Got Vitamin D?

I was having my annual physical yesterday and I asked to have my vitamin D level taken. It had been 6 months since I had the blood test, so I want to see where it is at. It will take a few days to get the result. The blood test you need is called a 25(OH)D blood test.

You can get a blood test at your doctors or you can do an in-home test or get a test at a laboratory. All of these methods of testing should give you accurate results. In-home tests are easy to use and involve pricking your finger to take a small blood sample and sending this away to a laboratory for testing.

Your tests results will show whether you’re getting enough vitamin D or not, and whether you may need to take supplements or expose your skin to the sun more. Different organizations in the United States recommend different ideal vitamin D levels. The Vitamin D Council suggests that a level of 50 ng/ml is the ideal level to aim for.

In a new large review of observational studies, an international team of researchers uncovered a reduction in the risk of premature death in association with the use of vitamin D3 supplements. These observational studies found significant inverse associations between serum vitamin D levels and risks of death from cardiovascular disease, lymphoma, upper digestive tract cancer, and respiratory diseases. In addition, when the form of vitamin D supplementation was taken into account, vitamin D3 significantly reduced all-cause mortality by 11%. Vitamin D2, on the other hand, did not appear to have any significant effect on mortality.