People At Risk Of Vitamin D Deficiency
Some people will not make enough vitamin D from sunlight because they have very little or no sunshine exposure.
The Department of Health and Social Care recommends that adults and children over 4 take a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year if they:
- are not often outdoors for example, if theyâre frail or housebound
- are in an institution like a care home
- usually wear clothes that cover up most of their skin when outdoors
If you have dark skin for example you have an African, African-Caribbean or south Asian background you may also not make enough vitamin D from sunlight.
You should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year.
Why Is D3 Measured In Iu’s
The body only needs a small amount of vitamin D each day. However, because it is difficult to get enough from food sources alone, many people choose to take supplements. Vitamin D is measured in International Units and the Recommended Dietary Allowance for adults is 600 IU/day.
Some experts recommend higher doses of vitamin D, particularly for people at risk for deficiency. The tolerable upper limit for adults is 4000 IU/day. Higher doses may be necessary to treat deficiency in some people, but this should only be done under the supervision of a healthcare provider.
If you are considering taking vitamin D supplements, it is important to speak with your healthcare provider first. This is especially important if you are taking other medications, as vitamin D can interact with some drugs.
Why Do We Need Vitamin D
Vitamin D is often called the ‘sunshine vitamin’. Sunshine really does make us feel good. Seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression caused by lack of sunshine. But it does more – about 90% of our body’s vitamin D is made in our skin from sunshine falling on it. That’s all very well if you live in the Mediterranean, but in gloomy old Britain, the sun isn’t strong enough between October and April to give us any vitamin D.
Should you take a vitamin D supplement every day?
As we enter the winter months the loss of sunshine reduces our bodies’ production of vitamin D a…
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Is There A Benefit To Taking Vitamin D At Night
Thereâs been some buzz suggesting a link between supplementing with vitamin D before bedtime and the ability to drift off to dreamland. Some studies have shown that vitamin D is connected to the production of melatonin, which regulates circadian rhythm and drives sleep. There is also research linking vitamin D deficiency to some sleep disorders. But, while being vitamin D deficient may contribute to poor sleep, thereâs no direct link between taking a vitamin D supplement at night and better sleep quality.
How Often Is Vitamin D Deficiency
Vitamin D deficiency is a worldwide problem. However, it is more common in young women, infants, the elderly, and people with dark skin. About 42% of the U.S. population has vitamin D. However, this level rises to 82% for black people and 70% for Hispanics.
If you have access to the strong sun all year round, then occasional sunlight is not enough to meet your vitamin D. However, if you live too far north or south of the equator your vitamin D levels may change over time. Rates may fall during the winter months, due to a lack of adequate sunlight.
In that case, you need to rely on your diet for vitamin D, as well as for vitamin D which is stored in body fat in the summer.
In adults, vitamin D deficiency can:
- Create muscle weakness.
- Intensify bone loss.
- Increase the risk of cracking.
In children, severe vitamin D deficiency can lead to delays in growth and marketing, a disease in which the bones become weak.
Also, vitamin D deficiency has been linked to several cancers, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure, and thyroid problems.
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How Much Vitamin D Should I Get From The Sun
In addition to wondering how much vitamin D should I take, many people wonder how much vitamin D should I get from the sun.
Theres a reason that vitamin D is referred to as the sunshine vitamin. Sunlight exposure on our bare skin is the single best way to get enough vitamin D. Unfortunately most people today dont spend enough time in the sun, due to factors like working long hours inside, living in cold climates, being afraid of sunburns, etc.
In order to get enough vitamin D naturally from the sun its important to get outside and expose your skin to sunlight, without sunscreen. Aim to spend about 1020 minutes in the sun daily with as much of your bare skin exposed as you can, which will help your body produce vitamin D. You will absorb the most sunlight between about 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Melanin is a substance that affects how light or dark your skin color is. The amount of melanin you have in your skin also affects the amount of vitamin D you can produce, so the fairer your skin, the more easily you can make vitamin D. If you have dark skin, you will likely need more time in the sun, roughly 40 to 60 minutes daily, to make enough vitamin D.
Eating vitamin D-rich foods like eggs, raw milk and fish can also helps improve your blood levels of vitamin D.
What Is Vitamin D 5000 Iu
Vitamin D is a nutrient essential for calcium level regulation, strong bones, and healthy immune function.
There are two ways people can get vitamin D: sun exposure and diet . You get most of your vitamin D from sun exposure. The rest comes from the diet. Most people need about 600 to 800 IU of vitamin D per day through their diet .
Vitamin D 5000 IU is a high-dose supplement that can help treat vitamin D deficiency, which occurs when people dont get enough vitamin D through the sun or their diet.
