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Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

devaboone.com

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Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#131

Post by wkat4242 »

JohnMakin wrote: post #4

I struggle to believe that a physician told her to take 5000 IU of vitamin D daily for 5+ years. This is nearly 10x canada's recommended winter time dose for adults under 70. After years of struggling with severe joint pain and mental fog/depression, among other things it was discovered that I had critically low vitamin D. They prescribed the 5000 dose but told me at least 10 times how I should NOT continue this high…

In had something similar with vitamin B12, i got like 5000x the RDA. Said I have a genetic problem with absorption.

But they said it doesn't matter because the body breaks down what it doesn't need. Still, 5000x sounds worryingly high.

Of course different vitamin!

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#132

Post by tomcar288 »

Modified3019 wrote: post #115
voisin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the issue made worse by the fact that Vitamin D absorption is way lower if not in conjunction with Vitamin K? Or is this a myth?

As mentioned, K is more to make sure the calcium absorbed as a result of vitamin D can be properly put away instead of hanging around in the arteries. Magnesium is very important cofactor for metabolism of Vitamin D (and many other things, it’s a cofactor involved with hundreds of enzymes and such), which people are also generally low on. I think there may be another big cofactor or two, but they escape my offhand re…

absolutely on the Magnesium. Due to our diets being primary processed wheat, sugar, oil, and animals, (and partially due to soil mineral depletion) our diet is persistently low on Magnesium by quite a large margin. the impact of this on the population is not consistent. this really doesn't get enough attention in the media or many other places.

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#133

Post by wholinator2 »

HeadsUpHigh wrote: post #121
tiffanyh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I struggle to believe that a physician told her to take 5000 IU Believe it. When one of the most trusted vitamin companys (Nature’s Made) sells a 5000 IU single pill dosage that can be found at any drug or grocery store in the US - it nots surprising that people buy and believe 5000 is ok. https://www.naturemade.com/products/nature-made-extra-streng... If 4000 IU is the max dosage anyone should take, it shouldn’t b…

The audacity to believe you know everything about this subject. Super-high dosages are used in loading protocols before switching to a smaller maintenance dosage.

It didn't sound like arrogance to me. The "if" at the start of the sentence indicates they are not asserting their conclusion as the only truth. That said, if toxicity is a large concern, it's strange that companies sell such high dosages at least without some kind of warning. I bet a sufficient warning would prevent at least some cases of toxicity

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#134

Post by anon373839 »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #82
voisin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the issue made worse by the fact that Vitamin D absorption is way lower if not in conjunction with Vitamin K? Or is this a myth?

Vitamin K is needed so that calcium doesn't build up in the vessels but goes to the bones where it's supposed to be. But, taking D and K at the exact same time reduces the absorption of D.

K2, to be precise. K is involved in blood clotting; K2 isn’t.

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#135

Post by devaboone »

jader201 wrote: post #108
conorh wrote: post #80

This article was written by my wife a while back. It is part of a series she wrote to help people think about Vitamin D. She's actually doing a facebook live presentation (and taking questions) on Vitamin D next month if anyone is interested [1]. She's doing consults all day today and tomorrow but I'll let her know this is here. [1] https://fb.me/e/4WMVAXS9u

I would be interested to hear her responses to a number of the concerns/confusion mentioned below. It seems like there is a lot of speculation in this area (not just this thread, but previous threads on vitamin D), and not a lot of evidence/studies to back it up.

Hey there! I'm here now and will try to respond to everything brought up. Some of the confusion stems from the complexity of the issue. There has been a lot of research on the clinical role of Vitamin D, much of it of questionable quality. On the basic science of it, there is a lot of great research, but these articles are often hard to read unless you have a PhD in biochemistry.

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#136

Post by devaboone »

JohnMakin wrote: post #4

I struggle to believe that a physician told her to take 5000 IU of vitamin D daily for 5+ years. This is nearly 10x canada's recommended winter time dose for adults under 70. After years of struggling with severe joint pain and mental fog/depression, among other things it was discovered that I had critically low vitamin D. They prescribed the 5000 dose but told me at least 10 times how I should NOT continue this high…

There is a big difference between Canada and the US in how Vitamin D is treated.

