Re: A little wit needed here

Raynbo,
many people still equate taking supplements with that of drugs as being interchangeable, if not identical. However, nutrients are essential to life and cannot be subjected to safety analyses like environmental toxins or synthetic drugs. Virtually all research published in mainstream journals is focused on how essential nutrients heal organisms at the cellular level, and which nutrients act together to bring about organ repair, AND how they cause systemic healing when given in very high doses. Science has known for at least a century, that deficiencies cause standard diseases.

Toxicity studies basically don't exist for essential nutrients (one of a few is vitamin A under certain circumstances). To establish the "lethal dose 50", of a drug, half of a hundred lab rats or mice will die at a substance's concentration which is then designated as the toxic level. Well, you can't do that with Vitamin C or essential fatty acids, for example. They can't kill. The body metabolises these substances and excretes excesses.

By contrast, all synthetic drugs (without exception) are systemically toxic, meaning they are toxic to more than one body system as well as on a cellular level; hence the constant need to weigh the benefits of their use with the known risks of their toxicity, and specific doses of just so many mg; the timing of ingestion; the duration of treatment - and the prescription requirement. All this doesn't apply to apples, magnesium or probiotics. If you eat too many apples, you get the runs with the same mess for too much vitamin C.

So, can too much vitamin D be harmful? Well yes, it certainly can - though ANYTHING can be toxic in excess, even water. As one of the safest substances known to man, vitamin D toxicity is very rare. It is however, not possible to overdose on sunlight-derived Vitamin D, as the body shuts down production when its self-determined levels are reached for optimal health, and as I have said previously, up to 20,000 ius of Vitamin D are produced in this way on a daily basis, amounting to 140,000ius per week. An intake of 40,000 IU per day, and another where two different cases involved intake of over 2,000,000 IU per day - both men survived unharmed.

However, the symptoms of possible overdose include nausea,
vomiting, poor appetite, constipation (possibly alternating with diarrhoea) weakness, weight loss, tingling sensations in the mouth, confusion, heart rhythm abnormalities

The large range between 25(OH)D’s upper limit and its threshold value implies a degree of safety at serum levels up to 100 ng/mL (250 nmol/L), since concentrations TWICE this amount have yet to ever be associated with toxicity.

An MD is unlikely to treat you with mega-doses of any nutrient, but like most of us here, we have had to find our own way by studying the evidence, and more or less becoming our own healers........as I have. Doctoryourself.com for example, is a very popular and worthwhile site worth visiting, as is "The Best Years in Life" Tony and Luellas own site.

If you are reluctant to begin supplementation before your Vitamin D test (25 OH D) results are in, then fine, but my guess is that you are deficient compared to the above standards, and where correcting this could very well be the answer to your health problems.

Indeed, please let us know your test results when they come in.

As a final word for the moment, nutrients are NOT drugs and should not be used, treated or even thought of in the same way whatsoever.

Chrisb1.