It is now clearly established that taking adequate amounts of vitamin D and avoiding vitamin D deficiency combined with taking the right amount of calcium can help reducing the trend of bone loss in adults and in older people, particularly after menopause. In fact, adequate vitamin D intake along with calcium intake can reduce the rate of hip fractures by roughly 15-20%.
Vitamin D deficiency has also been linked to weight gain and system inflammation and conditions related to inflammation. Vitamin D supplementation, as well as adequate calcium intake can help with weight loss efforts. In addition, vitamin D deficiency is quite common among patients with autoimmune conditions and it is possible that the deficiency can trigger and perpetuate autoimmunity. For instance, in autoimmune thyroid disease, vitamin D deficiency is quite common and appropriate vitamin D intake improves the immune system reactivity underlying the autoimmune thyroid condition.
For this reason, if you suffer from Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or Graves’ disease, it is important that your doctor obtain a 25 OH Vitamin D level tested with a blood specimen. The amount of vitamin D that you should take depends on how severe your vitamin D deficiency is, but also, depends on the efficiency of gastrointestinal absorption of vitamin D. Vitamin D3 liquid maybe absorbed more efficiently than tablets or soft gels. Your weekly supplementation of Vitamin D3 should be in the average of 10,000-20,000 units. However, it may be much higher than these average recommendations. For this reason, you need to have your Vitamin D retested 2 to 3 months after beginning your vitamin D supplementation, and if you do need supplementation, it could be for the rest of your life as you should not rely on your skin and sun exposure to achieve adequate and steady levels of vitamin D in your body