Adequate Vitamin D is essential and has many well established health benefits. It promotes calcium absorption in the gut and helps maintain normal bone mineralization. Without sufficient vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, or misshapen. Vitamin D prevents rickets in children and, together with calcium, helps protect older adults from osteoporosis. It reduces cellular inflammation and supports normal cell growth, muscle and immune system function and even helps modulate glucose metabolism.
Some studies have suggested that high doses of Vitamin D were effective in promoting strength and balance in older adults, and in reducing the risk of falls, a major cause of preventable injury and even death. But a more recent study published in Annals of Internal Medicine has concluded that doses of 1,000IU or more provided no benefit over a daily dose of 200IU. The two-year study was designed to determine whether vitamin D3 supplementation reduces falls in community-dwelling adults 70 years of age and older who are at elevated risk for falls and whose blood levels of vitamin D may be insufficient.
Bruce Troen, MD, professor and chief of the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, explained that the well-executed study found that participants assigned to the groups that took either 2,000IU or 4,000IU a day had a statistically significantly greater risk for hospitalization or death than those in the group taking 200 IUs a day. However, he adds, that finding is not conclusive because of several limitations of the study.
The current Safe Upper Limit for Vitamin D, a fat soluble vitamin, is set at 4,000IU per day.
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