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Health experts push for higher vitamin D recommendations

Category: Vitamin D Deficiency-Diagnosis and Treatment

Vitamin D can have a wide range of health benefits, from decreased asthma symptoms to lowering the risk of heart disease, but many healthcare experts say that doctors aren't doing enough to make sure their patients are getting an adequate amount.

The current government recommendations for daily vitamin D intake came out at time when the only known health benefit of the vitamin involved calcium absorption. But some worry that doctors are sticking with these recommendations, even though study after study links vitamin D to a growing list of health benefits.

Anthony Norman, a professor of biochemistry at the University of California, told the Orange County Register that the problem is that most primary care physicians just aren't aware of all the health benefits, and are continuing to base their advise on the outdated recommendations.

"We have a problem with education of physicians," he told the news source. "Those are very conservative estimates, and there wasn't the knowledge that these other target organs were involved."

American Medical Association studies show that as much as 77 percent of the population may have low levels of vitamin D.