Vitamin D is a hotly debated wellness issue. Many researchers believe that raising the target levels for this vitamin could be detrimental to your wellbeing, but there is still considerable worldwide support to raise these levels nonetheless, at least in adults. However, a new joint position statement on the issue maintains that the target levels for vitamin D will remain where they are, in spite of opposition.
The statement, which is published in the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) by the Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society and Osteoporosis Australia, is aimed at vitamin D levels during pregnancy and in infants, children and adolescents specifically. The vitamin D levels of new-borns reflect those of their mother’s during pregnancy and at birth, 48% of whom had low levels when tested.
Many people in Britain take some form of vitamin D supplement, as the vitamin can mainly be sourced naturally from sunshine – which is something that we don’t get a lot of in this country! However, the Australian paper outlines advice about appropriate levels of both sun exposure, and vitamin D supplementation, for its nation’s citizens. Most Australians get more than 90% of their vitamin D through sun exposure of the skin.
When vitamin D is formed in your skin, your blood stream takes it up and transports it to your liver, where it is formed into 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D), and then it is formed as an active hormone in your kidney. When you have a vitamin D test, it measures your concentration of 25(OH)D, and expressed it in terms of nanomoles per litre (nmol/L). The paper confirmed that your target blood level for adequate vitamin D is a 25(OH)D concentration of 50nmol/L or greater, even though many experts advocate for higher minimum targets, such as 75 or 80nmol/L.
But why do these opinions differ? Experts interpret research evidence differently, and this affects how decisions are made. There is also a problem because ‘usual’ levels of vitamin D vary according to season and to location, meaning that two different seasons or locations in Australia could have very different sun exposure. However, for the time-being, the authorities are sticking to their one-size-fits-all target levels of 50nmol/L.
Comments are closed.