Vitamin D Mistake – who got it so wrong!
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4210929/ [source article]
In this video Dr. John Campbell discusses a significant statistical error allegedly made by the Institutes of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) in the United States, which subsequently influenced guidelines in the United Kingdom. This error involves the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for Vitamin D, resulting in official recommendations (600 IU in the U.S. and 400 IU in the U.K.) that Dr Campbell claims are dramatically too low. He highlights the core mistake was using the average data from studies rather than the data from individual participants, leading to an estimation that is supposedly over 15 times lower than the correct requirement of 8,895 IU daily for most of the population to achieve adequate blood levels.
The failure to correct this simple “schoolboy error” over more than a decade has serious public health implications [see below], as higher Vitamin D levels are linked to reduced risks for various major diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The video urges national authorities to reconsider the RDA, noting that the current recommendations are insufficient even for basic bone health objectives.
The sustained 11-year error in calculating the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin D has resulted in recommended dosages that are massively insufficient and have serious public health and clinical implications. This failure to provide adequate amounts of vitamin D means that people are “remaining ill” due to these recommendations.
The massive public health implications stem from the fact that the current recommendations fail to achieve necessary blood levels, thereby hindering the prevention of numerous serious health conditions:
Consequences for Disease and Injury Prevention
Dr Campbell states that with the current recommendation of 600 IUs a day, “bone health objectives and disease and injury prevention will not be met,” let alone the prevention of cancer, diabetes, and dementia.
- Bone Health and Deficiency:The Institute of Medicine based their RDA on preventing rickets and bone disease, which requires levels of 50 nanomoles per liter. However, the current recommended amounts are nowhere near achieving this level.
- Cancer, Diabetes, and Immunity:More vitamin D is needed than the current recommended dose to prevent cancer, immune deficiencies, diabetes, and dementia. Specific implications include:
- Cancer: Vitamin D reduces deaths in prostate cancer (a 9% reduction in cancer-specific mortality for every 20 nanomoles per liter increase). There is also a known link to colon cancer.
- Diabetes: Vitamin D protects against pre-diabetes developing, showing a 76% reduction in the progression of pre-diabetes to diabetes between high and low vitamin D levels. It is also linked to type one diabetes.
- Dementia: Observational studies indicate that if people are given more vitamin D, they get less dementia.
- Immunity and Heart Disease: Vitamin D is crucial for all forms of immunity and is linked to heart disease.
Dr. Campbell stresses that making people satiated with vitamin D represents the most basic, low-cost public health intervention that could be carried out.
The consequences of this sustained error are serious because the current recommended dose is far below the amount required to provide basic health benefits, allowing preventable diseases to persist unnecessarily. This situation is likened to a classroom where the curriculum is set so that the average score is passing, but the reality is that many individual students are failing below the required vitamin D amount.
