In a recent Expert Interview on VitaSearch.com with Stefan Pilz, M.D. and author of “Association of Vitamin D Deficiency with Heart Failure and Sudden Cardiac Death In a Large Cross-Sectional Study of Patients Referred for Coronary Angiography,” J Clin Endocrinol Metab, August 5, 2008, discussed the value of Vitamin D. Dr. Pilz stated that not only cardiovascular patients be screened for vitamin D status but ALL patients in general could benefit as, “There exits compelling evidence that a sufficient vitamin D status is important for multiple health outcomes including apart from cardiovascular diseases also cancer, musculoskeletal, autoimmune and infectious diseases”.
Dr. Pilz went on to say that a reasonable preventive doses of vitamin D if someone is not able to get a vitamin D level done would be “Two thousand IU of vitamin D per day”. Asked: How toxic is vitamin D? Has the risk to vitamin D toxicity been exaggerated? Dr. Pilz replied “The potential toxicity of vitamin D lies almost exclusively in causing hypercalcemia” (an abnormally high amount of calcium in the blood) “and there exists a wide consensus among experts in this field that the risk of vitamin D toxicity has been exaggerated in the past. Vitamin D intoxication occurs only at very high 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (e.g. above 150 ng/ml) and recent studies have shown that no side effects were observed with daily vitamin D doses of up to 10,000 IU over long time periods”.
Dr. Pilz concluded by saying that “in view of the multiple beneficial effects of vitamin D, its supplementation has, in my opinion, immense potential for the improvement of public health when considering the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (almost 50% among the world population has insufficient vitamin D status) and the easy, inexpensive, and relatively safe way in which vitamin D can be supplemented”.