Vitamin D and Calcium Recommendations Updated

Non-standardized methods for measuring and report vitamin D levels may be cause of many findings of deficiency.

The Institute of Medicine released new guidelines for vitamin D and calcium intake today, specifying slightly higher recommended dietary allowances by age and sex, and set new limits for intake.

Institute of Medicine: Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D

Vitamin D deficiency reports due to overestimations?

Contrary to recent reports that suggest most Americans are deficient in vitamin D, experts with the Institute of Medicine say that after analyzing national surveys on blood levels, most Americans and Canadians are getting enough in their diets.

"With a few exceptions, all North Americans are receiving enough calcium and vitamin D,” notes the IOM. “Higher levels have not been shown to confer greater benefits, and in fact, they have been linked to other health problems, challenging the concept that 'more is better.'"

The IOM also found that there are no standardized measurements of sufficiency and deficiency so that an individual could be declared deficient or sufficient depending on which laboratory reads the test.

The IOM panel noted that while calcium and vitamin D play important roles in bone health, the scientific evidence does not support their use for other health concerns such as preventing cancer, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions.  

Several new research findings on Vitamin D and cardiovascular disease were presented at the recent American Heart Association annual meeting in Chicago.