As Demi has very reasonably put this excellent article here, to interest those who do not normally frequent the long running vitamin d thread, perhaps a few links to sources may be helpful for those new to the subject.

Cheapest 25(OH)D test source Grassrootshealth D Action by post $40 approx £24 bur remember the article author says After at least 8 weeks, have your blood tested If you are starting now in Winter then maybe retest in 3 months it's MORE to see if the amount you are using is sufficient, it's LESS LIKELY to check if you've overdone the D3.

Many of us have used the dry powder forms of D3 MOST SUCCESSFULLY. Dr Cannell has always recommended them and he would by now have discovered if they were sometimes less than ideal. I personally take mine with liquid fish oil so perhaps that helps. I suspect the trouble comes from the tablet form.

Vitamin D3 in oil based gel caps 5000iu $5 Discount Code ~~~~~~. Any of these are fine. There are also Carlsons fish oil D3. I'd avoid the soy oil forms. The MCT oil Country life, sound a good idea, but I've had no problem with the cheapest Now foods or Healthy origins. I'm not sure that the miniscule amount of carrier fish oil in the Carlson is worth the extra cost.

UK online source of Effective strength 2000iu vitamin D3 drops Not sure if they are worth that much but I know some UK people dislike buying from the USA

Calculator to work out time required for your skin/latitude/color/time of day etc remember this is for 1000iu only and we require an additional 5000~7000iu/daily. so either expose a lot more skin or extend the time.

Also he's chickened out of saying anything about UVB lamps. I'm for very limited use of them during the winter in addition to a basic 5000iu/daily D3 supplement. I feel happier knowing I am providing those skin cells that can metabolise D3 into calcidiol and calcitriol with the raw material they require regularly.

Anyone with concerns about safety should read this paper from Vieth.

I was looking at mine for Bio-Tech and the only ing is the D3 50,000 and inactive ing, Microcrystaline cellulose silica, gelatin.

I take it this is a dry power capsule.... whats is so bad about the Powder,..... another question, since its powder what kind of Fat to I take with it, a tbls of Olive oil?

I personally don't think there is a problem with taking the dry powder filled capsules. Certainly I know they work fine for me and I am also certain that if Dr Cannell had observed any failure using them with his patients he would have changed to the oil based capsules. The cost differential between oilbased capsules and dry powder filled capsules is so insignificant cost isn't the issue.

Dr Cannell also makes the point that he dissolved the contents of the dry powder capsules in drinks for his kids. There is absolutely no doubt that they will be fine for you whether you dissolve them in oil first or just take them as they are.

I take a couple of teaspoons of This concentrated fish oil daily. and if you took that with your Vitamin d3 you would know that there was a source of fat available.
mct oil may be a good alternative
But the important thing is to get the D3 into your body ASP and I really don't think you need to worry about the question of it being dissolved in oil or not. I suggest sliding the capsule apart and dissolving the fine white powder in a couple of teaspoons of MCT or Fish oil only as an option NOT as a requirement. I don't bother to dissolve it first I just normally take my vit D and fish oil before breakfast so I'm confident there is oil available to carry the D3 into my system.

There is only anecdotal evidence that oil based capsules are better. I suspect they are only superior to solid tablets.
I have not seen any evidence that the form supplied by Biotech Pharmacal has not proved entirely satisfactory. I've no financial interest in Biotech.
I keep a pack of 50,000iu in my cupboard and will use them for Stoss therapy should I get swine flu and I am absolutely confident that it will do the trick if and as required.

Thank you Mr. Hutchinson, I will take the D3 in a few min

I just chew up my vitamin D with my breakfast sausage/bacon.

With a summer of staying indoors and 500 units of "D" in a Centrum Silver multivitamin daily, my 25(OH)D came back 33.1. I am now taking a Carlson 2,000 unit D3 soft gel daily (sunflower oil) and have also started one Source Naturals Vitamin K2 tablet, which besides 100 mcg of Vitamin K2 (plus 30 mcg in the multi), also has 400 IU of Vitamin D3 and 200 mg of calcium (the multi has 220 mg of calcium). That puts my total Vitamin D supplementation at 2,900 units daily, only 2,400 of which I'm sure is D3.

