Doctors say children, pregnant women, adults over 75, and people at high risk of diabetes should get more vitamin D than the currently recommended daily allowance.
Many diseases are known to be related to vitamin D use and blood vitamin D levels, but there is ongoing debate as to whether taking vitamin D supplements can help reduce risk, and there is also uncertainty about optimal blood vitamin D levels for better health.
The Endocrine Society has developed new clinical practice guidelines based on the results of clinical trials, stating that certain people may benefit from taking more vitamin D than currently recommended by the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
“The goal of this guideline is to address vitamin D requirements for disease prevention in a generally healthy population without underlying conditions that put people at risk for impaired vitamin D absorption or action,” said Marie DeMay, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and chair of the committee that developed the guideline.
“Healthy people who may benefit from high-dose vitamin D supplements include those aged 75 years and older, pregnant women, adults with prediabetes, and children and adolescents under 18 years of age, but we do not recommend routine testing of vitamin D levels for any of these groups.”
The panel’s key guidelines are:
- Healthy adults under age 75 may not benefit from taking vitamin D supplements in amounts greater than those recommended by the IOM.
- Certain groups may benefit from taking more vitamin D than the IOM recommends.
– Children and adolescents under 18 years of age, as it may prevent nutritional rickets and reduce the risk of respiratory infections
– People over 75 years old. May lower risk of death.
– Pregnant women, as it may reduce the risk of preeclampsia, intrauterine death, preterm birth, small-for-gestational age birth, and neonatal death
– People with prediabetes: May slow the progression to diabetes.
- Adults aged 50 years and older who have an indication for vitamin D supplementation or treatment are recommended to take a low dose of vitamin D daily instead of a high dose every day.
- Routine testing of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels is not recommended in any of the populations studied because its benefit has not been established. This includes 25-hydroxyvitamin D screening in darker-skinned and obese individuals.
The expert panel also highlighted that although evidence on the role of vitamin D in health and disease has increased over the past decade, there are many limitations to the available evidence.
For example, many of the large clinical trials were not designed with some of the reported results in mind.
They also emphasized that the population studied already had blood levels of vitamin D that were considered sufficient.
Read more at JCEM.
