Risks of taking too much vitamin D

By Katherine Hobson, WSJ.com

The Institute of Medicine has finally weighed in on the issue of how much vitamin D we should be getting.

As the WSJ’s Melinda Beck reports today, the 600 international units now recommended for most of us is three times the old recommendation of 200 IUs, but it’s a lot less than what some advocates say we need. Low levels of the vitamin have been associated with a host of ills, including heart disease and some cancers, but that’s a far cry from showing that increasing intake will protect against those problems.

Patsy Brannon, a professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell University and member of the IOM panel that produced the report, tells the WSJ that the group paid attention to possible risks of taking too much of the vitamin. The group raised the upper limit of safe consumption for vitamin D to 4,000 IUs, saying that “the risk for harm begins to increase” after that. (It also found ... Read more>>