Vitamin D

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When the ‘rona began here in the US, the first thought I had was that those with vitamin D deficiencies were going to get ‘rona easier and probably have a harder time if they do get it than those who are not vitamin D deficient. I’m not a doctor by any stretch, but I do know that Vitamin D helps the immune system. It appears that my original thoughts were correct.

I take a multi vitamin daily that has 1,000 IU of Vitamin D3, which according to the label is 250% of my recommended daily intake. The Mayo Clinic recommends 600 IU/day. Mr. Manifold in the post below is quoted thusly:

Essentially everyone in the population should take 4000 IU (100 mcg) of vitamin D₃ per day, and many people should take 10,000 IU (250 mcg).

No links are provided to support his recommendation, however I have heard of others in my immediate circle who are jacking their intake to 4,000 IU.

I surfed around a bit and of course found conflicting info. Does anyone reading this have concrete proof/evidence of how many IU/day a normal, healthy middle aged guy should have?

21 thoughts on “Vitamin D”

  1. I take a 5000 IU vitamin D gelcap along with my multivitamin which has 700 IU of D. Two Pharmacists told me that basically everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is vitamin D deficient, especially in the winter months, and that you have to take over 30,000 IU for several months before you have a problem. One study by the Mayo Clinic said 60,000 IU would lead to toxicity. YMMV.

    I take a larger dose because it is supposed to help with high blood pressure.

  2. I was considering the gelcap like you are taking, but can’t really find a good reason to, yet. Hence the post. No blood pressure issues.

  3. Currently taking 2 X 1000 IU Vitamin D3 daily, as part of a regimen recommended by a knowledgeable friend.

    If I should increase that, I’d like to hear about it.

  4. I saw that recommendation, last week I think.

    I have been taking a 5,000 IU gelcap since Feb/Mar. I was tested for Vit. D in late Oct. My value was 50.7 on a reference range of 30-100 ng/ml.
    I have since upped my daily dose to 2 gelcaps/day (winter is here in Central Arizona). The LabCorp copy provided with the result states:

    Vitamin D deficiency has been defined by the Institute of
    Medicine and an Endocrine Society practice guideline as a
    level of serum 25-OH vitamin D less than 20 ng/mL (1,2).
    The Endocrine Society went on to further define vitamin D
    insufficiency as a level between 21 and 29 ng/mL (2).
    1. IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2010. Dietary reference
    intakes for calcium and D. Washington DC: The
    National Academies Press.
    2. Holick MF, Binkley NC, Bischoff-Ferrari HA, et al.
    Evaluation, treatment, and prevention of vitamin D
    deficiency: an Endocrine Society clinical practice
    guideline. JCEM. 2011 Jul; 96(7):1911-30.

  5. Dan From Madison Says:
    December 2nd, 2020 at 1:58 pm
    I was considering the gelcap like you are taking, but can’t really find a good reason to, yet. Hence the post. No blood pressure issues.

    You run your own company and DON’T have blood pressure issues??? You are a better man than me!

  7. It is going to depend on your own body, diet and Sun exposure routines.

    I take 5000IU a day and have for the last 5 years. I have my D levels checked twice a year, I am in the mid 40s with daily, 2+ hrs of San Diego sun. My level is “normal”, ok. But until this summer, I was only in the mid 30’s on that regiment.

    So. Get tested. Take a dose that you are comfortable with for 6 months, get tested again.

    Personally I would START at 2500 or 5000IU.

  8. What is highly ironic, is that just a few years ago,
    “experts” were attacking Vite D supplements, saying
    “Vite D was being over-prescribed, especially to seniors”.
    These experts said that it was unnecessary and possibly
    dangerous.

  10. The “100% of vitamin D” measure was based off of how much kept most people from getting rickets. Not avoiding D deficiency as diagnosed by blood test, but full on rickets. Absolute bare minimum assuming you have NOTHING slowing D absorption.

    D is one of the vitamins that makes people think vitamins aren’t dangerous– it takes a LOT for a person without known issues to hurt themselves. You can take ludicrous amounts for months without injury.

    Here’s documentation for you, also has calcium:
    https://www.nap.edu/read/13050/chapter/8#426

    Here’s the top two that had bad health effects, edited because my copy paste was ugly so here’s the relevant information:

    Vitamin D supplementation studies reporting hypercalcemia

    Took 50,000 for 6 weeks, study by Schwartzman and Franck, 1987

    Took 50,000 for 15 years, study Davies and Adams, 1978

    ********

    Taking 40k every day for a month didn’t cause calcium in the blood. Might want to take calcium with it, though, it CAN pull calcium out of your bones if you’re already low. (Per my ob/gyn after I broke my foot. He’d seen it before.)

