vitamin D supplementation

[Southernfish]

So, heres the scoop, one week out of the month I work night shift and in the winter time (right now) there is very little sunshine each day and when I work nights in the winter I dont see any sunlight for a week straight. It honestly getting to me now and I can feel it affecting me in a negative way. I havent been tanning which I should have been so I will be starting that up on boxing day.

I want to add some vitamin D into the mix, what sort of a dose do you guys who use it recommend??

 

[Megatron28]

If you are deficient (confirmed with blood work) you should add vitamin D. I take 10,000iu daily. You may not need that much though.

 

[Southernfish]

Ya, I need to get blood work to confirm which I will do. But I thinks its safe bet to say I am.

 

[Mrrippedzilla]

I've yet to meet someone who has good vitamin D levels without supplementation, I'm not saying your "deficient" necessarily but your serum levels almost certainly aren't "optimal".

When getting bloodwork to see where you stand, make sure you get the 25-hydroxy test and NOT the 1,25-hydroxy version, which is not as accurate.
There's a lot of mixed data on exactly how much you need to get you up to a certain level but a good base would be 1,000iu for a 10 point increase in serum levels. Obviously it will take a few months to see the impact.

2,500iu year round keeps me between 70-80ng/mL, which I find to be ideal but this will differ based on where your base levels are, your skin color, your bf% (the fatter you are, the more vitamin d you will need).

Good to see you taking your health seriously man, IMO vitamin D is the one thing that everyone should be supplementing with regardless of goals.

 

[Megatron28]

I don't know if this is true, but I read once that incremental increases in Vitamin D levels require more supplementation. That is to say it isn't linear. If 1000iu gives you 10 more points, 2000iu will yield less than 20 points. This is just what I read somewhere, but it seems to be the case for me. Adding 2000iu daily did hardly anything to me the needle for me. I was very deficient before I started supplementing. 10000iu got me up to about 80 with a normal range of 30-100. I was around 20 before I started. Keep in mind that I live in Minnesota where we have winter for half the year and I work indoors.

 

[Mrrippedzilla]

Your right about it not being linear but again the data is far too mixed for me to conclusively say how much of a decrease in effectiveness there is the higher the dosing, plus there's a lot of other factors at play.

I do recall a study stating that 1 yr extra in age increases the effectiveness of a dose by 0.8 and 1% increase in body fat decreases the effectiveness by a similar amount.
These may not be the exact numbers but its in the same ball park.
There were a bunch of equations used to calculate the impact & the authors of the study were Japanese - that's all I remember.

Lol I did all this research to write an article about this but then my dog got access to my notes - end of story

 

[Southernfish]

Right on guys, thats good info, thanks. Once the holidays are over im gonna go in for blood work and go from there. Im certain its low, due to the environment I live and work in, probably far too low but blood work will tell and ill adjust based on what I see from that.