A University of California researcher is calling for even higher daily vitamin D intake, publishing in a new paper that vitamin D deficiency affects the normal performance of 36 human organs. Dr. Anthony Norman, of the University of California-Riverside, is calling for daily vitamin D intake for adults of 2,000 IU daily — five to ten times the current median recommendation.
Such levels only occur naturally when skin is exposed to UVB in sunlight. No dietary source comes close to that amount naturally.
“While some researchers are suggesting supplements are the preferred way to get vitamin D, they aren’t the natural way,” Smart Tan Vice President Joseph Levy said. “It’s going to get harder and harder for people to suggest that humans shouldn’t be getting regular sun exposure, because to do so would be to suggest that Mother Nature was wrong.”
Norman’s recommendation came in an article published this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The United Press International and other news agencies carried the story worldwide.