Vitamin D: What to do with it?

Evidence of a beneficial effect of supplementation on vitamin D deficiency is limited. Since 2008, the Health Council of the Netherlands has recommended a daily vitamin D supplement for women of 50 years and older and both men and women of 70 years and older. This advice is poorly implemented in the general population. General practitioners are increasingly requesting a vitamin D blood level in lowrisk patients with nonspecific complaints. A primary healthcare laboratory measured vitamin D levels in random blood samples. They concluded that low vitamin D levels are highly prevalent in primary care patients. These results suggest that there is no added value in vitamin D blood level measurement. Discussion is still ongoing as to whether vitamin D supplementation is really beneficial. Trials are under way but the results are not yet known. Supplementation that is necessary on the basis of individual risk assessment, or preferred by an individual can be started without a blood level measurement.

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