In 1997, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published the last official recommendations for daily vitamin D intake. Since then, there has been a great upsurge in research on vitamin D and many of the world’s top vitamin D researchers have been claiming that the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations for vitamin D are much too low. Some of the researchers making these claims were members of the Food and Nutrition Board panel that set the recommendations based on the science available at the time.

In the January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, an article was published that reviewed the studies available on vitamin D to establish a “No Adverse Effect Level” for the vitamin. Their summary and analysis recommends an increase in the IOM “Tolerable Upper Intake Level” (UL) from current 2,000 IU / day to 10,000 IU / day. The UL is defined by the IOM as, “The maximum level of total chronic daily intake of a nutrient or food component that is unlikely to pose risks of adverse effects to the most sensitive members of the healthy population.”

Two of the authors of the report are from the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a Washington-based trade association representing ingredient suppliers and manufacturers in the dietary supplement industry. The other two authors are well-known vitamin D researchers from Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and Creighton University in Omaha.

Since 1980, recommended nutrient intake values have been revised about every ten years in the U.S., so if the IOM follows suit, we should see new official recommendations within the next few years. Stay tuned.

Read more on vitamin D and bone health.

Source
Hathcock, John N. et al. “Risk Assessment for Vitamin D.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 85 (2007): 6-18. (See article abstract)