this statement, “A reduction in the frequency of these diseases would increase the quality and longevity of life and significantly reduce the cost of medical care worldwide.”

Here is the link to the press release: Biochemist proposes worldwide policy change to step up the intake of vitamin D.

Here is the paper that was presented to the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Anthony Norman seems hesitant to state where the level of intake should actually be to meet the requirements of the body.  He says there is no science to substantiate the safety of long term higher levels of vitamin D and suggest four possible scenarios of policy change.  He does however state the observational data of populations at the various latitudes support safety for higher intake levels.  I believe that Anthony is just trying to appease the powers in control of national policy because of the huge change in medical economics that will occur.  The science for adequate amounts that the body needs, as stated by Dr. Heaney of Creighton University at 75 IU /kg/d, is found in all the people that live in the sunny latitudes where the serum 25(OH)D levels range between 54 ng/ml to 90 ng/ml.  This serum level range is adequate to take care of most of the chronic disease issues.

We indeed are at a crossroad and now it is a matter of political will to see if we go for health or if we will follow the principles of former HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt of ‘markets before mandates.’

A. Catherine Ross, chairman of the FNB on vitamin D and calcium, we patiently await your guidance in the report to be issued in November.

What you can do while we wait to see what the “powers” do to advise doctors and the population as a whole is to be sure that you follow Dr. Heaney’s discovered amount of vitamin D required by the body of 75 IU of D3 per kilogram per day.  If you need help with the math, that is about 35 IU of D3 per lb.  A hundred pound person would need 3500 IU per day and a 200 pound person would need 7000 IU per day.

The interesting thing about how much the population should be advised to take seems to hinge on past practice of stating a single amount per day as if the population is not capable of doing simple math.  What is wrong with telling everyone that they should get 800 to 1000 IU per 25 lbs of body weight per day from all sources to maintain and adequate amount of vitamin D.

Vitamin D Buyer – Beware

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It seems that there was a recent test of over-the-counter, OTC, vitamin D that was presented at a meeting for the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers and America’s Committee on Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis.  Neurologists typically have their patients with MS take at least 4000 IU of D3 per day.  The samples were collected both from drug stores and online.  Here is the article. From MedPage Today.  The samples had an average value of vitamin D that was 33% of what the labels stated.

As I mentioned on a prior post, there was a problem that was recognized by Dr. William Davis with his cardiologist patients not getting enough vitamin D when using a brand that was purchased at Walgreens.  Link to that post here.

As I have discussed many times, the only way that you know if you are getting enough vitamin D is to have your serum tested.  Once you have established a brand that keeps your serum level ‘like a sunny country’, stick to that brand.  If you decide to change brands, then you need to test.  I use a product that is made by Bio Tech Pharmacal.     –  Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D Quality Alert

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As with all consumer products there are sure to be issues that need to resolved.  Dr. Davis who writes the Heart Scan Blog has warned us before that all vitamin D is not created equal.  That is some of the vitamin D will not give you the expected result of serum 25(OH)D.

His earlier warnings was that dry vitamin D in tablet form was not as potent as vitamin D in capsules.  This time he has found through five of his patients that Vitamin D of the Nature Made brand has not given the expected serum 25(OH)D.  Here is the article: Is it or isn’t it Vitamin D

The importance of this warning is that TESTING IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to assure that you have an adequate amount of vitamin D in your body.

How Much Vitamin D? How Much is Safe?

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This question keeps coming up for good reason.  It is so convoluted how the medical profession has treated vitamin D over the last hundred years because all types were called the same thing.  First was finding the marker for vitamin D that told the story about how it affects chronic disease or the storage form 25(OH)D, twenty-five hydroxyvitaminD, or calcidiol.  Typically and historically the industry has tried to use the steroid form or 1,25(OH)2D or one, twenty-five dihydroxyvitaminD or cacitriol to treat and the body’s mechanisms do not handle this real will.  Second there was the problem with toxicity because they were using too much of the steroid and with the issue of over irradiation when the pharmaceutical industry processes D2.  Typically the type that your body makes naturally, D3, when processed from lamb’s wool and fat does not require radiation.  Here is the blog where I talk about the serum level of the storage form and testing.

