The charts I have at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#charts make it easy to use body-weight to determine the range of vitamin D3 daily intake quantities which will enable most people to attain at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D level their immune system needs to function properly. This takes 3 months or so.
The ranges of ratios are for non-obese people: 70 to 100 IU / kg / day; for people suffering from obesity: 100 to 150 IU / kg per day and for those suffering from morbid obesity: 150 to 200 IU / kg / day. These were the ranges of ratios Prof. Sunil Wimalawansa recommended to the FLCCC.
Since he has published, in Nutrients, https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997 somewhat different ranges of ratios, I will update my charts. These are non-obese: 70 to 90 IU / kg / day; obesity 90 to 130 IU / kg / day and for morbid obesity, 140 to 180 IU / kg / day. He recommends 70 IU /kg / day for 18 years old and younger (no mention of obesity, but some do suffer from this, so I think higher intakes should be used). He recommends 60 to 80 ng / kg / day for people who are underweight, which is not much different from 70 to 90. He also suggests that non-obese people who suffer from several conditions use the ranges of ratios for people suffering from obesity or morbid obesity - see the notes under Table 2. You can work out a good range of vitamin D3 intakes for yourself from Prof. Wimalawansa's article.
I would simplify the ranges of ratios down to three, but I am an electronic technician. Sunil is a retired Professor of Medicine with numerous qualifications including a PhD in endocrinology, so I suggest you trust his fussier judgement rather than mine.
These ranges of ratios are for long-term supplementation, assuming little vitamin D3 is obtained from food and multivitamins (which is always the case, since they contain little) and little from ultraviolet-B skin exposure. Even if you have lots of UV-B (which always causes DNA damage and so increases the risk of skin cancer) the quantities of vitamin D3 recommended here will not cause your 25-hydroxyvitamin D ratios to rise to anything like toxic levels. Prof. Wimalawansa does not suggest that testing is required. I haven't tested my levels. I am 72 kg and take 50,000 IU a week. I guess my 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is between 60 and 90 and might be as high as 110 ng/mL. That's good enough for me.
Excellent comment information except for one thing; you should be advocating for blood testing for D; i have taken 8000 units daily for some time and my blood level was in the low sixties.
If people want to get 25-hydroxyvitamin D tests than that is fine. However, I don't advocate unless of course there is some medical reason to do so. For instance, people who have had bariatric surgery which reduces fat absorption need to go to extra trouble, and ideally be medically monitored, to ensure they get adequate vitamins and minerals. Since the degree of malabsorption cannot be known, I think blood tests for numerous nutrients, with appropriate advise on supplementation, is vital for such people.
The whole idea of the body-weight ratio based vitamin D3 supplemental quantities is that it gives people good guidance on how much to take, without the need for blood tests.
This has to work for all people, in all countries, of all ages and shapes and sizes. It would be a huge waste of money and effort to get everyone tested, especially multiple times, and then later in life, as they grow, in order to fine-tune the amount of vitamin D3 they take. Also, it would medicalise and over-dramatise vitamin D nutrition. Iron is a lot harder to advise upon, since there are no self-limiting mechanisms as there are for 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and excess iron can have serious consequences, not least increased risk of bacterial infections in the blood.
However, there is a reasonably wide range of healthy 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and (due to the self limiting processes) an even wider ranges of vitamin D3 intakes which produce healthy levels.
Because there is almost no vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins, and since it is impossible to get all or most of what we need, for our whole lifetime, from UV-B skin exposure (for whites - it is much harder for people with brown or black skin) without UV-B lamps an seriously raised risk of skin cancer, vitamin D3 supplements are the only practical way most people can be healthy. The traditional approach of nominating a number of IUs per day for "adults" is obviously wrong. Body-weight varies enormously, and obesity (for any given body-weight) raises further problems.
Most people don't have access to testing or medical advice. I mean most people in the whole world. Even in the USA, blood tests cost non-trivial money - though the pin-prick at home ones with the sample being mailed in are less expensive. I have been reliably informed by two doctors that hospitals regularly charge insurers USD$300 per vitamin D blood test.
The cost of the test far exceeds the cost of the capsules for a year, assuming the person is using 50,000 IU capsules once a week or whatever, up to every 10 days, or if they are lighter than most adults, using 10,000 I capsules.
The suggestion that everyone get their 25-hydroxyvitamin D tested medicalises a nutritional problem. This problem can be solved, well, for most people, without tests or medical advice - by well-chosen vitamin D3 supplemental intakes every day to 10 days.
