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Is it safe to take vitamin D supplements?

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vitamin questions

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Is it safe to take vitamin D supplements daily or on ocassion? Do they cause kidney stones? A friend of mine had a kidney stone and he takes very large doses of vitamin D. How many miligrams/micrograms is 1,000IU?
 
Unlikely Vit D has anything to do with the kidney stone, according to more recent findings anyway.

For conversion purposes 1mcg = 40iu. So 15mcg (a common size) is 600iu. Doses up to 4000iu have been safely taken. However I'd recommend no more than 2000iu, and none while you're getting significant sun exposure. People with darker skins in more northerly or southerly latitudes are typically more deficient than paler skinned folks, so may require more supplementation.
 
Vitamin D supplements might cause kidney stones if you're taking them bundled with calcium (as is often a thing). But vit D by itself shouldn't cause them.

I take large quantities of vit D supplements on doctor's recommendations - I haven't noticed any side effects.
 
I was severely deficient largely due to where I live I believe, and my doctor put me on 50,000 IUs for two weeks I think it was. Now I take a maintenance 5000 IUs and haven't noticed any problems.
 
As an advocate for supplementation especially utilizing mega doses periodically, the first thing you should do is get a couple of blood tests to a get a mean of the specific micronutrient level your wanting to supplement.

After figuring out the level and discussing your idea with your physician you should then look at your dieting regime and see why you may or may not get exactly the proper level your seeking. Always look towards correcting the natural intake before you begin a supplementation regime to further facilitate increasing the level. Especially when you are manipulating micronutrients that can have extremely detrimental impacts if taken in too large of doses ie copper, zinc, d3, iron, potassium......

I'm actually personally experimenting with D3 for my first time and I started my dosage at 3,000 IU's daily. Only thing I've really noticed is a little bit more energy, but that could be because I also got myself some new B12 (Hydroxocobalamin)
 
Kidney stones can't be caused by vitamin D. 20 minutes of direct sun creates thousands of IU vitamin D through skin exposure. If vitamin D alone caused stones then everyone would have them.

There are three kinds of kidney stones, so after your friend has passed the stones they should be sent to a lab for analysis. Stones due to calcium intake are oxalate stones, and they develop from eating high oxalate foods like spinach, beet and chard greens, almonds, certain meats, sesame seeds, etc. (There's a long list.) Stones can also form due to lack of complementary minerals, like magnesium and zinc, IF you're also eating the high risk foods.

I take 5,000-6,000 IU of vitamin D per day, regardless of the season. Most medical associations recommend only 400IU a day, which is rather pathetic. If you could only take one vitamin, I would take this one.
 
i've read that you should pair it up with k2, high doses of synthetic d could cause hardening of the arteries ...
 
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