Poll on Testing/Taking Vitamin D

[Celebration]

Poll question: Poll on Testing/Taking Vitamin D

I must have started fifteen different threads on Vitamin D in the last three months. It isn't wholly intentional. I just keep stumbling onto them--let's see, they are about low vitamin D and various types of cancer, low vitamin D and heart disease, low vitamin D and virtually everything. Now the latest study finds low Vitamin D to be an independent risk factor for death.

Apparently, most people are deficient for this vitamin.

I am interested to see if people here have been tested/treated for Vitamin D.

[AllieB]

1. You usually have to beg them to test your vitamin levels

Depending on your health insurance. The tests are expensive, and unless the doctor suspects there's something wrong, they don't do it as a general rule.

[Celebration]

2. Thanks

Do you know the cost of Vitamin D testing?

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. My understanding is that the deficiency is so pervasive, there's no need for a test

After my doctor ordered a test (I'm T2 diabetic and, because I have insurance, check in with my GP every three months for blood work) I did a bit of research on my own. With so many people staying indoors and not getting much sunlight, with those who do go outside using sunscreen (which inhibits nearly all natural production) and because milk consumption is way down, vitamin D deficiency is becoming as pervasive as it was in in the 1930s. Rickets, one of the diseases caused by the lack of vitamin D in children, is re-emerging for the first time in 70 years.

There are likely other factors involved as well. Obesity can inhibit the production and use of vitamin D, and I have heard that a number of common environmental toxins can either prevent the body from manufacturing the vitamin or interfere with its use.

I am very critical of the whole "vitamins are a panacaea" bandwagon, but I've become convinced that supplimenting vitamin D is not a bad thing. Whether or not you have a doctor who has you tested, it is probably good if you take a suppliment: one or two of the 400 iu doses a day. (The vitamin is fat soluble, so the body tends to hang on to it until it is needed. If you take two doses, taking them both at the same time is fine.)

[Celebration]

7. well someone here

Was taking Vitamin D at that dose and still tested low for Vitamin D. Even though most people are deficient, it might be a good idea to figure out how deficient--to know how much to take. I know one doesn't want to overdose. It just seems liks a good thing to be monitored by blood testing, at least loosely.

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. My suggestion was for people who cannot get tested

If you have access to medical care, insurance to pay for it and can get your GP to recommend the test as medically necessary, then by all means do so. If you cannot, taking about 800 iu (typically, two supplement pills) a day would not be a bad idea for most people.

[Celebration]

14. yes, I think you are right!!

It seems at the very least the RDA may be too low. The controversy may be more about how MUCH too low it is. With estimates of MOST people being below normal in Vitamin D levels, and now it being an independent risk factor for death, one would think that doctors would start checking this as regularly as cholesterol. No?

[TechBear_Seattle]

15. The RDA was set when people spent a lot of time out of doors, in the sun

Ultraviolet B -- the deep penetrating ultraviolet radiation that causes sun burns and skin cancer -- causes a chemical reaction within our skins that produces vitamin D. The RDAs were set back in the 1950s, when most people in the US spent a great deal of time outside and long before sunblocks and so produced a lot of their own.

[Delphinus]

9. I was reading,

somewhere on the net, that a person was taking 5,000 mgs or ius or whatever the terminology is, per day. Seems like a lot to me.

[TechBear_Seattle]

12. That is quite a lot

Particularly given that the daily intake is set at 400 international units, or about 10 micro grams. Assuming you had meant 5,000 mcg, that is 500 times the RDA. If you had really meant to write 5,000 mg, that would be 50,000 times the RDA. Since vitamin D is fat-soluble and excess does get stored by the body, doses that high can quickly become toxic. I would think anyone with an actual medical reason for extremely high doses probably has much more severe problems, with the vitamin deficiency being just a side effect.

[Delphinus]

19. Thank you.

I'm not sure I remembered correctly what I read and was thinking if it was as much as I recalled, it might not be healthy. :)

[I Have A Dream]

3. I've never been tested, but I take lots of vitamin D as supplements.

I remember taking the quiz that calculates your "real" age, and taking Vitamin D supplements was really stressed. Since then, I've been taking it regularly.

