During a recent visit to the Food and Nutrition Board website for vitamin D and calcium I was alarmed to find that the report had been delayed from May of this year until the end of the summer.

Most likely this will continue until the boards deadline of 24 months has ended.  That would put the report to sometime in the fall of 2010.  I would not be so concerned except for the 100,000 or so deaths each month that we delay because of vitamin D deficiency to say nothing of the suffering.

A. Catherine Ross, a vitamin A researcher, as chair most certainly is having a very difficult time in resolving the issues of a board that ultimately could have a huge effect on health as well as more of an impact on the medical economy than the recently passed health care bill.  Don’t you find it strange that a board for the Institute of Medicine that was seated to set standards and guidelines for vitamin D is chaired by a person who’s life’s research has been vitamin A?

I hope this is science and not politics at work.  It is for your health that I am concerned.  The scientist are saying that an upper limit of 10,000 IU per day needs to be set and I say that this may not be enough for an obese person.  However, anything less than this and we know that is more concerned with the medical economy than your health.  It would seem that the best DRI or daily required intake should be set for IU’s/per body weight.  It is the only thing that makes sense.

Doctor’s should also be instructed that long term levels of less than 200 ng/ml is safe for 25(OH)D.  This information already exist in the NIH Fact Sheet on Vitamin D in Table 1. It is also stated that no toxicity has been found in levels of less than 400 ng/ml.  Even though these numbers sound large they are still very small numbers.

Typically an intake from all sources of about 35 IU’s per pound of body weight should get your 25(OH)D above 50 ng/ml.  However, there is no way of knowing for sure without testing and because of the serious health consequences of vitamin D deficiency, testing should become a standard and doctors required to take enough CME’s to understand the complexities.

The longer we delay in not having a national intervention for vitamin D deficiency the suffering will continue.  Number one in this issue is that doctors need to be educated.