Can Too Much Vitamin D Be Hazardous to Your Health? in Rancho Mirage, CA

Katherine Hobson addresses an issue with over the counter vitamins (OTC) and how one type has been proven that too much is bad. That is probably ditto to many other OTC vitamins taken in excess. Share with your doctor all medications prescribed or OTC.

By Katherine Hobson
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. For our seniors it is even more important to discuss all medications with your physician.

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.)

So what happens when people take too much vitamin D? At very high levels — above 10,000 IUs a day — there’s a risk of kidney and tissue damage, the report says. In addition, “the lack of data on the safety of higher intakes of vitamin D when used chronically is very concerning,” the report says.

A recent editorial in the American Journal of Epidemiology discussing the issue of anti-cancer claims for various vitamins over the years notes that an analysis of existing research found no association between levels of vitamin D in the blood and several cancers. But it did find that “the risk of pancreatic cancer was doubled for those in the highest quintile of circulating vitamin D levels.” The editorialist, Tim Byers of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Colorado School of Public Health, continues:

This observation is disconcerting both because pancreatic cancer is now the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States and because the proponents of the vitamin D hypothesis are now arguing that substantially elevating circulating blood concentrations into that range should be a nutritional policy objective for the general population.

Brannon tells the WSJ that the panel also saw a tentative association between death from prostate cancer and other causes in men with high blood levels of the vitamin, though it may not ever be possible to test the validity of those connections. For our elders these high levels can be a significant issue.

But it’s worth noting that when it comes to vitamins, more is not always better. As Byers writes:

We now know that supernutritional levels of vitamins taken as supplements do not emulate the apparent benefits of diets high in foods that contain those vitamins, and we now know that taking vitamins in supernutritional doses can cause serious harm. In short, we have found that the reality of human biology is far more complex than is suggested by our simple ideas.

ComForcare helps many families with their Alzheimer's caregiving needs. If you have questions or need help with home care for your loved one, call us at 888-243-6201. We are a home care agency providing in home care in Palm Springs, CA and the surrounding area or direct to 760.321.2945 or 800.993.2945 to Lisa Marie Blaskie