Can I trust my Vitamin d results?

Checking ones Vitamin D levels is often recommended on this site for Afib sufferers.

Where I live we get limited amounts of sunshine and there has been practically none for the last 4 months so this seemed a good time to check my levels.

Throughout the winter I've been taking 3000 iu. During the summer I took 1000iu since even then sunshine is limited.

I've just had the results of a test done by Sandwell and Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust - 150.8 nmol/L!

This should be a completely trustworthy test but I'm amazed - and worried - by this result.

I'd appreciate any comments.

Thanks

Sam

Sam,

Converting 150.8 nmol/L <[www.endmemo.com] is 60.4 ng/ml (US units). Most who pay attention want a target between 50-80 ng/ml. Hence you are right on target. There is a thought you should supplement with Vitamin K2 MK7 of 150-200 mcg/day. If you are on warfarin/coumadin, then you need to look at this further as K2 can impact your INR. <[articles.mercola.com]

George

Sam - go to this website and scroll down to the chart titled Vitamin D levels – 25 Hydroxy D [articles.mercola.com]#!

The classes are
<50 ng/ml = Deficient
50-70 ng/ml = Optimal
70-100 ng/ml =Treat Cancer & Heart Disease
>100 mg/ml = Excess

Multiply ng/ml by 2.5 to convert to nmol/litre

This is referenced from a study by one of the vitamin research experts, Michael Hollick…
(Holick MF. Calcium and Vitamin D. Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Clin Lab Med. 2000 Sep;20(3):569-90)



So the deficient level at 50 ng/ml x 2, equals 125.0 nmo/litre and your 150.8 would put you right in the middle of optimal at 60 if I do the math correctly.

My doctor likes my level to be right around the 70 ng/ml.

Jackie

Why are you worried about the result Sam, that seems reasonable solid with your modest dosing regimen, especially considering you live in a low sun area and likely with low sun angle even in the summer which further reduce UV light absorption on the skin and less Vitamin D synthesis.

Also, you obviously are either in Canada, Europe or maybe Australia/New Zealand?? since you are using the Scientific International (SI) metric units of measure of nmol/L rather than the common ng/ml units in the United States/Japan and a few other places for listing 25(OH)D3 test results.

Make sure you are using the 25(OH)D3 test and not another Vitamin D analyte screening test like (1,25 Dihydroxy-vitamin D), but this 150.8 nmol/L number (60.4ng/ml) seems perfectly reasonable in your region and with a comparatively low supplemental dose of Vitamin D is actually very good.

Try taking your Vit D supplement only with the largest Fat containing meal of the day, as you should do with all fat soluble vitamins, like Vit A, D, E & K1/K2 to greatly improve absorption of those vital fat soluble nutrients.

To convert the Vitamin D3 - 25(OH)D3 test from SI nmol/L units to ng/ml US units, you divide your result (150.8 nmol/L / 2.496 = 60.4 ng/ml) and to covert from US units to SI metric units you take the ng/ml US unit number and multiply it by 2.496 while that value is on the low end of optimal range of 60ng/ml to 80ng/ml (150nmol/L to 200nmol/L in SI metric units in much of the world).

Your 150.8nmol/L is actually a very good number and is certainly in the optimal range when many of the Vitamin D benefits start really kicking in across the board to a good degree. For even more fine tuning of your optimal range, try increasing your dose by nor more than 1,000IU and test again in 3 months after using the dose and see where you are at and then adjust dosing either up or down in smaller incremental doses to high the sweet spot of 70ng/ml ( or 175nmol/L).

Never exceed 100ng/ml (250nmol/L) as then it is possible those still very unlikely at that level to gradually build up a toxic level of 25(OH)D3 in the blood, normally you need to be higher than 100g/ml ( 250nmol/L) for some time to get in trouble. The only time it makes sense to sustain 90g/ml (225nmol/L) for a good period is for treating some autoimmune issues and cancers but only do so with the aid of an enlightened functional medicine MD who is savvy on Vitamin D therapy.

Again to hit the sweet spot optimal range in SI units you want to be between (60-80ng/ml or 150nmol/L and 200nmol/L). Keep in mind too that theses 150-200nmol/L SI numbers in EU and Canada for 25(OH)D tests will result in a 'high' reading which is perfectly understandable because these are all lab reference ranges derived from adding all the Vitamin D tests each lab does in a year in their particular lab group and then taking the upper and lower 2.5% of numbers to define the upper and lower range of what they then call 'normal range'. Alas, most Docs mistakingly then view those reference ranges as optimal ranges such that people even with 30ng/ml or so are considered in the /optimal range' which is ludicrous.