In practice, a single blood test would frequently not be the last one. If it confirmed that the current intake (depending on seasonal UV-B exposure) produced the desired 25-hydroxyvitamin D level, than that would do, as long as the person retained about the same body-weight. But if the test result was not within the desired range, then it would be necessary to adjust the intake and test again in 6 months. While vitamin D is surely the most critically deficient of all, in terms of the global impact on human health, it is just one nutrient of many, and we can't be sending every child, through various stages of their life, off to the doctor or nutritionist to get blood test and personalised advice. This is a waste of money and medical effort for the middle-class in developed countries. It is completely impractical for the majority of the Earth's population.
The derivation of the original ranges of ratios, as advised by Prof. Wimalawansa to the FLCCC, is at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#06-ratios and is based on Afshar et al. 2020 who had good success with 70 to 100 IU / kg body-weight per day. Some of their patients did not attain 50 ng/mL. These would generally be those suffering from obesity, which is why Prof. Wimalawansa advised two higher ranges of ratios for people suffering from obesity and morbid obesity. In his recent article, he adjusted these ranges of ratios somewhat. I haven't yet updated the page to link to that article.
There' no multi-year test of this guidance to show the distribution of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. However, it is the first time anyone has proposed vitamin D3 supplementary intake quantities as they must be, for wide applicability, to generally attain at least 50 ng/mL (I guess, 90 to 97% of people) according to not just body-weight but to cope with the 25-hydroxyvitamin D lowering processes which affect those suffering from obesity. This seems to be partly absorption in excess fatty tissue, as long assumed - but not yet experimentally verified - and a relatively newly discovered process: downregulation of the 25-hydroxylase enzyme either due to obesity or perhaps due the diet of people suffering from obesity. See the three articles I cite and try to summarise at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit .
As an advocate for D who is wed yo technical literature you preach to the choir and fail to understand that the vast majority of people in the US and elsewhere need PROOF that they have D deficiency; you should be campaigning for routine blood testing; Medicare covered my test; all insurance companies should.
LOVE the vitamin D emphasis - how could that NOT have been SOMETHING to do instead of telling patients to STAY HOME UNTIL THEIR LIPS TURNED BLUE? How could doctors be sO stupid?
"The pandemic could have been stopped early on simply by promoting wide use of high doses of vitamin D." Exactly!
And vit C and a few other things.
I’m taking 4000 daily. Is that enough?
Maybe; depends on your weight etc. Try and get a blood test for D.
Thank you. My labs are coming up; I’ll ask to have that added.
The charts I have at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#charts make it easy to use body-weight to determine the range of vitamin D3 daily intake quantities which will enable most people to attain at least the 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D level their immune system needs to function properly. This takes 3 months or so.
The ranges of ratios are for non-obese people: 70 to 100 IU / kg / day; for people suffering from obesity: 100 to 150 IU / kg per day and for those suffering from morbid obesity: 150 to 200 IU / kg / day. These were the ranges of ratios Prof. Sunil Wimalawansa recommended to the FLCCC.
Since he has published, in Nutrients, https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997 somewhat different ranges of ratios, I will update my charts. These are non-obese: 70 to 90 IU / kg / day; obesity 90 to 130 IU / kg / day and for morbid obesity, 140 to 180 IU / kg / day. He recommends 70 IU /kg / day for 18 years old and younger (no mention of obesity, but some do suffer from this, so I think higher intakes should be used). He recommends 60 to 80 ng / kg / day for people who are underweight, which is not much different from 70 to 90. He also suggests that non-obese people who suffer from several conditions use the ranges of ratios for people suffering from obesity or morbid obesity - see the notes under Table 2. You can work out a good range of vitamin D3 intakes for yourself from Prof. Wimalawansa's article.
I would simplify the ranges of ratios down to three, but I am an electronic technician. Sunil is a retired Professor of Medicine with numerous qualifications including a PhD in endocrinology, so I suggest you trust his fussier judgement rather than mine.
These ranges of ratios are for long-term supplementation, assuming little vitamin D3 is obtained from food and multivitamins (which is always the case, since they contain little) and little from ultraviolet-B skin exposure. Even if you have lots of UV-B (which always causes DNA damage and so increases the risk of skin cancer) the quantities of vitamin D3 recommended here will not cause your 25-hydroxyvitamin D ratios to rise to anything like toxic levels. Prof. Wimalawansa does not suggest that testing is required. I haven't tested my levels. I am 72 kg and take 50,000 IU a week. I guess my 25-hydroxyvitamin D level is between 60 and 90 and might be as high as 110 ng/mL. That's good enough for me.
Excellent comment information except for one thing; you should be advocating for blood testing for D; i have taken 8000 units daily for some time and my blood level was in the low sixties.
