Weight Maven

Just back from my doctor’s appointment; I’d asked to have my vitamin D checked in my most recent labs. My serum 25(OH)D: 52 ng/ml.

This is up from my baseline of 26 ng/ml (alas from well over a year ago), and achieved largely thru supplementing with 4000 IU of D3 (I like Vital Choice’s D3 … I take one with breakfast, one with dinner), but also thru diet. I eat pastured eggs or liver most days, which provides some D, but also provides vitamin A (important when you supplement D).

My doctor is happy, as am I. Heart Scan Blog’s Dr. Davis thinks it should be higher (60-70 ng/ml) but two folks I really respect, Chris Kresser and Paul Jaminet, think the ideal range is slightly lower, around 35-50 ng/ml.

In the podcast he did recently with Jimmy Moore, Paul Jaminet makes an interesting case (at around the 58 minute mark) for 40 ng/ml being ideal for someone like me of European descent. At blood levels much lower, added D3 supplementation causes 25(OH)D levels to rise steadily. But at ~40 ng/ml, the body starts plateauing the 25(OH)D levels … it stops converting dietary D3 at the same rate and starts storing both D3 and 25(OH)D. Paul calls this the “knee in the curve” and suggests that higher 25(OH)D than that may be useful therapeutically when there is poor conversion of 25(OH)D to the more active form (1,25D).