Nothing major, but I just updated the vitamin D page of VeganHealth.org with results from a study on vitamin D supplementation in older people. It’s short, so I will just cut and paste it here.

Older People

As mentioned in the recommendations, elderly people need 30 minutes a day of direct sunlight in order to produce adequate vitamin D.

A 2009 study from Ireland showed that people aged 64 years or older needed 15 mcg (600 IU) per day to bring vitamin D levels from an average of 55 nmol/L to 74 nmol/L. The researchers estimated that it would take about 40 mcg (1600 IU) per day to raise 97.5% of the participants’ vitamin D levels to 80 nmol/L.

Although some researchers recommend maintaining vitamin D levels at 80 nmol/L, there is not enough evidence to know that there is much of a difference between 74 and 80 nmol/L. For this reason, the recommendation of 25 mcg (1,000 IU) should suffice for people aged 64 and older.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Bones, Vitamin D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.