There are several rules of thumb out there, one of which is that your 24(OH)D will go up 10 points for every 1,000 units of D3 supplementation. That should put me at mid to high 50s by the end of winter.

There's another ROT that says adults need 5,000 units a day, about twice what I'm taking now, and yet another ROT that says I need 1,000 units for every 25 of my 250 pounds, or 10,000 units daily. I have a feeling these are gross overkill in my case, but will see what my test results are at the end of winter.

I also take a 200 mg Carlson Chelated Magnesium daily, along with over 3 grams of DHA+EPA in fish oil, 100 mg of Ubiquinol, and 300 mg twice daily of Alpha Lipoic Acid. Over the years I've found it doesn't take much non-chelated mineral supplement to cause constipation. A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil twice daily will also help with that.

I would suggest the cheaper forms that use MCT oil or olive oil would be preferable although the small amount of oil in a capsule is probably not worth worrying about.
Other readers note that MiniMoe is posting from Ohio Latitude 40ish. In his practice Dr Davis at latitude 42, not that much further north, finds 5000~6000iu generally required to raise to 60ng/ml.
But we know that people who are overweight are higher users of D3 because their fat cells emit pro inflammatory cytokines. Generally people who are overweight or have any other inflammatory condition require up to 2000iu to produce the same results.

You may be right. My view is that it is far safer to overshoot the target than to remain in the vulnerable zone. If you took 5000iu/daily, retested in February, and found you were in fact right and had reached 80ng/ml then it's no problem to reduce down 2000iu if you are uncomfortable with that highish level. 60~80ng are the levels our bodies would naturally attain and maintain if we lived naked.

I suspect that what evolution found to work best is probably ideal in the long run.

Magnesium being hygroscopic attracts water. You need to take sufficient magnesium that your body has a surplus and doesn't absorb it all. You want to aim for some magnesium being left in the colon so perhaps increasing the magnesium ,by adding one extra magnesium tablet daily up to the point things are moving, would be better particularly if you drink LOTS of water. You can then, having corrected the magnesium deficiency situation, go back down with the magnesium to around 500mg daily.

I am taking 600 of the magnesium, and 450 of calcium, and have to say not much help in the constipation area.
I have found something strange. I take my am multi pk of Diabetes Vitamins, get hot I am sure from the Niacin in it and then get Nasuated, then take the Magnesium at lunch and it relaxs me and the Nasuea goes away.
I am sleeping so much better to, I take the Calcium and a Magnesium 250 pill at bedtime. I used to wake up 100 times a night, now I sleep hrs, last night it was 6 before I wake up...So it helps that to...
I am eating 1,000 or more of calcium, so I Think I am good there, can't get a answer on that question.

As a woman,
If your bones are strong, you need 900-1200 mg/day
If your bones are soft, you need 1200-1500 mg/day
If you have osteoporosous, you need 1500-1800 mg/day.

You can get the calcium from diet or pills. Of course, that means adequate vitamin D3 and magnesium.

From The Heart Scan Blog:

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2...lood-level.html

Ok, I have a question ...

I am a firm believer in Vitamin D3, but am a little concerned about the high doses being recommended here. I do accept that the current RDA is ridiculously low, but the Vitamin D Council's recommendation of upto 10,000IU/day seems the other extreme to me. I may be wrong, though.

I have heard the argument about us evolving in equatorial region with very less clothes on etc ... and I do accept that. But not sure how confident we can be about 2 things :

1. Exactly how clothed we were. Blame it on the Discovery channel documentaries, but early man is always depicted as clad in a lot of animal skins etc. Even though thats lesser than what we wear today, its still far from being "naked".

2. Apart from the time spent out in full sunlight for active hunting/gathering, would it not be likely that we spent the rest of the time in shade, maybe inside caves or under foliage ?
Even the hunting gathering, was it always out in the open ? Gathering nuts/berries could have been done in the shade, hunting maybe not.

Having lived in a tropical climate most of my life, I know that being in the sun is something which even animals seem to want less of, after some time. Unless they have no choice, people/animals generally try getting in the shade or going indoors.

