Vitamin D2 Update
The vitamin D section of VeganHealth.org has been updated with this new information:
In June 2010, a vegan who had been diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency wrote me saying that his weekly 50,000 IU of Vitamin D2, prescribed by his doctor for 12 weeks, succeeded in raising his vitamin D levels from 13 ng/ml on Jan 27 to 72 ng/ml on May 4. For long-term maintenance, his doctor recommended 1200 IU per day.
June 21st, 2010 at 10:28 am
Do you know what his weekly intake was prior to testing? My husband and I (both vegan) have been taking 2300 IU of D2 for many months (maybe more than a year) and our recent tests showed us both deficient, around 22-23 ng/ml. Our health adviser recommended 5000 – 7000 IU for long-term maintenance. Seems high, but 2000 IU doesn’t seem to be working for us.
June 21st, 2010 at 6:56 pm
He had told me:
“I had assumed I was getting enough D from my fortified breakfast cereals / soy milk along with some sun exposure on most days.”
June 21st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
This is good to know, as I’m not too hep with taking D3 obtained from lanolin.
I am really interested in the info you gave at TLOV about mushrooms being able to produce it (Vitamin D) from the sun!
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:55 pm
D2 is a pharmaceutical product and is NOT utilized by the body as efficiently as natural D3. The high dosage will raise the level, but it is not sustained. I was recently diagnosed with a deficiency in spite of getting a lot of sun, taking 3000 I.Us of D3 daily, and not using sunscreen. Haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet, but am on my fifth week of the 50,000 D2, which is all that can be prescribed. After finishing eight weeks and retesting, I plan to take D3 again in much higher dose than the 3K I took before.
Been doing a lot of research and found this link from an endocrinology journal comparing D2 to D3:
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/89/11/5387
Good luck!!
June 24th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Kris,
> D2 is a pharmaceutical product
My understanding is that D2 is simply yeast exposed to UV rays. It’s been around since the early 1900s and isn’t anything terribly synthetic.
> Been doing a lot of research and found this link from an endocrinology journal comparing D2 to D3:
I summarize that and a number of papers here.
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:50 pm
I was just tested for vitamin D and came up deficient. My doctor recommended 2000 IU daily to try to bring me back up…we’ll see how it goes.
Jack, I’ve been told that Nature’s Plus adult chewable Vitamin D3 (1000 IU) gets its D3 from algae. Do you know if this is true?
June 24th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Hi Laura,
> I’ve been told that Nature’s Plus adult chewable Vitamin D3 (1000 IU) gets its D3 from algae.
I don’t see that claim being made anywhere. I doubt it’s true.
July 17th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
I’ve been diagnosed with vit. D deficiency, too. Vegan for about 8 years. My level was around 15 ng/ml in 2009-Oct. I was prescribed 20K/weekly but wasn’t sure about the source of Rx vit. D (and had already ordered a bunch of D2).
I’ve taken 2000IU a day since and was just tested at 21ng/ml. Which was, incidentally, after about 4 days without supplementation, waiting for more D2 to arrive … and since D2 drops faster than D3, I would have probably tested in the low-normal range if my test had been 4 days earlier. It was recommended that I continue taking 2000IU/day.