(BlackDoctor.org) -- How much vitamin D do you really need? For years that question has been debated among nutritionists and doctors.

In the March issue of the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 15 vitamin D experts from eight countries joined together to describe the "urgent need" for higher intakes of vitamin D.

Evidence is growing that vitamin D is important for much more than just bones; the vitamin seems to have a role in preventing colorectal and other cancers, diabetes, arthritis and even multiple sclerosis. Though, when it comes to establishing dietary intake recommendations for vitamin D, we’re still stuck with the outdated model of simply getting enough to prevent rickets. We’re still using recommendations that were made almost a decade ago.

One of the reasons the vitamin D recommendations are so controversial is because changing them involves a paradigm shift. For the most part, nutrition experts adhere to the mantra that we can get a healthy diet through food alone. Vitamin D isn’t widely available in the food supply, and it’s almost impossible to know what people are consuming because the usual gold standard for nutrition analysis, the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, doesn’t include vitamin D. So, in order to maintain a healthy vitamin D status we either need to fortify the food supply more widely or take supplements. In Canada, where sunlight can be especially scarce during the winter months, government health officials recommend that all adults over age 50 take a supplement of 400 IU per day.

Not all experts agree, however. Steve Abrams, M.D., a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine and an expert on minerals in infants and children, says that while older adults may benefit, "there is no evidence that school-aged children need more vitamin D." Although he fears that "the train has left the station" on the movement to raise vitamin D requirements, he’s not ready to recommend vitamin D supplementation for all ages.

Of course, official recommendations will only change if the Institute of Medicine (IOM) appoints an expert panel to re-evaluate and revise the current numbers. The IOM’s Food and Nutrition Board is beginning the process by holding a workshop in September to discuss issues surrounding the current DRIs. The informal buzz in the field is that vitamin D will be one of the first nutrients to be re-examined.

So, stay tuned because the official recommendations may be changing if the voices of dissent are heard. In the meantime, there seems to be a widespread agreement among experts that 1,000 IU daily of vitamin D is optimal for most people, and that the upper limit (the amount not to exceed to avoid risk of toxicity), which is currently set at 2,000 IU per day, can safely be raised to as high as 10,000 IU per day.

By John Williams, BDO Staff Writer

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