A scan of numerous articles found on Dr. Mercola’s web site indicate the following concerns regarding Vitamin D supplementation:
- Many of the Vitamin D supplements are synthetic, which should be avoided.
- The most important thing to keep in mind if you opt for oral supplementation is that you only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), which is human vitamin D. Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2.
- Vitamin D2 is more expensive than the real vitamin D3.
- More importantly, Vitamin D2 does not work nearly as well as D3 and can actually block the real D3 from working properly.
- Bottom line: ONLY use vitamin D3 when supplementing.
- For those in the winter with no or very limited exposure to sunshine, 4,000-5,000 units per day is appropriate for most adults. If you are very heavy, you may need to double that dose, and for children the dose can be half that.
- The key is to make sure you monitor your vitamin D levels by blood testing, to make sure your levels are therapeutic and not toxic.
- Excess vitamin D will cause, not prevent, osteoporosis and hardening of your arteries.
- If a person totally avoided the sun and regularly took two standard multivitamins a day for several years, each containing 400 IU of ergocalciferol, as his sole source of Vitamin D, he would inexorably become vitamin D deficient. Two standard multivitamins contain 800 IU of ergocalciferol, equivalent to about 500 IU of cholecalciferol.
- If you totally avoided the sun, as many dermatologists routinely recommend, one would have enough vitamin D to prevent rickets and osteomalacia but would still have a suboptimal 25-hydroxyvitamin D and thus be at risk to develop numerous other chronic inflammatory diseases, not just osteoporosis.
- The multivitamin that Dr. Mercola sells has no Vitamin D in it. The reason he made it that way is that “the dose of vitamin D is simply too variable to be accurate for a large group of people. Some may need 10,000 units of vitamin D a day and even up to 50,000 units a day for short periods, while others may do fine on none if they have adequate sun exposure.”
- Most people get 90 percent of their vitamin D requirement from very casual sun exposure, like the sunlight that strikes the uncovered and unsunblocked face, arms and hands when you walk to your car.
- Vitamin D is an oil-soluble vitamin and in large doses may be toxic.
- Studies in the literature indicate that extremely high levels of vitamin D actually cause prostate cancer, just as very low levels can.
- Vitamin D can have a reverse effect, and when one has very high levels, it will actually cause osteoporosis, heart disease, autoimmune problems and cancers.
- Researchers conducting a study on men from Norway, Finland and Sweden found that both low and high vitamin D serum concentrations are linked with an increased risk of prostate cancer.
- Some of the health problems associated with vitamin D deficiency include certain types of cancer, high blood pressure, depression and immune system disorders.
In tomorrow’s article, I will review recommendations regarding Vitamin D testing.
