Vitamin D Doses

Vitamin D Doses

The human body needs vitamin D doses to substitute for the deficiency so it can build and maintain healthy bones. Our immune system needs it to perform normally as well. Furthermore, it is essential for the health of the brain and nervous system. Therefore, insufficient amounts of vitamin D would cause multiple problems, all could be easily solved by elevating vitamin D back to its normal levels. But you might have gotten confused with the variety of vitamin D doses obtained in pharmacies. In this article, we will explain in detail the reasons behind having several vitamin D doses and when we need each one of them. 

Why is there more than one dose of vitamin D tablets?

Vitamin D doses is available in mild doses for prophylactic purposes and in much higher ones for therapeutic purposes. Furthermore, the needed amounts of vitamin D differ among individuals. These factors and more explain the wide range of its doses starting from 1,000 IU up to 50,000 IU and exceeding it sometimes!

Age and indication have a major contribution to this variety as well, adults need much higher doses compared to children. And the pathological situation is responsible for which specific dose to be chosen. Rickets, hypothyroidism, osteoporosis, and many other diseases need vitamin d in their therapeutic plan in many different amounts.

Types of Vitamin D

There are two types of Vitamin D doses found naturally in food and Vitamin D tablets: Vitamin D2 and Vitamin D3, Vitamin D3 is twice more potent than Vitamin D2 and can raise vitamin D blood levels two times higher as well.

So, how much vitamin D do we need?

Our bodies need between 600 and 800 IU of vitamin D per day. Most of these are obtained from food and activated by exposure to the sun. However, our lifestyle nowadays obligates people to spend most of their time inside homes and buildings. In addition to that, food sources that provide vitamin D are limited. These reasons have encouraged food factories to fortify food with small amounts of vitamin D and increased the need to use supplemental doses in order to fill the gap. Therefore, it is recommended to take a daily tablet of 1,000 vitamin D as prophylaxis for vitamin D deficiency or as a maintenance dose, and 5,000 IU tablets up to 50,000 IU tablets in the treatment of vitamin D deficiency, depending on the vitamin D level in an individual’s blood.

Finally, it is highly recommended to ask the doctors about the vitamin D doses our bodies need based on specific medical examinations for better health quality.

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