Key to whatever disease you may wish to fend off is how a high dose of vitamin D will affect you. There are some conflicting reports being issued by various health bodies, scientific research centers and government representative organizations on the importance of Vitamin D to our overall health. One area of interest to me has been the positive effect Vitamin D has on assisting our bodies to combat skin cancers. What level is too much or too little or how does one define what a high dose of vitamin D is?
One key fact to keep in mind, according to Dr. Bill Grant, is that deaths from squamous and basal cell carcinomas total about 1,500 Americans every year, where other deaths based on vitamin D deficiency, kill almost 1,500 Americans every day. This certainly puts a different perspective on things and encouraged me to look into how much of a dose would I not only take myself, but recommend to others?
High dose of Vitamin D will help boost many aspects of your life, some of which include the ability to:
The first method of obtaining Vitamin D is seemingly the most efficient method. Not too long ago, researchers discovered the unique and truly remarkable ability of our skin to photosynthesize activated vitamin D directly from the sun's UVB rays. So, if you make a habit of not just going into the sun on a regular basis, but go with your skin unprotected by either clothing or sunscreen, you can assist your body to fight cancer and other diseases as well as assist in fixing any damaged cells.
Although many experts agree that the best source by far of vitamin D is from the sun's UVB rays, there are many complicating factors involved as to whether or not you are able to get a high dose of Vitamin D from the sun. These factors include:
The really important aspect in all of this, is to make sure you obtain a balance between getting enough exposure to the UVB rays to allow maximum vitamin D benefit, while also protecting yourself from any damage that may occur if you get too much sun and get sun burnt.
So when getting out into the sunshine when the sun's UVB rays are at the right angle is not possible, what are the alternatives? Oral supplementation seems to be the best way in my view. Various foods contain Vitamin D. but not in any high doses. There are also many foods that contain Vitamin D fortification - especially dairy foods and cereals, but they are not at any level that could be considered to be a high dose of vitamin D.
A report was issued last year by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) after a 2 year study done by 14 nutrition experts on the beneficial and harmful effects of vitamin D. The resultant recommendations have been severely criticized by the various Vitamin D research communities where some have even gone so far as to state that the IOM research model was "precisely the wrong model for development of a nutritional policy." A key accusation is that the recommended dose is so hopelessly low that it actually puts the health of the whole population in the United States at risk. Further to that, other countries that look to the IOM for guidance would also be negatively influenced. Their recommendations were for :
Based on observational studies from a wide variety of research projects there seems to be a general agreement that the optimal Vitamin D concentration is for at least 30 ng/ml and actually for optimum health, over 40 ng/ml. This is for normal, relatively healthy people. If you have specific health issues there are various alternative recommendations available that involve much higher doses.
With a population where one third of Americans have serum 25(OH)D concentrations below 20 ng/ml. That's one in every three people! So one can look to the person on your right and then to the left and know that one of you 3 people have insufficient Vitamin D levels.
Doses recommended by the US Endocrine Society after their Vitamin D researchers looked into both skeletal and non-skeletal effects, are much more in line with being able to meet this target. ie. they recommended:
However, if you read what The Vitamin D Council has to say about various circumstances where a high dose of Vitamin D is prescribed for different situations, the doses are much higher than these ones above. In many instances they are once off and in other cases daily amounts over a short period. In both these cases they may be prescribed to assist in the treatment of a specific health condition. eg. Multiple sclerosis patients where a very strong link between Vitamin D deficiency and the condition has been shown are often given doses of 6000IU per day and higher. In other cases, daily amounts can be as much 5,000 - 10,000 IU/day over a few months in order to get your Vitamin D levels to an optimal level.