[quote]EasyRhino wrote:
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
magnesium is not one of those nutrients that requires any particular care to avoid overshooting [/quote]
except too much pooping, sometimes?[/quote]
I would have thought that a Rhino like yourself would know there is no such thing as too much pooping.
Guys, I need some advice with my vitamin d supplementation. I had my d3 levels tested and it came back as 27ng/dl. I’ve been taking 3000-4000iu/day for almost a year so I had hoped my levels would be higher by now. Should I just increase the daily dose to somewhere around 6000iu/day or should I try one of the loading methods where I would take a very large dose for a weeks then go back down to around 5000iu/day? I’d really appreciate any advice offered.
[quote]cmryan_21 wrote:
Guys, I need some advice with my vitamin d supplementation. I had my d3 levels tested and it came back as 27ng/dl. I’ve been taking 3000-4000iu/day for almost a year so I had hoped my levels would be higher by now. Should I just increase the daily dose to somewhere around 6000iu/day or should I try one of the loading methods where I would take a very large dose for a weeks then go back down to around 5000iu/day? I’d really appreciate any advice offered.[/quote]
Your choice. Try taking it with a fatty meal and see if that helps too. Are you supplementing with magnesium? Have you got much sun this summer (if you’re in the Northern Hemishpere)? Tanning beds are another option.
[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
Your choice. Try taking it with a fatty meal and see if that helps too. Are you supplementing with magnesium? Have you got much sun this summer (if you’re in the Northern Hemishpere)? Tanning beds are another option.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply. I live in Louisiana and while I don’t get much sun on account of my job I did manage to get more this summer than I usually do by moving portions of my workouts outside(when the rain allowed that is).
When you say a fatty meal, how much fat are you talking about? The meals I take the d3 with alwasy have some fat but aren’t always really high in fat, but I do take d3 with my meals that have high fat content. Also, I always take some fish oil and d3 gel caps together. I’m also taking elite mineral pro and I figure that has my magnesium needs covered(I took zma for a long time before that).
[quote]cmryan_21 wrote:
[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
Your choice. Try taking it with a fatty meal and see if that helps too. Are you supplementing with magnesium? Have you got much sun this summer (if you’re in the Northern Hemishpere)? Tanning beds are another option.[/quote]
Thanks for the reply. I live in Louisiana and while I don’t get much sun on account of my job I did manage to get more this summer than I usually do by moving portions of my workouts outside(when the rain allowed that is).
When you say a fatty meal, how much fat are you talking about? The meals I take the d3 with alwasy have some fat but aren’t always really high in fat, but I do take d3 with my meals that have high fat content. Also, I always take some fish oil and d3 gel caps together. I’m also taking elite mineral pro and I figure that has my magnesium needs covered(I took zma for a long time before that).[/quote]
Sounds like there are no glaring weaknesses in your plan of attack. I’d say it would be advisable to try and get more sun, or get a tanning membership. Once or twice weekly does a lot of good. I don’t know if you can tell by my avatar, but I use a tanning bed 
I have yet to get my levels tested though, but I don’t really worry about getting too much.
[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
Sounds like there are no glaring weaknesses in your plan of attack. I’d say it would be advisable to try and get more sun, or get a tanning membership. Once or twice weekly does a lot of good. I don’t know if you can tell by my avatar, but I use a tanning bed I have yet to get my levels tested though, but I don’t really worry about getting too much.
[/quote]
Gotcha. I guess I’ll try 6000-8000iu/day for a couple months, and just try to get more sun in my daily activities(got some ideas). I think the people working at the local tanning place(don’t know what they’re called) would give me the “I think you’re in the wrong place” look when I walk in then when I leave the room they’ll laugh hysterically. Oh well, all in the name of good health I guess.
Thanks again for your help.
did you get your levels tested by, you know, a doc? He might prescribe a pharmacological dose of Vit D (like 50k) to get you caught up.
[quote]EasyRhino wrote:
did you get your levels tested by, you know, a doc? He might prescribe a pharmacological dose of Vit D (like 50k) to get you caught up.[/quote]
Yeah but I’ve never understood this at all. Why go to the doctor for this when you can just pop 25 caps of 2,000 iu vit D3 pills? That would cost like $1 or so.
[quote]EasyRhino wrote:
did you get your levels tested by, you know, a doc? He might prescribe a pharmacological dose of Vit D (like 50k) to get you caught up.[/quote]
Was this directed towards me or BulletproofTiger? If you’re asking me, then yes I had a blood test done and it came back as 27ng/dl.
