{"id":58806,"date":"2012-04-18T10:41:18","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T14:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=58806"},"modified":"2012-04-18T10:42:04","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T14:42:04","slug":"vitamin-d-miracle-vitamin-or-waste-of-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/vitamin-d-miracle-vitamin-or-waste-of-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitamin D \u2013 Miracle Vitamin or Waste of Money?"},"content":{"rendered":"
[yframe url=’http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BiruL2_28Vw&feature=youtu.be’]<\/div>\n

Some health experts have been touting Vitamin D as a nutritional superstar. Beyond its well-known role as a bone builder, studies have suggested that high levels of D may do everything from reducing chronic pain to preventing the common cold.<\/p>\n

At the same time, other reports have found that as many as half of all adults have less than ideal blood levels of D. That has sent sales of vitamin D blood tests and supplements soaring.<\/p>\n

But other health experts say the science doesn\u2019t yet support the use of the high doses that many people may be taking, especially when it comes to heart disease.<\/p>\n

Dr. Runjhun Misra, internal medicine resident at the UConn Health Center, says studies are currently underway trying to find a link between vitamin D levels and heart disease risk. The data will not be available for months or even years.<\/p>\n

Misra says there are a few small studies showing higher levels of vitamin D are associated with lower blood pressure and low levels of vitamin D associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer.<\/p>\n

Vitamin D can be found in small amounts in a few foods, including fatty fish such as salmon, sardines and tuna. To make vitamin D more available, it is added to dairy products, juices, and cereals that are then said to be \u201cfortified with vitamin D.\u201d But most vitamin D \u2013 80 to 90 percent of what the body gets \u2013 is obtained through exposure to sunlight.<\/p>\n

You can also take vitamin D supplements. The Institute of Medicine publishes recommended daily allowance (RDA), which is an estimate of the amount of vitamin D that meets the needs of most people in the population. The current RDA for people up to 70 years of age is 600 international units (IU) a day, and over 70 years is 800 IU daily.<\/p>\n

But Misra cautions that even though vitamin D is available in grocery stores, it is a medication and you should follow the guidelines and inform your doctor that you are taking it.<\/p>\n

\n

Follow\u00a0the UConn Health Center<\/a> on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a> and\u00a0YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sunshine vitamin has been touted as a nutritional superstar but the Health Center\u2019s Dr. Runjhun Misra says more studies are needed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":58810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,1,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[45],"class_list":["post-58806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health","category-uncategorized","category-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 19:23:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58806"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58817,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58806\/revisions\/58817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/58810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58806"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=58806"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}