If people want to get 25-hydroxyvitamin D tests than that is fine. However, I don't advocate unless of course there is some medical reason to do so. For instance, people who have had bariatric surgery which reduces fat absorption need to go to extra trouble, and ideally be medically monitored, to ensure they get adequate vitamins and minerals. Since the degree of malabsorption cannot be known, I think blood tests for numerous nutrients, with appropriate advise on supplementation, is vital for such people.
The whole idea of the body-weight ratio based vitamin D3 supplemental quantities is that it gives people good guidance on how much to take, without the need for blood tests.
This has to work for all people, in all countries, of all ages and shapes and sizes. It would be a huge waste of money and effort to get everyone tested, especially multiple times, and then later in life, as they grow, in order to fine-tune the amount of vitamin D3 they take. Also, it would medicalise and over-dramatise vitamin D nutrition. Iron is a lot harder to advise upon, since there are no self-limiting mechanisms as there are for 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and excess iron can have serious consequences, not least increased risk of bacterial infections in the blood.
However, there is a reasonably wide range of healthy 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and (due to the self limiting processes) an even wider ranges of vitamin D3 intakes which produce healthy levels.
Because there is almost no vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins, and since it is impossible to get all or most of what we need, for our whole lifetime, from UV-B skin exposure (for whites - it is much harder for people with brown or black skin) without UV-B lamps an seriously raised risk of skin cancer, vitamin D3 supplements are the only practical way most people can be healthy. The traditional approach of nominating a number of IUs per day for "adults" is obviously wrong. Body-weight varies enormously, and obesity (for any given body-weight) raises further problems.
Most people don't have access to testing or medical advice. I mean most people in the whole world. Even in the USA, blood tests cost non-trivial money - though the pin-prick at home ones with the sample being mailed in are less expensive. I have been reliably informed by two doctors that hospitals regularly charge insurers USD$300 per vitamin D blood test.
The cost of the test far exceeds the cost of the capsules for a year, assuming the person is using 50,000 IU capsules once a week or whatever, up to every 10 days, or if they are lighter than most adults, using 10,000 I capsules.
The suggestion that everyone get their 25-hydroxyvitamin D tested medicalises a nutritional problem. This problem can be solved, well, for most people, without tests or medical advice - by well-chosen vitamin D3 supplemental intakes every day to 10 days.
In practice, a single blood test would frequently not be the last one. If it confirmed that the current intake (depending on seasonal UV-B exposure) produced the desired 25-hydroxyvitamin D level, than that would do, as long as the person retained about the same body-weight. But if the test result was not within the desired range, then it would be necessary to adjust the intake and test again in 6 months. While vitamin D is surely the most critically deficient of all, in terms of the global impact on human health, it is just one nutrient of many, and we can't be sending every child, through various stages of their life, off to the doctor or nutritionist to get blood test and personalised advice. This is a waste of money and medical effort for the middle-class in developed countries. It is completely impractical for the majority of the Earth's population.
The derivation of the original ranges of ratios, as advised by Prof. Wimalawansa to the FLCCC, is at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#06-ratios and is based on Afshar et al. 2020 who had good success with 70 to 100 IU / kg body-weight per day. Some of their patients did not attain 50 ng/mL. These would generally be those suffering from obesity, which is why Prof. Wimalawansa advised two higher ranges of ratios for people suffering from obesity and morbid obesity. In his recent article, he adjusted these ranges of ratios somewhat. I haven't yet updated the page to link to that article.
There' no multi-year test of this guidance to show the distribution of 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. However, it is the first time anyone has proposed vitamin D3 supplementary intake quantities as they must be, for wide applicability, to generally attain at least 50 ng/mL (I guess, 90 to 97% of people) according to not just body-weight but to cope with the 25-hydroxyvitamin D lowering processes which affect those suffering from obesity. This seems to be partly absorption in excess fatty tissue, as long assumed - but not yet experimentally verified - and a relatively newly discovered process: downregulation of the 25-hydroxylase enzyme either due to obesity or perhaps due the diet of people suffering from obesity. See the three articles I cite and try to summarise at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity-deficit .
As an advocate for D who is wed yo technical literature you preach to the choir and fail to understand that the vast majority of people in the US and elsewhere need PROOF that they have D deficiency; you should be campaigning for routine blood testing; Medicare covered my test; all insurance companies should.
Did you mean the Republican control of government, rather than Democrat control?
thanks for catching that; fixed now
You’re very welcome. I thought it was a mistake, and felt certain you’d want to correct it.
LOVE the vitamin D emphasis - how could that NOT have been SOMETHING to do instead of telling patients to STAY HOME UNTIL THEIR LIPS TURNED BLUE? How could doctors be sO stupid?