This article should have mentioned and provided link to October 11, 2018 story in NYTimes: Vitamin D Supplements Don’t Lead to Stronger Bones
Vitamin D is important to many other functions in the body!
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Of course the results showed no improvement, as the 800 iu per day used in the studies is a miniscule amount, too little to raise the patients' serum levels to an optimal range which might have given the bone improvements and other health benefits. If they had tested antibiotics for effectiveness, but used only a sub-therapeutic dose, they would have found that antibiotics don't work. Researchers should be looking at blood serum levels. When levels are 50 and higher, numerous health improvements occur. There are too many studies to reference, but as another commenter suggested, check out pub med. Also, some people do not store Vit D3 well. Labwork is the only way to determine a person's level. Optimal is around 50-70. Some countries want serum levels even higher. And taking over 10,000 iu per day doesn't help more than the 10,000 iu, as many persons have found when taking the once a week 50,000 iu doses and still having low levels (below 30).
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The reason for supplementing and also the reason that many countries add Vitamin D to the population's diet is to prevent those few cases of rickets and osteomalacia. Vitamin D does it's job unfortunately it is not a miracle vitamin. For those countries that do supplement the diet with Vitamin D, please continue to do so.
beta-carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E supplements are also a waste of money.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-free-radical-theory-of-aging-dead/...
Honestly as a physician I am mystified by persistent and determined efforts by the medical establishment to prove that vitamin supplementation is unnecessary or harmful.
Based on my medical education (at one of the top medical schools in the country), I would say most doctors receive almost no meaningful education on nutrition. So our opposition to vitamin supplementation is emotionally, rather than scientifically based.
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@Mary May I am hoping you can expand on what your last sentence. The first and second paragraph of this article explicitly states that 81 controlled trials on 53,000 patients showed that vitamin D supplements are not beneficial for people who are using them for bone health. This is scientific fact, not wishful thinking. I agree with you that most doctors are not trained in the field of nutrition, which is why they refer patients to nutritionists. However, it would be reasonable to expect that any and all doctors should be able to logically explain to their patients that vitamin D supplementation is not efficacious for bone health based on the review presented. Thoughts?
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Thank you for addressing the lack of nutrition education in medicine and as it relates to this article!!!
@Mary May
Yes, that still is true about medical education, but there are people who are trained in the science of nutrition and they do not draw their conclusions based on unsupported opinion or on emotions. They consider the data. It does not always provide a final answer but it is better than comparing uninformed opinions. Most studies find no benefits of supplements. Better to use the money they would cost to buying good food instead.
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Another case of “specialist myopia,” where “experts” only see the world through their own, limited specialty. You don’t take vitamin D3 for your bones. Rather, you take it to live longer and to avoid illnesses.
Daily vitamin D3 has been proven in many supplementation trials to lower all-cause mortality and many illnesses.
Take a look at all the meta-analyses and studies available from the government's PubMed database at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/.
Or google "PMID" (for PubMed IDentification) and any of:
For all-cause and cause-specific mortality: PMID 24690623, but also 25406188, 22170374, 28350929, 30039288, & 24066946;
For Respiratory Infections: PMID 28202713, but also 27009076, 23840373, 20559424,18266602 & 30060084;
Asthma: PMID 27595415, also 28986128;
Inflammatory diseases: PMID 24971027;
Diabetes: PMID 29718904, also 23613602 & 25836943;
Alzheimer’s: 27856775, also 26231781;
Multiple sclerosis: 26305103 & 27652346, also 29243029 & 28904085; and
Cancers: PMID 27892412 & 25406188, also PMID 27978548, 27049526, 28210393, 30011816 & 29906273.
These are supplement Randomized Controlled Trial compilations and Mendelian randomization studies proving vitamin-D-level Causality—not just association studies. Of course there are tons of association studies that say the same thing. And lots of new mechanistic studies too.
Ignore bones and bone/endo doctors' opinions on vitamin D3 supplementation. They are irrelevant.
I recommend 5000 IU of D3 daily. It’s cheap and safe.
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@SRP Can you explain to me someone you do not take vitamin D for your bones? In brief, you know the relationships between PTH and vitamin D in controlling calcium serum levels. With calcium being primarily stored in bones, why do state that 'You don't take vitamin D3 for your bones'? Also, can you provide information regarding the proper daily intake of vitamin D? Thank you.
