Vitamin D level reassessment high priority

International agencies should reassess as a matter of high priority dietary recommendations for vitamin D, experts have said, because current advice is outdated and puts the public at risk of deficiency.

Fifteen experts from universities, research institutes, and university hospitals around the world, led by Reinhold Vieth from Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital wrote in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: "We call for international agencies such as the Food and Nutrition Board and the European Commission's Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General to reassess as a matter of high priority their dietary recommendations for vitamin D, because the formal nationwide advice from health agencies needs to be changed."

"The balance of the evidence leads to the conclusion that the public health is best served by a recommendation of higher daily intakes of vitamin D. Relatively simple and low-cost changes, such as increased food fortification or increasing the amount of vitamin D in vitamin supplement products, may very well bring about rapid and important reductions in the morbidity associated with low vitamin D status," they said.