This happens quite frequently: people who live in northern climates or those who spend most of their time indoors often dont get enough exposure to sunlight. Whats more, very few foods naturally contain vitamin D .
The vitamin D 5000 IU supplements you see in your local drugstore typically contain vitamin D3, a form of vitamin D that is naturally found in fatty fish. Vitamin D2, the other form, is derived from plant sources. Youre more likely to see D3 in supplements, as research has shown that D3 is more effective than D2 in raising vitamin D levels .
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How Prevalent Is Vitamin D Deficiency And Who Is At Risk
Worldwide, naturally occurring dietary sources of vitamin D are limited, and food fortification is optional, inconsistent, inadequate, or nonexistent. Therefore, for most people, vitamin D is primarily obtained by cutaneous production from sun exposure. However, many variables influence the amount of UVB from sunlight that reaches the skin and its effectiveness. These include time of day, season, latitude, altitude, clothing, sunscreen use, pigmentation, and age. In Minnesota in 2008, less than half of days provided enough solar UVB radiation at noon to effect cutaneous vitamin D production.2 Even those who normally reside in sunny climates are commonly found to be deficient in vitamin D, probably due to cultural habits and/or dress.3 Even if regularly exposed to sunlight, elderly people produce 75% less cutaneous D3 than young adults.4 Further barriers to cutaneous vitamin D production are ongoing public health campaigns promoting sunscreen use, as advocated by the American Academy of Dermatology . Unfortunately, commonly recommended daily intakes of vitamin D are known to be insufficient if sunlight exposure is limited.5
Do Vitamin D Supplements Work
In the past, scientists have become very excited about other ‘antioxidant’ vitamins, particularly vitamins A, C and E and their role in preventing heart disease. The thinking went something like this: people who eat lots of fruit and veg are less likely to have heart attacks fruit and veg are high in antioxidant vitamins antioxidants are a good thing because they mop up ‘free radicals’ which can damage DNA so if people don’t get their required amount of vitamins through fruit and veg, giving them in supplement form of vitamin will be just as good. In fact, when the studies were done, topping up with supplements didn’t cut heart disease risk at all.
The new study shows a similar result for vitamin D, at least as far as fractures, falls and bone density are concerned. There is no evidence that taking vitamin D supplements reduces the risk of fractures or falls, or improves bone density. So doctors need to question whether they should be prescribing to people at risk of osteoporosis, and we all have to go back to the drawing board to protect ourselves.
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How Common Is Vitamin D Deficiency
Vitamin D deficiency is actually quite common. In fact, itâs estimated that one billion people worldwide are deficient in vitamin D.
So why are so many people deficient in vitamin D?
There are a few reasons. For one, weâre spending less time outdoors, which means weâre not getting as much sunlight exposure.
Another reason is that our diets are often lacking in vitamin D-rich foods.
Who Is Most At Risk For Vitamin D Deficiency
Aside from medical conditions that can lead to vitamin D deficiency, biological and environmental factors that put someone at an increased risk of vitamin D deficiency include:
- Age: Your skin’s ability to make vitamin D decreases with age, so people over the age of 65 years are especially at risk for vitamin D deficiency. Infants are also at risk of not receiving enough vitamin D. This is especially true for infants who are only fed breast milk, as it contains only a small amount of vitamin D.
- Skin color: Its more difficult for dark-colored skin to make vitamin D from sunlight than light-colored skin, so people with darker skin are at a higher risk for vitamin D deficiency.
- Mobility: People who are homebound or rarely go outside arent able to use sun exposure as a source of vitamin D. Thus, theyre at a higher risk for vitamin D deficiency.
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What Is The Correct Dosing For Vitamin D
Dr. Kenneth Madden
What I did before
Every year, one-third of older adults experience one or more falls.1 One therapy with the potential to reduce both falling and fractures is vitamin D supplementation, possibly due to a direct stimulation of vitamin D receptors on muscle tissue.2 Often the patients that would most benefit from vitamin D have swallowing issues that make swallowing large vitamin pills difficult. Since there is no correct dose and it is only a vitamin I often administered larger doses to make administration easier for patients with swallowing issues.
What changed my practice
Unfortunately, a closer look at the issue revealed the appropriate dose of vitamin D necessary to safely reduce fall and fracture risk remains controversial. A recent meta-analysis of all studies done to date3 demonstrated that high dose vitamin D reduced falls by 23 percent when high dose was defined as 700 to 1000 IU per day. Lower doses had no effect on fall risk. The effects of doses higher than 1000 IU had not been examined previously to the publication of this meta-analysis. It is also important to remember that large doses of vitamins are not necessarily benign the increase in mortality with high-dosage vitamin E4 should serve as a cautionary example.
