This is a response/comment per Lynwood's November 5 posting on the GT about Vitamin DLynnwood wrote:
I have decided to take 40,000-60,000 IU per day (split dose, either 2 or 3 doses a day, whatever I can remember, doses 20,000 IU each), with calcium (1,500 mg to 2,000 mg) and magnesium (half that of calcium) suppliments at normal dose, for 3-4 months, then get a blood test to see how I am doing.
Dearest Lynnwood
–
I read your post on the GT about the amount of Vitamin D you plan to take daily with some concern – 40-60,000 IU’s per day is a staggering amount,
very difficult for the body to handle suddenly. It will be a real shock to your system, and not necessarily a productive one. You risk, at minimum, having most of it excreted unprocessed and useless.
I’ve been taking vitamins and natural supplements for the past forty+ years(egad....), long before they were fashionable and have given them considerable study – to the point where my family doctor now asks
my advice about them, so I can speak from some personal experience here, but not as medical advice, of course:
You can’t expect to undo years and years of a deficiency in only weeks or months. It took you a long time to get here – it can’t be reversed instantly. Your body has adapted to its present state and knows what to expect in terms of its regular nutrition – to suddenly upset that with any new input is a
huge stressor and your body’s processing facility will be simply unprepared to cope – dumping the excess, stashing it inappropriately or reacting with other upsets. Not good.
Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that if in fact the person is already ill or quite debilitated, the initial dosage of anything should be quite small and increased cautiously. And they’ve got 6,000 years of practical experience in nutritional and herbal therapy there.
Think, as well, of your body’s digestive system as a very sophisticated molecular nutritional factory – one that takes the raw materials input of what you eat, disassembles those molecular “parts” or components and reassembles them into the new parts that your body needs right then. That’s what it does, all the time. And it effectively keeps an inventory of “spare parts” that can be drawn off the shelf to use in making any new component the body might need for repair or replacement. So it never utilizes any input/food/vitamin in isolation or solo – it always disassembles it
and draws on other nutritional components in storage to assemble the exact new part needed. And if you take a whopping dose of anything new, utilizing it will require the presence of other nutrients which may or may not be in inventory, as it were. Your body is a wonderful, loyal mechanic, it will cobble together a lot of stuff as best it can – or we’d all be dead long ago! – but you’ve got to give it a good broad spectrum of nutrients to operate properly, (and your good ol’ fresh fruits and veggies and natural foods are still the best source of all).
It’s crucial when taking any increased supplement to understand that your body needs an increase those other micro-components. So consider carefully what else you are eating or whether you should include a good general general multivitamin in your program.
One excellent example of the importance of other microcomponents (of many) is Vitamin C: when scientists first isolated the C molecule they discovered it surrounded by a bunch of “junk parts” – tiny bits they dubbed bioflavenoids - which were discarded in favour of the “active/pure” C molecule. They tested their C molecule against the natural one and found they worked the same in the test tube. Fine. So they created Tang “just like orange juice” and started putting C into other foods “with extra Vitamin C!” It was not until relatively recently that they figured out that
without the presence of those bioflavenoids, “pure” Vitamin C passes through your digestive system intact into your urine, unused and wasted! Those little bits were the keys that ‘unlock’ the C in your body and that allow it to be digested. (In other words: Mother Nature is the world’s most elegant designer; she wastes nothing, does nothing useless.) We now know that there are even “super bioflavenoids” – the anthrocyanins that give fruits a purple or blue color - that increase the effective potency of the Vitamin C in natural fruit by as much as 1,000%. To assay the ostensible Vitamin C in a blueberry without taking into account its absorbed effectiveness when accompanied by its anthrocyanins is to take too narrow a view of its effective chemistry there.
But I digress.
There’s always a tendency when we read up on any new nutrient to get really enthusiastic and want instant results by taking lots of it, but that’s simply not a good long-term strategy.
To be sure, an increased (or mega) dosage of something can sometimes be used for a few weeks or months
in extremis and under supervision – but even in that case it is better to start with a reasonable/recommended dosage for a few weeks, allowing the body to adapt to using it, seeing how you feel, and gradually increasing it as your body responds positively for an indefinite period of time.
Personally, I will continue a large dose of something for as long as I perceive improvement in my well-being – sometimes for as long as a year – but after that, if I wish to continue I gradually reduce the dosage to a sustainable and much smaller amount. Or take the supplement only occasionally. It’s always good to give your body some “time off” with any supplement program, allowing it to work internally on its own for a few weeks or months every once in a while, too.
I hope this helps. I wish you every success, Lynn, and much excellent health!
All best regards,
Selene