@Charlie Forsythe -
The article reports meta-analysis results that, on average, they observed "no clinically significant differences between groups for fractures, falls or bone mineral density" when comparing people who took vitamin D and those who didn't in randomized trials. (Now, these trials were likely not long enough to really affect fractures, and I don't see how vitamin D affects falls, and many used bolus vitamin D [which doesn't work]—but mineral density could probably be examined after a number of years if the dosage was high enough...).
My point was that vitamin D for bone issues is irrelevant.
It causally affects many OTHERE illnesses, as proven in the cites I provided.
We now understand that every human cell has the vitamin D receptor on it.
Mechanistic pathways of action are currently being researched and some are outlined in the cites provided.
It is simply irresponsible to claim that just because vitamin D supplementation doesn't help skeletal outcomes, you shouldn't take it.
That is myopian malpractice.
I recommend taking one 5000 IU pill of vitamin D3 daily.
It’s cheap and safe.
@SRP I agree with you. The article ends with the quote, "We know that if your levels are normal or slightly low,” in the 20 to 60 nanograms per milliliter range, Dr. Bolland said, “there is no evidence that you get any benefit from taking vitamin D.”
No evidence for "any benefit" even if your levels are low seems to be grossly overgeneralizing the results of their meta-analysis.
Vitamin D is a hormone in terms of its actions. By itself of course it is not going to "build strong bones." One needs, at the least, to make sure that potassium and phosphorus levels are within the "normal" range. Santor (below) has it right that weight bearing exercise is a key component to making strong one's bones.
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The studies seem to assume that vitamin D works like a drug. It doesn't The body uses it when the proper stimulus is provided, such as weight bearing exercises the stimulate bone strengthening. Same with calcium. When provided in sufficient quantity the body will grow bone spurs and other anomalous bone growths if no stimulus is provided. When weight training, the body will start using the vitamin D and calcium correctly. Vitamin D and calcium are not drugs. Researchers should stop making drug-alike assumptions when investigating nutrients and other substances used by the body.
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For a period of months, I was breaking out in hives. I saw an allergist who ran the gamut of tests. She recommended a daily dose of Vitamin D3. I began taking it, and the hives are gone. When I forget to take it, I start getting itchy patches, so I know it’s the D3 supplement that is keeping them under control.
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@Gala Did you take the D3 with or without calcium? I've got a case of hives for the last 8 months and I'm willing to try anything.
I have always tested fine for Vit D at my annual blood tests, but then I had been taking Vit D3. I would be interested in knowing how long I have to go off of it to get a true reading of how much I am getting from food alone.
Reasonable, and sometimes needing boosting, Vitamin D is key for brain function / thought clarity.
During one particularly dark, cold, lousy WI winter, my Vitamin D registered at 2.
That moved my usually 'pooh-pooh supplements' internist to prescribe a mega-dose, once a week for 4 weeks, just to get me back into a normal range.
I need to ask her to do it again, as 'winter is coming.'
And my mind and my energy are already at near zero levels.
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Vitamin D is involved in the vital health of brain and also in the vital immune system. How can scientists argue to define the necessary level of vitamin D only from the viewpoint of the bone health?
"A certain vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene haplotype was reported, for the first time by our group, to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Our results indicated that vitamin D regulates the release of NGF, a very important molecule for neuronal survival of hippocampal neurons as well as cortical neurons."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5353091/
"As the vitamin D receptor is expressed on immune cells (B cells, T cells and antigen presenting cells) and these immunologic cells are all are capable of synthesizing the active vitamin D metabolite, vitamin D has the capability of acting in an autocrine manner in a local immunologic milieu. Vitamin D can modulate the innate and adaptive immune responses. Deficiency in vitamin D is associated with increased autoimmunity as well as an increased susceptibility to infection. As immune cells in autoimmune diseases are responsive to the ameliorative effects of vitamin D, the beneficial effects of supplementing vitamin D deficient individuals with autoimmune disease may extend beyond the effects on bone and calcium homeostasis."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/
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Bone formation (osteoblasts) and bone losing (osteoclasts) is multifactorial process, invlolving gene expression (vitamin D is heavily involved), hormones and enzymes, mitochondrial metabolism, oxidation, assortment of nutrients such as collagen, calcium , other minerals and trace minerals, vitamins like D, K, and C, for the positive side, and toxins like heavy metals, fluoride, chemicals for the negative side. When balance of bone formation and bone losing tips to losing side due to aging, poor nutrition, toxins, diseases and other osteoclastic causes, we encounter problems. Therefore, one factorial analysis, a typical of conventional medical approach centering on vitamin D is ridiculous.
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What about the role that vitamin D may play in preventing cancer?
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