New Study Finds Current Dosing Recommendations May Not Help Patients Achieve Optimal Vitamin D Levels

Confirming similar conclusions reached in previous research conducted independently, these two studies found that achieving optimal vitamin D levels often requires doses much higher than the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of 600 to 800 International Units (IU). Some patients required more than 10,000 IU, for example. The studies therefore emphasize the importance of tailored approaches to vitamin D dosing and suggest that previous trials investigating the micronutrient may have used inadequate doses, thus leading to inaccurate results.

But vitamin D isn’t the only nutrient for which the standard RDAs are insufficient. For example, recent research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) describes how, rather than maximizing health, the current RDA for vitamin C is essentially only based on preventing its clinical deficiency disease, scurvy. To rectify this, the AJCN researchers therefore propose that its recommended intake should be raised. Ultimately, of course, towards the goal of achieving optimum health, the daily intakes of many other essential vitamins and minerals similarly need to be increased.

To see Dr. Rath’s science-based recommendations for daily intakes of vitamins, minerals, and other key micronutrients, visit this page on our website.