Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Can Taking Too Much Vitamin D Be Hazardous to Your Health?





Graphic courtesy of Health and Fitness

The answer is YES.

The Institute of Medicine has finally weighed in on the issue of how much vitamin D we should be getting.

As the WSJ's Melinda Beck reports today, the 600 international units now recommended for most of us is three times the old recommendation of 200 IUs, but it s a lot less than what some advocates say we need. Low levels of the vitamin have been associated with a host of ills, including heart disease and some cancers, but that s a far cry from showing that increasing intake will
protect against those problems.

Patsy Brannon, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University and member of the IOM panel that produced the report, tells the WSJ that the group paid attention to possible risks of taking
too much of the vitamin. The group raised the upper limit of safe consumption for vitamin D to 4,000 IUs, saying that the risk for harm begins to increase after that. (It also found a 2,000 IU safe intake ceiling for calcium, the other nutrient covered by the report.)

Patients should always consult with their physician before embarking on any extreme vitamin supplementation.

3 comments:

  1. Yes! It can. You never want to overly indulge on anything, even if it's healthy.

    By the way... is that Tiger Woods in the photograph? Haha!

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  2. Anonymous8:41 AM

    It seems like it would be pretty difficult to reach 4,000 IUs! I feel like I never get enough, but maybe some people who take a lot of supplements might reach that ceiling a little easier.

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  3. Thanks for the information..
    I have seen that vitamin D and cholesterol both have the same precursor. I was wondering if your body is not converting the 7-dehydrocholesterol into vitamin D due to lack of UV light, would any excess then be turned into more cholesterol therefore increasing your cholesterol levels?

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