Re: More Vitamin D Studies of Interest.

>General multi's rarely contain adequate amounts of nutrients for health benefit, and where some are much better/worse than others.
At the risk of being sued by the manufacturers, Centrum are the lowest of the lowest in terms of quality and bio-availability.

Hi Chris,

Thanks very much for that helpful information. I had sort of suspected that with all the money they have for advertising, they weren't putting the contents into the tablets. So yesterday did a little looking on the web, finding an evaluative page for multivitamins where they listed maybe a half-dozen the thought were pretty good multivitamins. I ordered one from Amazon, the Optimum Nutrition Opti-Women. This might be mainly only for psychological reassurance for me, but at least I won't feel that it's money down the drain. (I know a single tablet can't have enough of everything if you happen to be low on something.)

>Your D-25 value is 6.6? Is that ng/ml or nmol/L ? Readings should ideally be 50 ng/ml or (125 nmol/L). Your reading of 6.6 means that you're severely deficient in Vitamin D3.

This reading is from one year ago. You wouldn't think someone could be so far off who had ever taken a multivitamin or used any vitamin-D fortified milk in cooking, would you? I'm amazed. And horrified now when I'm at the point of investigating it. I do think that must indicate that exposure to sunlight is a big contributor. My main daylight exposure, other than maybe a few moment's time in crossing a parking lot, is to be in the shade when outside. I do spend a little bit of time in late, late afternoon where the sunlight reaches.

The deficiency reading is believable, though. My health has been exceptionally poor in all sorts of ways. I've told my doctor more than once that I truly felt so tired I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other to walk. I think the things wrong with me that have been officially diagnosed are what accounted for it in my doctor's mind. In my mind now, though, a Vitamin D deficiency is likely making everything much worse than it otherwise would be.

One note: the amount of Vitamin D I've been taking for the past several months is 1000 units, not 300, as I had remembered that his bottle was the last time I checked. My husband told me that he decided to take more for himself and replaced that lower dosage bottle. I hadn't noticed the change. So it's highly unlikely that I'm as bad off as I was when that 6.6 Vitamin D reading was taken a year ago. But note that I didn't have any reason to believe that I needed to take a Vitamin D supplement (there was fortified milk used in cooking, and, uh, Centrum Silver), so I didn't always take the vitamin he had made available to me. I mainly took it at all because I knew I was low on sunlight.

>Personally I would not rely on any Internist/Cardiologist or whoever in reporting on your Vitamin D status, as in all probability they are ignorant of the Science behind it and the true levels you need for optimal/therapeutic health.

I'm going to simply say that I've wondered about my current vitamin D level and ask for a 25-hydroxyvitamin D test. I'll get a copy of what the lab sends him. He's in with a group associated with a major hospital here so I feel confidence in the lab that practice uses. I'm seeing him next week and will do that then. I doubt that he'd venture into suggesting supplementation dosages, as he would know that I'd be doing the research anyway.

>There are also nutritional cofactors needed when supplementing.............
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-cofactors/


Thanks for this. I do take magnesium citrate daily nowadays (I read a good book on that one - "The Magnesium Miracle" by Carolyn Dean) but I might also not be getting enough zinc, as I was counting on Centrum Silver to supply it too. I'll remedy that. (And I really appreciate the tips on the zinc page for helping to choose which kind to take.)

>Osteoporosis.............
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/13/vitamin-d-osteoporosis-treamtent_n_8...


I quit taking Fosomax when the negative information about it came out, so I've essentially been doing nothing about my osteoporosis for a couple of years. Maybe now with enough Vitamin D it won't likely be getting worse at so fast a clip. I hope... because I'm not going back on Fosomax.

>Kidney disease: you are best to seek out the opinion of a Doctor who is knowledgeable about supplementing with Vitamin D, as sometimes once a week doses of the Vitamin can be as high as 50,000ius over a few weeks to months to normalize blood levels. It also depends at what stage of progression your kidney disease is as to the dose.

I'll see my (quite bright but easy to talk to) kidney specialist in a few weeks and mention everything I know about the Vitamin D situation to him.

>In your situation I would try supplementing with 10,000ius per day for a couple of months, and then have your blood levels retested.

I'm still thinking about this one. It's only three days before I'll see my internist and can get the blood drawn then. (I'd hate for therapeutic doses too early to produce misleading testing on my overall state right now--which I'm guessing is still low on Vitamin D.)

Thank you again for your informative website and all that you do!

Best wishes,
Mary Tweet