    ********

    One of the “secret ingredients” in a lot of the low-T formulas is vitamin D, your body uses it to make testosterone which helps your immune system.

  11. There is also the issue of absorption. I have heard that some people don’t absorb D well from supplements and may do better from milk. I looked at my milk bottle and see that it is listed as vitamin D at 2.5 mcg (micro gram) per eight ounces which supposed to be 15% of the “daily value”. This implies that the daily value would be 16.7 mcg.

    I too have started to take a gel cap in addition to the multi that I have taken routinely and the glass of milk for breakfast. Both are listed as having 25 mcg of D3 for 1,000 I.U and 125% of the daily value. The gel cap is listed as D3 Cholecalciferol. This implies that D3 is 1/10 as effective as plain D. Both are from China and thanks to Orin Hatch, another fine Senator from Utah, are not subject to any more QC than the seller, in this case Wal-Mart, happens to feel like applying. So the numbers above could be a fantasy.

    Bio-availability and absorption is key, and again from a memory, The vitamin D in milk is supposed to be more easily absorbed by more people than the supplemental form. I believe it is also in red meat. It would take 6-2/3 glasses of milk to reach 100%.

  12. I was not there of course but about a hundred years ago plus a few was when the whole business of discovering vitamins and developing the recommended daily consumption or dose of them took place. The studies were done considering and using tests on the typical human diets at the time. This means they used omnivores as their experimental subjects, i.e., people that ate meat and plants and did not consume any of today’s processed foods.. This means the daily vitamin D recommendations were likewise developed on those people with those diet habits

    There are many hypotheses of course but some observers think that the current ideas on essential vitamins are often wrong. Classic example is the Inuit who most think ate almost no plants and never had a vitamin C deficiency. There are many other examples. As a 95% carnivore my own hypothesis is that if you just eat red ruminant meat, which contains no anti-nutrients, you will never need any vitamin supplements. For people like me that also pretty much seems to be the case and others with often decades of experience eating meat agree. Here is some documented experience with other carnivores: http://www.meatrx.com

    Which famous economist was it that said: “The plural of anecdote is data”. People at The Chicago Boyz should recognize that one.

  13. How much zinc? Only vitamin that ever caused me (empty stomach) to throw up but have heard much good.
    Does anyone want to enter the hydroxy debate? And are the on-net sources at all reliable?

  14. Ginny-
    try a “stress B-complex with C and Zinc” tablet, after eating, and if you take iron take it at the same time. (C helps with that.) Breakfast, preferably– at least for me, the B vitamins make it so I don’t wind down enough to sleep for a long time, although it’s more “I’m not exhausted all day” than “burst of energy.” Women tend to have trouble absorbing B vitamins, and it just gets worse from about 30 on.
    I don’t know if it’s the vitamin or the coating, but the nausea is a definite issue.

    This looks about right for price, although I get mine off Amazon and lurk for sales on the “oh my goodness are you kidding me is that a stockpile?” sized bottles:
    https://www.walmart.com/ip/Nature-Made-Stress-B-Complex-with-Vitamin-C-and-Zinc-Tablets-80-Count-for-Cellular-Energy/

    I started with the B-complexes because a very unskilled doctor scared me to death about diabetes when I had tingling in my hands.
    (I was anemic. He didn’t notice…while holding the blood work with that result in BRIGHT RED because it was so far out of whack, too busy being mad I wasn’t diabetic. Same ob/gyn that warned about needing more calcium caught it, and gave me the copy of the results.)

    Adding up your multivitamins’ totals is generally a good idea, just to make sure you don’t throw yourself out of whack. Rule of thumb, if the off the shelf multivitamin (not specific supplement) says “350% RDA” it’s probably not a very dangerous vitamin. :D

  16. Having been a low carber and paleo type of person for the last 15 years and along the way making myself feel like I am 20 again. I know a little about this subject. I have been a red meat carnivore for last three years and will be same the rest of my life. Seems to be the ultimate diet. I am age 65.

    I once focused on Vitamin D, too, much to my regret. First I think if you eat plenty of animal foods and avoid anti-nutrients, avoid seed oils and get some sun in the summer you should never ever need to supplement with vitamin D.

    When I was still learning I also thought I should take 1000 i.u. of D, too. Then I learned the hard way that it does little good if it is not combined with ample Vitamin A and K2, and can cause a lot of harm. When I was just doing the A and D and still eating antinutrients and other plants I managed to calcify my thyroid gland and my prostate (sorry girls). I got a constant cough and couldn’t go.

