I heard Tabs may be useless?? As oil form might increasese absorption.
More than 6000 IU ?
The largest dose form we can get is 1000IU.
Do you take a Mega Dose form? Is it safe to take more than 6000 IU.
My doc ordered a Vit D blood test (along with other things) can you explain why she would have done that? Also wants me to take Os-cal for my arthritis ---- just more pills as far as I can see.
Vit D has been resurrected as the new Vitamin for optimal health.
It has always been thought to to be important together with calcium to prevent bone disease. Hence, the recommendation to get sunlight (but not during the harsh periods of sunshine during the day).
But in recent recent years it has been thought to act like an on/off switch for optimal health for immune system, which means fighting many immune based illnesses including the flu), and maybe more serious things related to the immune system like cancer, diabetes and a list of other things.
But again, it is being considered as an ‘all rounder’ vitamin needed for health and vitality. If you search the web, you will discover it is being hailed as being more and more important in many health and disease scenarios.
So the message is measure your blood levels of Vit D and calcium, then ensure you have the right levels from sunshine or supplements to make up any shortfall.
As far as the Os-cal goes, it is mainly a calcium supplement, which, together with the Vitamin D, will ensure the calcium ends up in your bones and to fortify your bones nicely. Vit D is required for this. It is not related to the arthritis per se (which is an inflammatory/autoimmune or degenerative disease meaning just wear and tear), but your doctor might just want to strengthen your bones at this point in time.
The situation with bone strength or lack of it is that during a persons lifetime, the bones may become brittle, and in a worst case scenario, following a fall, the bones may shatter, really badly if they are brittle, and in some cases there can be really really bad internal bleeding because of the bone shattering and damage to the blood supply in and around the bones, with possible serious consequences.
So…you can have a bone scan to see what condition your bones are in and/or
have blood tests for calium and vitamin D to see if your blood levels are ok, to make sure you have stong healthy bones.
good luck!
D3 in oil capsules (or taken with oily, fatty food) is supposed to be the preferred form. Many supplements in tablet form are near impossible to assimilate because of the binders used. Some need to bypass gastric acids & then tabs are ok.
D3 is also available in a spray form.
I order NOW brand D3 5000 units from www.swansonvitamins.com. My test showed very low so I’ve taken 10,000 at once. New blood test coming up so I’ll see if it’s increased. Supposedly, if we were getting ours processed from direct sunlight, it would be more than 10,000 daily. But, who knows if taking supplement works the same regarding doses?
25-hydroxyvitamin D is the blood test used to diagnose levels. Levels should be above 50 ng/ml (125 nmol/L).
At the end of the summer last year, despite spending lots of time outside, having a dark tan and supplementing with 2000 IUs/day, my vitamin D test showed I was below the reference range. I now take 10,000 IUs/day and have gotten my vitamin D up to 50-60 ng/mL. I buy my vitamin D from costco in a big tub of 2000IU gelcaps. My doctor gives me a prescription for 50,000 IU vit D2, but I refuse to get it filled. They will charge me $2.50 per gelcap and vit D2 is not nearly as effective as vit D3 supplements. The only bigger ripoff is Lovaza. According to the vitamin D council there are no toxicity concerns (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/vitaminDToxicity.shtml), and given that I have my levels tested, I’m not worried.
RAW is expensive. For the tiny amount of their added other ingredients, it doesn’t seem worth the price. Marketing is all it is. D3 is D3. I get NOW brand for about $6 for 120 caps, 5000 units.
I pay $10 for 600 2000IU gelcaps at costco.
The NOW are oil caps. They’re tiny.
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/118406/vitamin-isn-snake?ic=6044
read on…
Why Vitamin D Isn’t Snake Oil
Vitamin D seems to prevent many of our ills. Some studies show that taking large doses of it will treat just about everything from building strong bones to protecting us from strokes and heart failure to reducing our risk of cancer and on to helping us regulate our immune system and control inflammation, our blood pressure, and even our blood glucose. Higher levels of vitamin D is associated with reduced risks for multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and type 1 diabetes.
Reports of the value of vitamin D for preventing even more conditions continue to appear regularly. Low levels of vitamin D are associated with poor lung function among children with asthma, leading them to use more medication to treat it, as the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology recently reported. Vitamin D might treat or prevent allergy to a common mold that can complicate asthma and frequently affects patients with cystic fibrosis, according to a study that the Journal of Clinical Investigation published a few days ago.
As I wrote here last year we nevertheless might have good reason to wonder if all the current hype over vitamin D is nothing more than a resurgence of snake oil claims.
How could just getting out into the sun more or taking just one inexpensive and tiny pill each day work such magic? It seems to be too good to be true. It doesn’t seem to pass the smell test.
Yet we already had a hint to the solution of this major nutritional puzzle when we learned that what we call “vitamin D” isn’t really a vitamin. When scientists discovered vitamin D in the 1920s and 1930s it seemed to work like a vitamin, so that’s what the called it.
read on…
http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/17/118406/vitamin-isn-snake?ic=6044
Vitamin D really does prevent cancer, autoimmune diseases
http://www.naturalnews.com/029605_vitamin_d_prevention.html
…A new study out of Oxford University pinpoints vitamin D deficiency as a culprit in serious illnesses like cancer and autoimmune disorders. According to the report, which was recently published online in the journal Genome Research, genetic receptors throughout the body need adequate vitamin D levels to prevent these and other serious illnesses from developing.
Multiple sclerosis, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Chron’s disease, leukemia – these and many more diseases are often caused by a lack of vitamin D. Your genes literally have receptors that need vitamin D in order to properly express themselves. If there is not enough of the vitamin, serious illness is prone to develop.
The Oxford team made specific observations about the importance of vitamin D in the genome regions associated with autoimmune diseases and cancer, noting that the nutrient is absolutely vital in helping to prevent these diseases from forming.
“Considerations of vitamin D supplementation as a preventative measure for these diseases are strongly warranted,” expressed Sreeram Ramagopalan, author of the study.
However, current recommendations for vitamin D intake are unacceptably low, and many nations are considering updating their guidelines. The U.S. Institute of Medicine, for example, recommends getting a mere 200 to 600 international units (IU) of vitamin D a day, an amount far too low to have much therapeutic effect.
Since summer sun exposure creates about 20,000 IU of vitamin D in the skin in just 15 minutes, supplementation with at least 5,000 to 10,000 IU of vitamin D daily, particularly during the winter, is preferable. Healthy blood levels of vitamin D are somewhere between 50 and 80 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), so many natural health professionals recommend having a “25 OH Vitamin D” blood test performed to check these levels.
Please test your blood levels before taking more than 2000 IU per day!
Vitamin D is important and low levels should be treated. But too much vitamin D can be dangerous for the kidneys.
for more discussion on this see
https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/vitamin-d-really-does-prevent?commentId=583967%3AComment%3A1204696&xg_source=msg_com_forum