Also, humans moved to colder climates long before the diseases of civilization became rampant, right ? Once there, it seems to me they would have clothed themselves in lots of furs, skins etc to protect themselves from the cold. And moved into caves etc too. Again, how much vitamin D could they get from the sun then, summer or winter ?

Despite having a friend who takes 15,000-20,000 units daily in the winter with no apparent ill effect, I share your concern--that's why I get my Vitamin D level tested. First test, with only the 400 IU in the multivitamin, it was 33 ng/ml. My doctor was happy with that, but I wasn't.

Since then, I've been taking a 100 mcg Vitamin K2 tablet (plus the 30 mcg of K in the multi) that adds another 500 IU of Vitamin D3 (and 200 mg of calcium plus the 220 mg in the multi), plus a 2,000 IU Vitamin D3 softgel. To balance these, I take a 200 mg chelated magnesium (glycine) tablet (plus the 50 mg in the multi).

I expect that much Vitamin D supplementation to get me in the high fifties. If that doesn't do it, I'll add more. To me, it doesn't matter what all the theories say or what the cave men did, just what my test results are. Good luck.

I think we have to start from more recent perspectives and consider the changes that have occurred more recently.

Vitamin D Levels Are Declining

In 1957 I was 13 and that for me marks my FIRST ever pair of long trousers.
Going from lower school to senior school and wearing LONG trousers was a mark of status back then, having to wear shorts to lower school EVERY DAY of the year was compulsory. I wonder now how much difference wearing shorts made to our vitamin D status back then, probably not as much as being obliged to play outdoors all day every day until bedtime when not at school, also contributed to higher status?

Consider also the invention of picture windows.
When did they become fashionable in the USA?
We know that UVB is needed to process cholesterol into Vitamin D3 but it is a complicated process and UVA is also involved in the creation of pre vitamin D and also in the processing of newly made vitamin D3 into the suprasterols that the body doesn't use.

Irrespective of how many clothes our ancient ancestors wore one thing is certain. They weren't able to sit indoors under glass basking only in UVA sunlight with no UVB content. Our DNA did not evolve to be only exposed to UVA.

The process by which we are protected from Vitamin D3 toxicity by the skin processing D3 near the surface of the skin, on into products the body doesn't use, evolved before the possibility of basking under glass, near a sunny window, or car windscreen in UVB deficient sunlight was a possibility.

Expose vitamin D3 to UVA and it degrades into suprasterols the body doesn't use.

I'm not sure when conservatories became fashionable in the average home but in the UK I guess from about 1980's onwards they have become increasingly common.

Similarly we did not, while humans were evolving, have a diet enriched with high fructose corn syrup. Now we know Dietary Fructose Inhibits Intestinal Calcium Absorption and Induces Vitamin D Insufficiency we may very well find that other recent additions to the human diet also induce vitamin D3 deficiency.

I'm sure you are also aware that many sunscreens work by moving UVB into the UVA spectrum and this as well as blocking UVB and preventing Vitamin D synthesis actually accelerates the depletion of any Vitamin D3 near the skin surface.

25-Hydroxyvitamin D(3) is an agonistic vitamin D receptor ligand.This new research demonstrates how higher circulating levels of 25(OH)D fight cancer.

What matters isn't the amount you take but the 25(OH)D level you maintain. The Latest research into 25(OH)D shows how Cacidiol is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than we thought possible. We has assumed it was a precusor to the real hormone 1.25 (calcitriol) but this new research demonstrates how calcdiol it works synergistically with calcitriol to help it achieve it's role more efficiently.
If you know anyone with cancer then you really must encourage them to take effective amounts of D3 to achieve higher levels than we previously regarded as necessary.

After six days of treatment, 100 nM 25OHD3 had no significant effect on
the growth of the prostate cells, but 500 nM of the compound resulted in approximately 60% inhibition of cellular growth.
500 nmol/l = 200ng/ml this was in a test tube not a person but you cannot expect 40ng/ml 100nmol/l to be effective against cancer.
90ng/ml the top of Mercola's range = 225nmol/l. He must either have the power of predicting the future or some good vitamin D research contacts who get to see the research before it's published.

Mercola