    Finally figured it out that those two don’t work without ample vitamin K2.
    See Weston Price Foundation for details

    I eventually stopped all supplements when My diet improved. Took about 6 months to fix thyroid and prostate is ok but has some minor permanent damage.

    So much more to say but I will try to stop there. But with carnivore you certainly don’t need any supplements. Most important issue of all in modern health though is to massively reduce Omega 6 linoleic acid seed oils. They are the cause via inflamation of almost all of the world’s chronic health issues from heart disease to T2 diabetes and everything in between, but more on that later.

    P.S. A side effect of reducing or eliminating seed oils is that most people stop getting sunburned even after hours in the sun. Even works for gingers. Then of course you can get all the sun you want with no ridiculous sun screen, which is another farcial story. Likely few or no wrinckles either. For overview and the deep science on that see Tucker Goodrich’s blog at yelling-stop.blogspot.com. Tucker is a ginger.

    I used to be a reader of this blog but kind of quit when economics seemed to become irrelevent after all the money printing started under GW and has not yet stopped yet of course. Seemed it was just a matter till it all collapsed into a new Weimar. Am of course still waiting ;-). Just seems irrelevent now, until of course the merry go round stops. I came over again the other day wanting your take on the current political situation. I thought of you when it occured to me that the Trump people should study up on Pinochet and the Chicago Boys who were always my heroes along with old Milton. My guess is Trump has never heard of Pinochet, but one of Trump’s advisors related to the Kracken are advising him to not leave office. (if only Pinochet had been so forward thinking) Bio: I am a real estate developer/investor in St.Louis and have some degrees in Finance.

    Here is that advisor: https://www.worldviewweekend.com/tv/video/exclusive-3-star-general-mcinerney-calls-martial-law-tribunals-investigation-treason Like it or not his idea is actually quite frightening.

  17. Not directly vitamin related. Phizer announced that they were having to slow the roll out of their vaccine because of supply chain issues. Apparently some of the materials necessary didn’t meet spec. Wonder where they could have come from?
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-slashed-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-target-after-facing-supply-chain-obstacles-11607027787

    In reading all the discussions here you need to remember that whatever is on the label of a dietary supplement is notional at best. Possibly a major retailer like Wal-Mart has the resources to confirm what’s on the label. They are under no obligation to do so in a meaningful way. I would expect that analyzing a multi-vitamin for dozens of compounds would cost hundreds of dollars per sample with the requirement that enough samples from each lot would have to be tested. This would be compounded by the history of Chinese chicanery where you wouldn’t really be able to trust that the supplier was labeling lots correctly and not combining materials from many different places to reduce their cost of testing.

    The ethical drug companies expend a great deal of effort to test their incoming materials and are under close scrutiny at all stages of production. There have been several recent recalls where contaminated precursor materials led to drugs contaminated with reasonably dangerous carcinogens. The supplement sector is under no such control.

  18. Taking no supplements. I do ride my bike in the middle of the afternoon this time of year and get lots of sun from that, especially at a mile high elevation. Coincidentally, I across this the other day:

    Study reveals connection between gut bacteria and vitamin D levels

    Multiple studies have suggested that people with low vitamin D levels are at higher risk for cancer, heart disease, worse COVID-19 infections and other diseases. Yet the largest randomized clinical trial to date, with more than 25,000 adults, concluded that taking vitamin D supplements has no effect on health outcomes, including heart disease, cancer or even bone health…

    In addition to discovering a link between active vitamin D and overall microbiome diversity, the researchers also noted that 12 particular types of bacteria appeared more often in the gut microbiomes of men with lots of active vitamin D. Most of those 12 bacteria produce butyrate, a beneficial fatty acid that helps maintain gut lining health.

    Because they live in different regions of the U.S., the men in the study are exposed to differing amounts of sunlight, a source of vitamin D. As expected, men who lived in San Diego, California got the most sun, and they also had the most precursor form of vitamin D. But the team unexpectedly found no correlations between where men lived and their levels of active vitamin D hormone…

    “It seems like it doesn’t matter how much vitamin D you get through sunlight or supplementation, nor how much your body can store,” Kado said. “It matters how well your body is able to metabolize that into active vitamin D, and maybe that’s what clinical trials need to measure in order to get a more accurate picture of the vitamin’s role in health.”

    “We often find in medicine that more is not necessarily better,” Thomas added. “So in this case, maybe it’s not how much vitamin D you supplement with, but how you encourage your body to use it.”

    Taking supplements can’t hurt but it’s not the end-all solution to vitamin D deficiency.

  19. At some point can we get a thread with Mike K and anyone else who knows medical stuff to chime in on mRNA vaccines, and whether/how much to be concerned? I’m no anti-vaxxer at all, but precautionary principle says to me to be very, very, very wary…

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