Vitamin D question

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

In the vitamin D podcast (#152 for those interested), you mention that if you’re going to use a vitamin d supplement, you should look for one that is GMP certified and third party certified like USP or NSF.

I’ve been searching for one that meets these guidelines, but I’ve had trouble finding a supplement that has both certifications and isn’t also like 10,000 iu’s. I’ve found a couple that say on their websites that their suppliers are GMP and that they, themselves are third party tested, but does that actually meet the guidelines you lay out in the podcast?

Any advice that could clear things up I would really appreciate
thanks!
Tim

2

They should be clearly labeled as cGMP certified and 3rd party tested. There are a number of these in the vitamin space, e.g. Nature Made Vitamin D makes a 1000iu supplement that fits the criteria listed…but you probably don’t need to take vitamin D anyway so…

3

You’re you’re probably right, but my doctor did actually say I could supplement if I was interested (see explanation below if you care), so it’s not completely mindless. Was getting cholesterol checked for a physical and had them look at vitamin d as well (because it was a low cost add on and I was just curious… this was obviously before I listened to the podcast). Turned out it was a bit low. I live in the PNW and unfortunately can’t get a lot of sun because of my work, so kinda makes sense that it would be on the lower side.

Obviously not an emergency, but the plausibility of my living/work situation being connected to a lower vitamin d level, when data shows sun exposure directly impacts vitamin d levels, while not provable in this context, made very low level supplementation seem like an ok idea. Idk.

I must just suck at looking, thanks so much for the suggestions. I looked at nature made but must have completely missed that

4

*saw nature made was USP, but not cGMP on it’s label

5

You can’t be USP without cGMP, but it claims to also be in compliance with cGMP regulations on its website.

6

That doesn’t really make sense as a need for vitamin D supplementation, but I understand where you’re coming from.

7

OH gotcha. I saw that as well on their website, but since it wasn’t on the label (at least the new one… I think they recently updated their label), I thought maybe it was like when products say they’re “organic”, but aren’t actually FDA approved organic lol. Thanks so much for clearing that up.

Yeah. And to your point my doctor didn’t actually say “you should supplement vitamin d”, implying there isn’t actually a “need”. I dunno. You’ve changed my mind I think. I really appreciate it