JUNE 9, 2009 — “Obviously vitamin D is important for health, but the amount you need from the Sun is always less than for tanning or burning. We know that casual exposure is enough for vitamin D production and recommend 10 to 15 minutes a day.”

— Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, in the May 30 article “Is Vitamin D the New Wonder Supplement” in the London Times. The article correctly identified that vitamin D is made primarily from sun exposure — that fair-skinned people make 10,000 IU in 30 minutes of sun exposure and that dietary vitamin D doesn’t come close. But Young’s comments once again make the 10-to-15-minute recommendation which is not based on any real information and fails to take into account that darker-skinned people need 5-10 times as much UV exposure to make the same amount of vitamin D and that there should not be any one-size-fits-all recommendation for sun exposure.

Vitamin D researchers today generally agree that 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily are needed to maintain vitamin D blood levels of 40-60 ng/ml — the end point that truly needs monitoring.

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