JUNE 1, 2009 – “The recommendations of the Food and Nutrition Board with respect to oral vitamin D input fall into a curious zone between irrelevance and inadequacy. For those persons with extensive solar exposure, the recommended inputs add little to their usual daily production, and for those with no exposure, the recommended doses are insufficient to ensure desired (vitamin D) concentration.”

— Creighton University Professor Robert Heaney, one of the world’s leading vitamin D researchers; as quoted in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrion. Heaney believes the minimum daily vitamin D recommendation from all sources should be 2,000 international units (IU), which is 5-10 times the current recommendation for most adults and which is only attainable naturally with regular sun exposure. He is among a group of the world’s leading researchers who now recommend regular vitamin D blood testing to ensure that blood levels of vitamin D are maintained between 40-60 ng/ml — levels that are consistent with outdoor workers who get regular sun exposure, but which the majority of North Americans are falling short of today.