So as not to confuse you further, please consider only taking D3 or cholecalciferol as a supplement as this is what the body makes naturally.  If your doctor prescribes D2, ask him if it would be okay to take an equivalent amount of D3.  D2, unfortunately, is the only type that you can get prescription.  However, you can buy equivalent amount of 50,000 IU of D3 in a capsule thanks to the efforts of the Vitamin D Council.  Thank you Dr. John Cannell!!!  Just search the web for 50,000 IU of D3 and you will find several sources.

Now everybody cannot take the same amount and expect the same results.  I always thought this was just wrong for other pharmaceuticals.  Two aspirin for example for a 250 lb person will give a different effect than for a 100 lb person.

Everybody processes vitamin D differently so the only way that you can tell if you are getting enough is to have a serum test done.  On the serum test you will only be concerned with your 25(OH)D.

So where should this level be? Let’s look at three practicing doctors because this is the best method for understanding what they have discovered in their practices.  This is really how the art of medicine is practice anyway through trial and error in practice.

Dr. Elizabeth Vaughan from Greensboro, NC has a practice in integrated medicine.  She has been a practicing physician since 1979.  She also writes articles for one of the local health magazines, Natural Triad.  She is board certified and is a fourth generation physicians on both sides of the family.  I will not bore you with all of her credentials but if you want to read them they are here:

In her article for Natural Triad, “Lumpy, Bumpy, Painful Breast”, she stated that a serum 25(OH)D of 40 ng/ml is a minimum and that 70 ng/ml is the best protection.

Dr. William Davis is a practicing cardiologist in Milwaukee and writes the Heart Scan Blog.  If you have concerns about your heart this is a must read.  Here is what he has to say about vitamin D in his blog ‘A Healthy Level of Vitamin D’.   He agrees with Dr. Vaughn that 60 to 70 ng/ml is the right level of 25(OH)D.

Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council is a practicing psychiatrist and here is what he has to say after studying  papers and in discussion with other doctors about cancer.  In his January 2008 newsletter about the possibility of treating cancer he says that your serum 25(OH)D should be above 60 ng/ml.

So there you have it with three practicing physicians all saying to get the best benefit that you really should be above 60 ng/ml with 25(OH)D.  The amount of D3 that will you need to take to reach this level will be different for everyone and the only way that you know you have achieved this level is to test.  Start with about 1000 IU of D3 per 25 lbs of body weight per day and then have your serum tested after three months.  Your supplementation will by necessity be different in the summer and winter.  Before taking anything be sure to consult with your doctor about any preexisting conditions and treatment protocols that you have.  Most likely he will say that there will be no effect.  If he tells you that you will turn your organ to stones show him the NIH material Vitamin D Fact Sheet that says that a serum level of 25(OH)D (Table 1) of 200 ng/ml or less on a consistent basis is safe.  So there is a safety factor of three and if you consider animal studies from the NIH info at less than or equal to 400 ng/ml as safe then you have a safety factor of 6+.

In love, life and the pursuit of wellness always go into the sun!!!  – Pandemic Survivor

Heart Disease, Cholesterol, and Vitamin D3

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I have written several post of vitamin D and heart disease and there is so much more.  There is an exciting article about heart disease and the effect of vitamin D at WebMD.

By Dr. Michael Richman, MD, FACS on Cardiovascular Disease and Vitamin D.  Part 1 and Part 2.

As we begin our plunge into vitamin D winter then heart disease that has been arrested by getting an adequate amount from the sun will become more active.  As you can see from this Harvard news article, it is important to start supplementing with vitamin D.  However, here again we find that mainstream medicine is too conservative in the amount of vitamin D.  It is better to follow the directions from the home page of the Vitamin D Council to assure that your level of 25(OH)D3 is above 50 ng/ml to have the best effect on heart disease and the upcoming expectation of a serious flu season from the H1N1 virus.