My doctor didn't offer to give me a test to determine my level, and I didn't consult my doctor before starting to take the supplements.

[Celebration]

4. Thanks

I do the teaspoon full of cod liver oil bit. I get some sunshine too. To my knowledge, I have never had any vitamin D blood tests. I am thinking that they should become standard, since it has been determined that most people are low in Vitamin D, and it has now been shown to be an independent risk factor for death.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Same here...exactly.

[cosmik debris]

8. I get about twice the RDA for Vitamin D from my diet

I have no need for other supplements or testing.

If I am deficient in Vitamin D it would only be because the RDA is incorrect.

[Celebration]

11. Some researchers feel that it is too low

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12499343?dopt=Abstract

Healthy men seem to use 3000-5000 IU cholecalciferol/d, apparently meeting > 80% of their winter cholecalciferol need with cutaneously synthesized accumulations from solar sources during the preceding summer months. Current recommended vitamin D inputs are inadequate to maintain serum 25-hydroxycholecalciferol concentration in the absence of substantial cutaneous production of vitamin D.

[TechBear_Seattle]

16. The RDAs were set decades ago, when habits were very different

Rickets and other vitamin D deficiency diseases were never very common, but they occured often enough that the government ordered that milk be supplimented back in the 1930s. The RDA was set in the early 1950s, when consumption of fortified milk was very high and when people spent a great deal of time outside in the sun, long before the invention of sunblocks. Thus, the RDA for vitamin D was based on several assumptions that just do not apply anymore.

Unfortunately, it is worse than that. Plant breeding for durability to market and the depletions of agricultural soils have led to estimates of nutritional value, also set in the 1950s, to be much higher than foodstuffs have today. The University of Washington released a study about a year ago showing that the carrots you buy in the grocery store today have only about half the published amount of vitamin A, and most citrus fruits had only 70% to 80% of the published amount of vitamin C. One of the conclusions of the study was that the federal government must reevaluate the nutritional value of all foodstuffs and revise the RDAs and other federal nutritional guidelines accordingly. That will never happen, because people will start making inconvenient demands as to why and how these values have decreased so much.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Other. I've not been tested, but as I have risk factors for osteoporosis, my doctor prescribes

regular supplements of vitamin D and calcium, which I get free on the NHS.

Oh, but I forgot, all doctors HATE vitamin supplements and don't consider nutritional treatments as part of medicine. I suppose all the doctors I've had must have missed the memo.

[davsand]

17. I don't know if I have EVER been tested for D levels.

I kinda doubt it given the focus on illness rather than wellness that our current medical system carries.

I have also seen some articles about Vitamin D and how important they have come to realize it is. As a result, I started taking a multi with 800 units in it. I also make an attempt to spend more time in the sun every day--it really does not take THAT much time to have an impact. Frankly, I wonder more about the negative impacts of low D levels than I do about the UV exposure I get in that extra 15 minutes a day I spend outside.



Laura

[BuddhaGirl]

18. Vitamin D is not absorbed very well

I take about 4000IU daily, in divided doses.

[Celebration]

20. kick!

I wonder if anyone was tested for vitamin D and came back normal..............

Plus I want all other responses, including "other."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. Ever since my brother the doctor told me about the pervasiveness of Vitamin D deficiency

in northern latitudes and the tantalizing links to various diseases, I've started taking a daily 1,000 units. I was worried about overdosing, but my brother said that 1,000 mgs is about what you get from 10 minutes of sun exposure.

I'm not very outdoorsy, but I do walk and cycle. I now put sunscreen only on my face.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

22. no health insurance

but I would love to have things like this tested.

[Lucinda]

23. I have serious health probs and my new doc checked my Vit D levels

I was amazingly deficient (post chemo and a year and a half of nutritional deficency from another illness.) Did megga dose supplements and it was an amazing thing. HUGE improvement in my day to day strength and pain levels. After the meggadose therapy, I was switched to 4 citracal daily and have just been retested to see if I have an D absoprtion problem since the earlier symptoms are creeping back. Don't have the results yet.

My take on Vitamin D deficency -> if you are, and it's treated, you will see an ENORMOUS improvemnet - even with other serious health problems.