Low vitamin D

My GI dr told me I'm REALLY low in vitamin D. I find this pretty strange since I drink a lot of (lactose free) milk and eat loads of eggs and cooked spinach. He says he often puts patients on iv vitamin d...,and I said, oh, surely I'm not that low!!!he gave me a raised eyebrow and said, you're at 16.... Yikes. Anyway, he's got me on mega dose oral for now and will retest in three months.

I figure, since I'm clearly I taking lots via food but levels are low, my guts just must not be absorbing it...but then.... Why wouldn't the guts not be absorbing other nutrients, I was normal in everything but D.

Also, pretty ironic that I have a disease that gives me chronic "d" and I worry about my "d" everyday... And now I'm being told my (vitamin) D levels are low, lol. Guess all the d is going down the toilet with my d!!!!

toomuchpoopin said...
My GI dr told me I'm REALLY low in vitamin D. I find this pretty strange since I drink a lot of (lactose free) milk and eat loads of eggs and cooked spinach. He says he often puts patients on iv vitamin d...,and I said, oh, surely I'm not that low!!!he gave me a raised eyebrow and said, you're at 16.... Yikes. Anyway, he's got me on mega dose oral for now and will retest in three months.

I figure, since I'm clearly I taking lots via food but levels are low, my guts just must not be absorbing it...but then.... Why wouldn't the guts not be absorbing other nutrients, I was normal in everything but D.

Also, pretty ironic that I have a disease that gives me chronic "d" and I worry about my "d" everyday... And now I'm being told my (vitamin) D levels are low, lol. Guess all the d is going down the toilet with my d!!!!

Did your GI request that you have your vitamin levels checked? I've always been curious what my levels are and would really like to know if I am deficient in something. What kind of megadose oral are you taking right now? I often wonder if the 1000 IU Vit D3 I take daily is even close to enough, since I try to avoid the sun when I can.

I drink a lot of (lactose free) milk and eat loads of eggs and cooked spinach.

Except for very few exceptions such as cod liver oil most foods contain very little vitamin D. Compare the trivial amounts in spinach and even fortified milk with the 20,000-25,000 IU of vit D from a day at the beach with no sunscreen.

An interesting FYI:
Vitamin D helps explain the different races of humans. We humans originated from Africa and started out dark like most Africans. Then as we migrated north around the Mediterranean there was less sunlight and our bodies compensated with lighter, olive skin, (generally looking like me since my ancestors are from Italy lol).

As we migrated further north towards England & Germany olive skin became freckles mixed with some red/blond hair in order to capture more sunlight to make vitamin D. Finally mostly blondes in Scandinavia. I visited Iceland once and noticed most people were platinum blonde except for the darker ones who had regular blonde hair.

The exception that proves the rule: Eskimos.
They kept their black hair and their skin did not have to turn lighter to get their share of vitamin D. Their diet consisted mostly of fish, seal, and whale blubber that are the only natural foods packed with vitamin D.

Not that uncommon. From www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306:

"The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005 to 2006 data were analyzed for vitamin D levels in adult participants (N = 4495). Vitamin D deficiency was defined as a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations ≤20 ng/mL (50 nmol/L). The overall prevalence rate of vitamin D deficiency was 41.6%, with the highest rate seen in blacks (82.1%), followed by Hispanics (69.2%). Vitamin D deficiency was significantly more common among those who had no college education, were obese, with a poor health status, hypertension, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level, or not consuming milk daily (all P < .001)"

But if you have IBD the rates are somewhat higher. From www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21527593:

"The study included 504 IBD patients (403 Crohn's disease [CD] and 101 ulcerative colitis [UC]) who had a mean disease duration of 15.5 years in CD patients and 10.9 years in UC patients; 49.8% were vitamin D deficient, with 10.9% having severe deficiency. Vitamin D deficiency was associated with older age (P = .004) and older age at diagnosis (P = .03). Vitamin D deficiency was associated with lower HRQOL (regression coefficient -2.21, 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.10 to -0.33) in CD but not UC (regression coefficient 0.41, 95% CI, -2.91 to 3.73). Vitamin D deficiency was also associated with increased disease activity in CD (regression coefficient 1.07, 95% CI, 0.43 to 1.71)."

5,000 IU/day keeps me at the upper end of the normal range (and sometimes a hair above - my gastro tests me about once a year). I haven't found it to have much of an effect on my Crohn's symptoms, but it certainly had a good effect on my energy levels and mood. Also, given how many of us take steroids, VitD is important for maintaining bone density...

Back when I lived in Chicago, my GP tested all of her patients - she said at least 2/3 were deficient (I was just within range, and that was at the end of the summer).

Wow, I guess I assumed my diet would have been sufficient. Oddly enough we're just ending summer, and I spent the most time outside in the sun then I have since I was a kid. Anyway, my GI told me to start at 4000 units a day and will retest in three months.

Sounds like low vit d is common in ibd...based on what I hear on here and also some googling.

See the links I posted above? Print out both articles and bring it to your DR. Challenge him/her to explain to you why testing your Vitamin D levels is such a bad idea. I swear, Cavalier, your question just makes me mad at your DR!

Have you asked your doctor Cavalier9? I casually brought up being tired to one of my GI doctors and he immediately did a vitamin D test.



Edit...a minute too late.

sun, preferably like this here =


VIEW IMAGE

IamCurious, ITA! UGH.

When doing blood work make sure it is specified as to exactly what you are looking for. There are many different kinds of blood tests, with most of them not checking what it is you are really wanting to find out. I recently had my D level checked but I had to tell them that that is what I was looking for. None of my other blood tests over the years ever checked for that. Had to do the same for my CRP.

Low vitamin D is an epidemic, we don't get outside nearly enough as humans anymore and we have been scared into wearing sunscreen when we do! Also, some of us have genetic disruption to our vitamin D receptors which makes the take up slow. Vitamin D is actually a steroid rather than a vitamin so not suprising that it seems to have a part to play in the family of autoimmune conditions.

Unfortunately, if you don't have the genetics of an eskimo who is built to get vit D from their diet, supplements may not be good and might cause calcification of arteries, we are going to have to experiment on ourselves to see what works. As someone with low vitamin D and genetic receptor polymorphisms now told to avoid sun due to skin cancer risk of 6mp I am risking the oral supplements.

Research is running fast with it, when I read about vit D about 7 years ago my consultant reluctantly tested me and the doctor new nothing about it. Now the knowledge is very much out there.

Research seems to suggest that important to get vit K2 along with D but you do need to do your own research on this...

I expect the human body will modify to take up more vit D as we continue to live indoor lives. When the industrial revolution happened and the first mass move of humans to indoors happened, rickets was rife.