What is the Truth About Vitamin D? Learn from the Leading Experts

Published on September 24, 2024

PLUS Your Questions Answered – Confirming your vitamin D level with your doctor, and how to maintain a healthy level once your target level is reached

Our live, international virtual forum and expert panel event is one week away – Monday, September 30th at 7am PT! Be sure to have registered for the event – event details and agenda can be found here. The event will be recorded and sent to all registered attendees.

We hope to see you there!

Register Here

Submit Your Questions to the Vitamin D Experts Panel

We have already received a lot of questions from our followers, including the one submitted by Rosemarie and answered below. If you have a question that you would like to have answered by one of our vitamin D experts, please submit it at the link below:
Submit Your Questions Here

Your Questions, Answered by the Vitamin D Experts!

The following question was recently submitted by Rosemarie.

Q: If my family doctor does the vitamin D blood level and it’s within the normal limits, do you still need to take more vit D continually? Thank you.

A: Once you reach your desired vitamin D level, it is important to continue taking the amount of vitamin D you have been taking regularly over the last couple of months, as that is how long it takes for a blood level to fully adjust to a change in supplementation. (The time will be shorter if you started with a larger loading dose before switching to a regular maintenance dose.) In other words, keep taking what you have been taking once you get to your target level – that is what is called your “maintenance dose,” and that is what your body needs on a regular/daily basis!

The following posts contain more information on why getting vitamin D daily is important, versus taking vitamin D only once per week, month, or longer.

Do You Take Your Vitamin D Daily?  Read Here

When Taking Vitamin D Can be Ineffective and Possibly Harmful  Read Here

An important side note: When testing your vitamin D level through your doctor or other health care provider, be sure to ask for the number of your vitamin D result (this will be either in ng/ml or nmol/L, depending on your location/country). The reason is that different providers and labs may have different reference ranges for vitamin D, and often their cut off for sufficiency can differ from what is recommended by the experts. For example, a lab might consider 20 ng/ml (50 nmol/L) sufficient, and if your vitamin D level comes in at 21 ng/ml, you will likely be told that your level is within normal limits. However, many experts, including the GrassrootsHealth scientist panel, recommend a vitamin D level between 40-60 ng/ml (100-150 nmol/L), while a higher level might even be preferred depending on current health conditions and goals.

In summary, educate yourself about what target vitamin D level is optimal for your health, find out where your level is currently, and take steps to ensure your level is in or stays within your preferred target range. Learn more at the following posts.

Nutrient Reference Range vs Optimal Range Read Here

Optimal Vitamin D Levels Differ for Specific Outcomes Read Here

Measure Your Levels of Vitamin D, Magnesium, and Other Important Nutrients and Markers

Having and maintaining healthy vitamin D, magnesium, omega-3s, zinc and other nutrient levels can help improve your health now and for your future. Choose which to measure, such as your vitamin D, omega-3s, and essential minerals including magnesium and zinc, by creating your custom home test kit today. Take steps to improve the status of each of these measurements to benefit your overall health. You can also track your own intakes, symptoms and results to see what works best for YOU.

Enroll and test your levels today, learn what steps to take to improve your status of vitamin D (see below) and other nutrients and blood markers, and take action! By enrolling in the GrassrootsHealth projects, you are not only contributing valuable information to everyone, you are also gaining knowledge about how you could improve your own health through measuring and tracking your nutrient status, and educating yourself on how to improve it.

How Can You Use this Information for YOUR Health?

Having and maintaining healthy vitamin D and other nutrient levels can help improve your health now and for your future. Measuring is the only way to make sure you are getting enough!

STEP 1 Order your at-home blood spot test kit to measure vitamin D and other nutrients of concern to you, such as omega-3s, magnesium, essential and toxic elements (zinc, copper, selenium, lead, cadmium, mercury); include hsCRP as a marker of inflammation or HbA1c for blood sugar health

STEP 2 Answer the online questionnaire as part of the GrassrootsHealth study

STEP 3 Using our educational materials and tools (such as our dose calculators), assess your results to determine if you are in your desired target range or if actions should be taken to get there

STEP 4 After 3-6 months of implementing your changes, re-test to see if you have achieved your target level(s)

Enroll in D*action and Build Your Custom Test Kit!

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