The problem with this major error in thinking is that nearly everyone in these northern most climates that are also general cloudy and have short sun days during the majority of the year have nearly universal deficient levels of Vitamin D in their populations and, as such, these so called reference ranges that are mistakingly implied to be optimal levels are derived from a hugely deficient pool of subjects used to imply what is expected to be a 'normal or broad average healthy range.

What that utter misunderstanding does is institutionalize a near universal deficiency of Vitamin D as healthy ... especially in northern climate countries where no amount of sunlight, even if you lay in a chaise lounge buck naked in the middle of July sun, will be enough to raise your Vitamin D levels into the true optimal ranges we largely evolved with in sub-Saharan Africa in the wee old days of human evolution.

In any event, these guidelines should help sort this out but do not at all fret over a 150.8 nmol/L 25(OH)D3 test score! It means your supplementation routine is doing quite well if not quite at the sweet spot yet.

Shannon

Opps, I see Jackie and George already gave you the scoop as I was posting my two cents :-).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2015 02:08PM by Shannon.

George,

While Vitamin K2/MK7 can indper ed impact Coumadin INR levels, it generally has neglible impact on 45mcg to 90 mcg per day doses of K2-MK7 form. At 45mcg day of Vitamin K2/MK7 there is a general stabilization of INR swings commonly seen and progressing up to 90mcg you might see a 0.2 drop in INR but little more than that, if that much, in most cases.

I do highly recommend getting a reliable home meter and calibrating it with a new box of test stripes by test that box of stripes with the same code numbers on them with a venous blood INR test taken just seconds after doing the home meter finger prick test right at the blood lab just before the blood draw and then comparing the results the next day or later that day when the lab calls in your venous INR number. I have found with the Philips INR 2 machine and test strips you can safely apply the same +/- variation gotten on a careful calibration testing to all the strips in that box lot number.

Provided you uses the same careful protocol for running the test and delivering a consistent size blood drop to the strip sensor each time.

This will help you easily maintain a safe INR that you can easily adjust your Warfarin dose around whatever nutrients such as Vitamin K you might wish to take. Just be regular about testing and calibration while on Warfarin and dont get complacent and figure you know what the effect is each time without testing with the home meter.


Shannon

Always good to be aware of your 25 OH D levels..... Just newly published in Science Daily… Low vitamin D predicts more severe strokes, poor health post-stroke

[www.sciencedaily.com]

Stroke patients with low vitamin D levels were found to be more likely than those with normal vitamin D levels to suffer severe strokes and have poor health months after stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2015.

Low vitamin D has been associated in past studies with neurovascular injury (damage to the major blood vessels supplying the brain, brainstem, and upper spinal cord).

Nils Henninger, from University of Massachusetts Medical School (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues studied 96 stroke patients, assessing their blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (a marker of vitamin D status). Stroke patients who had low vitamin D levels less than 30 ng/mL) showed two-times larger areas of dead tissue resulting from obstruction of the blood supply compared to patients with normal vitamin D levels.

Further, for each 10 ng/mL reduction in vitamin D level, the chance for healthy recovery in the three months following stroke decreased by almost half, regardless of the patient's age or initial stroke severity.

Jackie

Great report Jackie, I had just seen this when researching studies for upcoming AFIB Report.

Makes sense and I wonder if perhaps my good 75ng/ml Vitamin D status helped make my small but contrast imaging significant 1cm right mid-frontal gyral infarct and a smiliar size right frontal opercular infarct from my Lariat leak induced stroke last May, also similarly blunted in overall impact on my health and brain status?

Nearly every doc who saw my MRI or MRI report on those lesions, said "Wow, you really dodged a bullet Shannon". It could also be in part due to may solid anabolic hormone restoration to good healthy physiologic ranges of testosterone, DHEA and GH which have been shown too to help reduce stroke severity and even help some in recovery from existing strokes to some degree.

In any event, I also take a good number of other good antioxidants and eat a decent roughly paleo-like diet as well, and wouldn't be surprised if all those efforts made in making these things permanent life style upgrades over many years may have help safe my bacon a bit with that stroke that had nothing to do with any systemic endogenous increase in stroke risk, but rather was solely caused by the leaking LAA that had once been sealed off.

Im very glad Ive paid attention to all these markers for quite awhile in any event.

Shannon

Thanks, everyone! The Forum to the rescue again.

I've been so used to the ng/ml over the years on this site that I didn't even notice I had a different measurement i.e. nmol/L; further compounded by my results giving the figure of over 50 nmol/L as adequate.

I think I've hand the proper test. The breakdown is given as 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 : 148.0 nmol/L. 25-Hydroxyvitamin D2 ; 2.8 nmol/L.

Thanks again. Back on the supplements and looking forward to some sun soon. Weather quite good here but on an antibiotic which reqires me to keep out of it for another 11 days.

Sam