Vitamin D shortage - anyone else?

Be sure your supplement is D3.
Be sure to take it with a fat-containing meal.
Use the oil-filled capsules if you have low stomach acid.
Take fish oil or Omega-3 at the same time.
Increase your daily dose to 2,000 iu.
Spend some time in the summer sun so your body makes more D.
Take some melatonin at night to help the process.
Give it more time.

It's my gyn who has shown the most concern about D, due to the link with osteoporosis, not cancer prevention. My D was very low, and I now take lots daily, but what helps the most is 15 minutes of sun (no sun block) on my legs every day. Until I started on the sunshine nothing seemed to help. My gyn says chemo is implicated in reducing our D levels, probably for life, so we need to pay attention to it. Don't know if that's true or not, but I do know I'm glad to be on top of the problem now.

All best,
Binney

Is there some easy test for D levels? I recently read about the implications and added 400iu of D to my regimen (which includes tamox, curcumin, DIM, melatonin, green tea extract, grapeseed extract, selenium and folic acid). I don't spend a lot of time in the sun and did the standard DD chemo, so it would seem that this is an issue.

Alicia

Rosemary, I think this is the quote you're referring to:

"The vitamin becomes toxic above 3,800 IU per day, though the National Academy of Sciences sets the upper limit at 2,400 IU."

Even the FDA gives a much higher tolerable daily dose. Only a blood test can show when someone has way too much and signs of hypercalcemia don't seem to show up until a blood level of 150 ng/ml is reached.

In people of above normal weight, vitamin D is stored in a way that makes it less available to the body. Scientists speculate the storage is too deep in the fat layer and can't be readily used. So in the winter, when most people can't possibly get the right kind of sunlight to make their own, the stored Vitamin D can't help us as much. This may also be one reason why body weight is tied to the outcome of some breast cancers as high blood levels of Vitamin D seem to inhibit the growth of a primary and metastasized tumors.