In the US, you can go into any major pharmacy chain like CVS or Walgreens and purchase Vitamin D over the counter in 5,000 unit pills, with the bottle instructions saying to take once daily. I periodically check the Vitamin D supplements available and will find them with 10,000 units per pill, again with instructions to take once daily.

Many of the patients from the US who come to me are taking Vitamin D - and 5,000 units a day is a common dose. Most of them are told to take this by their physician, and others are on the dose because they just went to the pharmacy and picked up a bottle, which happened to contain 5,000 units.

Just a quick google search produced these 10,000 unit pills available at Walgreens, made by a common vitamin company. Note that the instructions are to take once daily, and there is no mention of watching calcium levels: https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nature's-bounty-d3-10,000-...

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#137

Post by devaboone »

WalterSear wrote: post #85
miduil wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

> The evidence is clear that vitamin D toxicity is one of the rarest medical conditions and is typically due to intentional or inadvertent intake of extremely high doses of vitamin D (usually in the range of >50,000-100,000 IU/d for months to years). https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196%281...

It's really important to follow the sources when you see something like this quoted. The article you link to is not an actual study in which people were given Vitamin D. It is a review article, and the specific sentence you quote references an article by Michael Holick, who then references two other articles. One of those articles is just a review, not citing new evidence.

The one piece of evidence that these are all referring back to is a small study done in men in high latitudes in winter, when skin production of Vitamin D is decreased. It consisted of a small number of patients who were randomized to receive different amounts of Vitamin D, so only a small number actually got 10,000 units a day, the highest dose. And this was over a period of just 5 months. You can read the article here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12499343/

Note that the highest dose in this study was 10,000 units a day, which I would agree can be safe for some people over a short period of time. But it was not necessary in this study to attain goal Vitamin D levels, and over time that dose can definitely cause problems.

Also, where is the 50,000 to 100,000 unit evidence coming from? I'm not sure actually, since there are no human studies looking at that dose. This may be a "theoretical" dose based on studies in other animals, or a false extrapolation based on human studies.

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#138

Post by voisin »

Modified3019 wrote: post #115
voisin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the issue made worse by the fact that Vitamin D absorption is way lower if not in conjunction with Vitamin K? Or is this a myth?

As mentioned, K is more to make sure the calcium absorbed as a result of vitamin D can be properly put away instead of hanging around in the arteries. Magnesium is very important cofactor for metabolism of Vitamin D (and many other things, it’s a cofactor involved with hundreds of enzymes and such), which people are also generally low on. I think there may be another big cofactor or two, but they escape my offhand re…

So take Magnesium and D together?

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#139

Post by devaboone »

lambdaba wrote: post #46
Novosell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quotes without a source? > 1mg will instantly kill you.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8811610/ Figured people can Google, all I bring is awareness this is widely overblown, having taken myself, for therapeutic purposes, upwards of 100k IU per day for months without doctor supervision (but doing it correctly, with a very low calcium diet). People take vit D megadoses for autoimmunity, with significant success, but I'm not discussing this here.

This is one case report. Yes, this person took an insane amount of Vitamin D and ended up very sick from it. But we can't really conclude that amounts under her dose are safe.

Re: Story of Vitamin D Toxicity (2022)

#140

Post by voisin »

Modified3019 wrote: post #120
MichaelZuo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So those combination vitamin D, and K products are scams?

Not at all. Suboptimal, but far better than taking nothing at all. There are loads of nutrients that technically compete for absorption, but generally it isn’t a concern unless you are taking a huge dose of one. Even then, it’s not like little dog is completely blocked. I’d have to look at the studies the above comment is referencing to determine how much of a concern it actually would be. Even if taking both togethe…

“Less effective” is odd here because other commenters are saying that K2 ensures D gets deposited in the right places rather than build up in the arteries (as plaques presumably). So if it is, say 30% less effective, then taking them apart wouldn’t that mean that rather than getting (example) 1,000 IU in the wrong place, you’d get 700 IU deposited in the right place, so it would be more effective rather than less?
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