If supplementing, just remember: it’s possible to have
too much vitamin D in your blood. Vitamin D increases the
absorption of calcium, and the major risk of vitamin D
toxicity is hypercalcemia, or too much calcium in the blood
(see vitamin K 2 below). This can lead to problems like
artery calcification and kidney stones. On the other hand,
it’s impossible to get too much vitamin D from the sun—just
remember to take proper sun precautions and not to burn.
While there is not a consensus on the ideal level of
vitamin D, keeping blood levels in the range of 40 to 60
ng/ml seems to confer the lowest rate of all-cause mortality
over a given time period, which includes nonaccidental
death by any cause. Your doctor can easily check your
levels with a routine blood draw. Insufficiency, as currently
described by the Endocrine Society (which actually
considers vitamin D’s broader importance to the body
distinct from bone health), is below 30 ng/ml.
Recommendation: 2000 to 5000 IU of vitamin D 3 per
day, checked every six months by a doctor to ensure levels
between 40 and 60 ng/ml.
Folate, Vitamin B 12 , Vitamin B 6
The complex of vitamins known as the B vitamins
includes vitamin B 9 or folate, and vitamin B 12 or cobalamin.
B 12 is important for normal nerve function and preventing
anemia (a deficiency of red blood cells). Folate, as I
mentioned when discussing the virtues of dark leafy greens,
is also an important part of something called the methylation