UK/US Vit D Facts

Our Australian friend made these new comments on Vit D3.

The US uses a different measurement scale.

In the US the measure is ng/ml ie nanograms per millilitre.

In the UK and most other countries is nmol/Litre.

The reason for the difference is that nmol/Litre is a "proper" chemical measure for labs in that it takes into account the molecular weight the molecule "25 hydroxy vitaminD"

As pointed out the conversion factor is approx 2.5

So 50nmol/L = 20ng/ml

AS you say UK and many other countries deem 50nmol/L to be sufficient. They do this for two reasons:

1. the "statistical normal level" of serum vitaminD is around 50nmol/L

2. the IOM (US:institute of medicine) says it is 20ng/ml (50nmol/L)

Is this right or is it wrong? what is an "optimal" level for health and disease prevention.

We know that Africans who are without upper body clothing average out at about 45ng/ml (112nmol/L)

We know that there are no known adverse events up to dosage of 20,000iu

We know that 5000iu daily pushes most peoples levels up to about 40ng/ml (100nmol/L)

We know that to get that from sun exposure would require around 20mins full body exposure in summer sun daily. Or around 30mins of upper body exposure daily.

These figures tell us that the average person gets no where near this sort of dosage (from the sun). Should they? History says that people get less sun exposure because of three things:

occupation

cold

fear (of getting cancer or wrinkled skin)

So we can assume that the "statistically normal" person is getting too little vitamin D from the sun. So the IOM is wrong, UK is wrong.

In addtion when a "normal" survey is done measuring people's vitamin D level it will include some people with disease that is not disclosed or even diagnosed. This will lower the average for the following resons:

We know that when a person has an infection or an inflammatory disease or cancer their levels decrease. No one knows why but it could be that it is being converted to the active form far faster to help deal with the disease. We do not measure the active form, we measure the precursor floating around in the blood.

So if you have an inflammatory based illness then the IOM 's figure does not apply at all.

Both the Endocrinological Society and the Vitamin D council recommend 4000iu to 5000iu respectively.

Again to get this sort of dosage from the sun just ain't gonna happen in the average person. So supplementation is advisable for EVERYONE and definitely for the sick.

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