What I do now
References:
Notes from the BC Guidelines
Population at Risk
Some People Are Overdoing It In Search Of Better Health
Vitamin D is having its day in the sun. In recent years, research has associated low blood levels of the vitamin with higher risks of everything from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer to mood disorders and dementia. The findings have not gone unnoticed. Vitamin D supplements and screening tests have surged in popularity.
“Vitamin D testing is one of the top Medicare lab tests performed in the United States in recent years,” says Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School. “This is really surprising for a test that is recommended for only a small subset of the population.”
Unfortunately, this vitamin D trend isn’t all blue skies. Some people are overdoing it with supplements. Researchers looking at national survey data gathered between 1999 and 2014 found a 2.8% uptick in the number of people taking potentially unsafe amounts of vitamin D that is, more than 4,000 international units per day, according to a research letter published in the June 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association . And during the same time period there was nearly an 18% increase in the number of people taking 1,000 IU or more of vitamin D daily, which is also beyond the dose of 600 to 800 IU recommended for most people.
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What Is Vitamin C Used For
Vitamin C has been used to treat and prevent many conditions, including:
- Asthma, a chronic lung disease
- Bronchitis, an inflammation of the air passages in the lungs
Vitamin C deficiency is treated with vitamin C supplements. Some symptoms improve within the first 24 hours of treatment. Others may take a few weeks to go away.
In severe cases, the bones may be affected. When this happens, surgery may be needed.
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How Can You Boost Intake
While classic ideas around vitamin D revolve around the sun, Konstantin says that simply having a couple of hours in the sunshine wont be enough to create a good level of the essential vitamin in the body. Nature has come up with a complex mechanism: to produce this micro-element, a person should not only be in direct sunlight from 11 am until 2 pm without any UV protection on the skin, but also needs to be physically active for several hours. When this vitamin is being developed in the skin under ultraviolet radiation, it needs to enter the bloodstream. This is only possible when exercising. If we just lie on the beach and sunbathe, vitamin D is also produced, but then it is instantly destroyed, without bringing any benefit to our body.
This means that the vitamin, as the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition & Health study suggests, needs to come from other sources. Pareena Patel, Lloyds Pharmacy pharmacist, says that vitamin D tablets should offer the extra boost and shiitake mushrooms are particularly good for increasing vitamin D and lentinan levels in the body. While Uta suggests that, Oily fish is the only true rich source of vitamin D. Liver, eggs and butter provide small amounts.
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Choose Your Dietary Sources Wisely
If youre looking to boost iron absorption in your body through food, its helpful to focus on animal sources, Dwyer says. This is because of the heme form of the iron that these foods contain. Red meat, chicken, and shellfish can be helpful additions to your diet.
If you follow a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, know that while there are dietary iron sources that are animal-free, you may need to consider taking a supplement to prevent anemia.
Taking It Late In The Day May Affect Sleep
Research links vitamin D levels to sleep quality.
In fact, several studies associate low levels of vitamin D in your blood to a higher risk of sleep disturbances, poorer sleep quality and reduced sleep duration .
Conversely, one small study suggested that higher blood levels of vitamin D may be linked to lower levels of melatonin the hormone responsible for regulating your sleep cycle in people with multiple sclerosis .
Some anecdotal reports claim that taking vitamin D at night can negatively influence sleep quality by interfering with melatonin production.
However, scientific research to determine how supplementing with vitamin D at night may affect sleep is currently unavailable.
Until studies exist, it may be best to simply experiment and find what works best for you.
Summary
Vitamin D deficiency may negatively impact sleep quality. Some anecdotal reports assert that supplementing with vitamin D at nighttime may interfere with sleep, but scientific data to that effect is unavailable.
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Whats The Best Way To Remember To Take My Daily Dose Of Vitamin D
Consistency is key! Taking supplements at a specific time every day helps with compliance, so for best results, consider your vitamin D supplement an integral part of your health and wellness regimen ââ like drinking water, brushing your teeth or having your morning coffee. You could even put your supplement next to the coffee mugs to jog your memory in the mornings.
What Are The Side Effects Of Vitamin D3
Get emergency medical help if you have signs of an allergic reaction: hives difficult breathing swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.
Stop taking cholecalciferol and call your doctor at once if you have:
- chest pain, feeling short of breath
- growth problems or
- early signs of vitamin D overdose–weakness, metallic taste in your mouth, weight loss, muscle or bone pain, constipation, nausea, and vomiting.
Less serious side effects may be more likely, and you may have none at all.
This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.
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