As we have discussed in other post, vitamin D is made from cholesterol.  So the marketing of statin drugs and their use in lowering cholesterol may not be beneficial to your health.  The article, “Vitamin D is Synthesized From Cholesterol and Found in Cholesterol-Rich Foods” by Chris Masterjohn from May 2006 will give you a better understanding of how this works.  His comments on vitamin A are also important to the understanding of how A and D work together in your body.  Here is the research page from the Vitamin D Council on heart disease.

Going into the sun is not enough if you live above about 35 degrees North latitude after September.  Start supplementing to the directions of the Vitamin D Council.    – Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D3 – Size Matters

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When we see the bottles of supplements we are used to looking at milligrams.  But have you ever stopped for a minute to understand how much this weight represents.  This can be difficult when you are dealing with extremely small amounts.

The best way to get an idea of how much we are talking about is to take an object that we are familiar with and divide it up.  When we think about a standard aspirin, it is typically 325 milligrams.  But how big is a gram?  At 325 milligrams an aspirin represents about one third of a gram.  So, three standard aspirins is about a gram.  You can take three aspirins and hold them in your hand to get a feel for how much this weighs.

With vitamin D we talk about IU amounts.  Forty IU is equal to one microgram, so how much is that.  That would be a weight that is equivalent to taking those three aspirin and dividing them into 1 million pieces.  That is really hard to imagine.

Let’s take a mid-size car as something that you are familiar and do this division.  A car will typically weight about 2,200 lbs.  This is a convenient weight as there is 2.2 lbs per kilogram so there are 1000 Kilograms in 2,200 lbs.  That would be 1 million grams or 1000 x 1000.  Kilo is the term used when describing 1000 grams.  If you take that car and divide it into 1 million pieces you would have the weight of about three standard aspirin.  That is really not very much of that car.  It would represent maybe one of the buttons on the dash.

When we say milligrams we are taking one gram and dividing it by 1,000.  When we say micrograms we take one gram and divide it into 1 million pieces.  Compare this to taking that car and dividing it into a million pieces and you start to get an idea of how small an amount we are describing.

However, vitamin D3 typically does not say milligrams it is measured in IU or International Units.  The NIH is trying to change this designation to micrograms for vitamin D so that it makes more sense in understanding how much you are taking.  Some products are presently in micrograms like some of the B vitamins.  However, I see in press articles how this is confused.  That is milligrams are confused for micrograms and in vitamin D I have even seen IU confused with milligrams because that is what we are use to describing.

An International Unit is a measure of the bioactivity or biological activity of a substance.  For vitamin D, one IU would be equivalent to 0.025 micrograms of vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol.  One IU of vitamin A is equivalent to 0.3 micrograms of retinol bioactivity.  IU’s are not the same equivalent weights for all substances but relates to the bioactivity of that substance.  Once this bioactivity has been established we can change the units to mass or weight.

For vitamin D we have 40 IU equal to 1 microgram by doing the math from above.  So when the government says that you only need 400 IU of vitamin D they are talking about 10 micrograms.  Continuing the math that means that 4,000 IU is 100 micrograms and to get to that familiar unit of milligram we would have to go all the way to 40,000 IU.  To get to a value that is equivalent to a gram we take 40,000 IU and multiply it by 1,000 or 40 million IU.  WOW!  We really are describing very tiny amounts.  Vitamin D is extremely biological active in very small amounts.

One researcher, Dr. Halcyon Skinner of Northwestern University, described a 43% reduction in pancreatic cancer by participants that were getting about 400 IU of vitamin D as compared to participants that were getting less than 150 IU.  Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive killer and if you know people that have had this disease you understand how significant the intake of vitamin D can be.  I will blog more about this, but you may read that news from the Life Extension Newsletter for September, 2006.

So now researchers are saying that many more cancers and many, many more chronic disease can be prevented by higher amounts of vitamin D and are suggestion that the total intake per day should be changed to 4,000 to 10,000 IU or 100 micrograms to 250 micrograms from all sources.

Part of the problem has been in measuring and understanding such minute amounts.  Part of the problem has been the medical institutions ignoring the facts for profit.  If you, your family and your friends have been suffering from any of these diseases, you should really question our agencies that are to protect us from such misadventures.

– Pandemic Survivor