(high dose) Vitamin D3 w/ K2 outcomes?

[prairiewind]

Anyone experienced high dose vitamin d3 with k2 (20k-50k once a week) and can you please share your outcomes? What would you do differently? How long for results, id applicable? yada yada

Yeah, yeah, yeah, calcification aside!

[SueJohnson]

Too much can result in kidney stones. Have you cleared this with your doctor?

[Joolsg]

mssociety.org.uk/research/e...

I've been on 5000iu daily for over 25 years. I have regular blood tests by my MS team & no issues.

You can get vit D poisoning though, so best to stick to recommendations.

It never made the slightest difference to my RLS.

[Jumpey]

I've taken vitamin d and k2 daily for years for osteopenia. No adverse effects that I am aware of.

[Eryl]

I'm in the UK and take 5,000 (with vitamin K2) daily and double the dose in winter, this is on top of daily walks to get sunshine and eating plenty of Vitamin D rich foods. This video of a conversation with a world expert is the most comprehensive one that I've done accross youtu.be/2hO7fniCbmw?si=N89...(Not working as expected?)

[UsableThought in reply to Eryl]

That video is by John Campbell, yes? That tickled my memory and not in a good way. I don't remember when the concerns about low D3 started getting major attention in public health - might have been 10 or 20 years ago. And for awhile I looked into it myself. As I don't get a lot of sun (very fair skin), at one point my D3 did actually get a bit low, as shown by bloodwork; so I have always been careful to supplement.

But along with factual material, the boom of popularity for D3 supplements also resulted in a lot of misinformation being spread about. In the case of Campbell, he has been criticized for hyping D3 as a way to protect against COVID, despite lack of evidence for this claim. He has also been criticized for many other misrepresentations involving COVID. Here is what Wikipedia says about him:

"John Lorimer Campbell is an English YouTuber and retired nurse educator known for his videos about the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, the videos received praise, but they later diverged into COVID-19 misinformation. He has been criticised for suggesting COVID-19 deaths have been over-counted, repeating false claims about the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment, and providing misleading commentary about the safety of COVID-19. As of March 2024, his YouTube channel had 3 million subscribers and over 750 million views."

So I would not recommend him as a source of wisdom on D3. He is unlikely to be a “world expert” on that or nearly any medical subject, considering his lack of credentials and his pronounced tendency to grossly misrepresent health information.

Wikipedia article is here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_... - and you can find many more articles about his views if you search.

- Randy

[Eryl in reply to UsableThought]

The "World Expert" is the man he is taking to.I' e neved had Covid possibly be ause I took vitamin D and zinc frpm the early days of the pandemic and never had a vaccine. But steer clear of processead food, even bread.

Tbe "Wod expert" even says that vitamin D3 uptake is delendant on other vitamins levels if you' d bothered to watch the video which I doubt you ever did judging from gour biggoted remarks.

[UsableThought in reply to Eryl]

Eryl, I’m not attacking you personally.

[Eryl in reply to UsableThought]

I know, you're attacking Dr John Campell who is merely the interviewer.

[UsableThought in reply to Eryl]

Oh yes, now I see. You are right. My apologies for jumping the gun. Grimes does qualify as an expert. I mistakenly thought you were saying Campbell was.

Grimes (along with others) has argued that studies show D3 is protective against COVID. If you poke around, some other experts agree while still other experts do not. It would be beyond me to guess who's right. But certainly Grimes would be attractive to Campbell given the latter's anti-vaccine claims.

That it remains a knotty matter are the continued doubts raised by some about the studies in question - e.g. see medrxiv.org/content/10.1101...

But still Grimes does seem to qualify as a “world expert” on D3 as far as I can find.

[PoorRichard in reply to Eryl]

Very interesting chat with Dr. Grimes. Helpful because my G.P. was skeptical about my intake of Vitamin D. I'm convinced I should continue with 4,000+ IU daily. (White male).

[Eryl in reply to PoorRichard]

As I said I more than double that dose in winter with no ill effects and haven't had anything worse than mild hayfever in the last 6 years or more.

[UsableThought]

prairiewind, you don’t specifically say whether you’re interested in using high vitamin D3/K2 intake to help with restless legs; but for my reply I will assume this is your intention.

I agree with what Sue, Joolsg, and other folks have said; my own experience is similar to Joolsg’s.

In addition, my interpretation of the medical literature is that although studies have found that many persons with RLS are deficient in D3, and should therefore supplement to get their D3 levels into the normal range, D3 supplementation is not regarded as a “cure” for RLS. Rather, there are two important purposes for supplementation:

1) Low D3 can worsen health in other ways. So doctors should check D3 levels in their RLS patients, just to catch cases of D3 deficiency that need to be corrected for overall health.

2) With some RLS patients, their RLS gets more severe the lower their D3; therefore for these patients, it’s important to supplement D3 so as to lower that severity. But D3 isn’t seen as a method of eliminating RLS; it’s more that D3 needs to be brought up to a healthy level so RLS is then more easily treatable with the usual methods.

Very important in relation to your question: Since in all cases the goal of D3 supplementation is simply to get D3 levels back into a healthy range, there is no justification for ultra-high (and possibly risky) megadoses.

At least this is how I read it. A good review of RLS and D3 studies can be found in this 2023 overview:

“Vitamin D and Restless Legs Syndrome: A Review of Current Literature”, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

- Randy

[Eryl in reply to UsableThought]

D3 has ani inflammatory properties and I inflammation of the nerves is a big factor in most cases of RLS so I would expect D3 to help a little. A big cause in this inflammation is the diet and by removing inflammatory foods from the diet and suplementing vit A & D and drinking green tea in the evenings I have eliminated RLS without taking any drugs.

[SueJohnson]

The problem with people saying 5,000 is fine is that you said 50K which is 50,000 unless you really did mean 5,000?