As for my doc, to be completely honest I’m not sure he even looked at it. One of the nurses called me with the results and said everything looks good but that I might want to work at getting my hdl a little higher(it is kinda low). I had to ask for the d3 results and they didn’t even test my hormone levels as I had requested. So I kinda doubt my doc would prescribe me anything to get my d3 levels up.
Of course if you were asking BulletproofTiger I’m sorry for much more info than you wanted to read.
interesting news about calcium and vitamin d by new york times …
[quote]sawahladang wrote:
interesting news about calcium and vitamin d by new york times …
I just heard this on NPR also, very interesting.
Life lessons here folks. Everything in moderation. Everyone is trying to sell you something. Mega doses of anything rarely ever produce the magical effects they initially promise.
It’s always been conventional wisdom that you don’t need extra vitamin D in your diet; in other words, this article isn’t telling us anything new. I’d agree with DJS, everything in moderation. I personally supplement with 2k IUs of VD during the winter months, I personally thought it was ridiculous when people started trying to improve their athletic performance by taking mega doses.
I started megadosing with vitamin D (10,000 iu daily) about a month ago. Since then I have noticed improvement in duration and quality of sleep, muscle growth and abdominal fat loss. Prior to supplementation I ate a diet high in vitamin D (lots of oily fish and eggs) and got more sun exposure than the average American.
If I hadn’t been diagnosed as vitamin D defficient (26.4 ng/ml) I never would have started supplemental D, and since beginning I have seen improvement in most of the symptoms that triggered that blood test in the first place.
I’m not going to stop doing something that observably works because a panel of conservative doctors conclude that 600 iu is all that is needed to ensure bone health (the actual issue addressed by that NYT article).
ATG… i’m really glad you’ve notices such marked improvements since megadosing. But I would expect a positive effect given that you were deficient. It might still be a good idea to consider that you don’t need mega doses every day for the rest of your life now that you have raised your levels. Maybe a lower level would maintain the effect at this point. Just something to think about.
From what I read in the paper (may not have been the full article, it’s a small paper), it seemed to me the study didn’t look at all at the athletic benefits, and was more focused on general health. I didn’t see anything in it that directly contradicted what I’ve read in performance articles - nor did I see anything saying megadosing is counter-beneficial.
What I took away from the article is that megadosing vitamin D isn’t required to bring most average people’s D levels to a healthy point.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
From what I read in the paper (may not have been the full article, it’s a small paper), it seemed to me the study didn’t look at all at the athletic benefits, and was more focused on general health. I didn’t see anything in it that directly contradicted what I’ve read in performance articles - nor did I see anything saying megadosing is counter-beneficial.
What I took away from the article is that megadosing vitamin D isn’t required to bring most average people’s D levels to a healthy point.[/quote]
Good point, I did notice they said something along the lines of supplementing with vitamin D could be dangerous, but didn’t provide a clear reason as to why.
The take away I took from todays D3 review was the importance of testing. Many people take large doses of vitamin D3 not knowing where that amount will raise their D3 levels. From what I’ve read, testing levels over 120ng/ml can lead to overdosing issues. I keep my levels between 60 to 70ng/ml and that amount is based upon the experience of this cardiologist. It is also an amount that hospitals find within the normal range.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/getting-vitamin-d-right.html
…but there is evidence to suggest that dietary vitamin D may be carried by lipoprotein particles[91] into cells of the artery wall and atherosclerotic plaque, where it may be converted to active form by monocyte-macrophages.[92] These findings raise questions regarding the effects of vitamin D intake on atherosclerotic calcification and cardiovascular risk.
from wikipedia vitamin d.
i’m not bashing the vitamin though, as i supplement myself with low-dose vitamin d.
just want to provide another perspective.
[quote]DJS wrote:
ATG… i’m really glad you’ve notices such marked improvements since megadosing. But I would expect a positive effect given that you were deficient. It might still be a good idea to consider that you don’t need mega doses every day for the rest of your life now that you have raised your levels. Maybe a lower level would maintain the effect at this point. Just something to think about. [/quote]
This is true, but here’s the thing…my deficiency was barely outside of ‘normal’ according to the docs cited in that NYT article.
It appears that their study looked primarily at effects on bone health, not over all health, athletic performance or prevention/reversal of deficiency symptoms.
Anecdotally many people only notice improvement in the symptoms of defficiency with very high doses (5,000-10,000 iu daily during winter months) and I’ve never heard of an over dose within that range. I’ve read that it takes 50,000 iu daily for several months to trigger hypercalcaemia.
These same doctors would call the average T-Nation diet unhealthy, radical and unnecessary.
I will probably drop down to 5000 iu when I’m spending more days than not in a t-shirt and shorts, but otherwise I’m just not convinced that megadosing D3 isn’t the best route for many people.