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Vitamin D prescriptions in US Military increased 5X in 5 years – July 2015

Mil Med. 2015 Jul;180(7):748-753.
Morioka TY1, Bolin JT1, Attipoe S1, Jones DR1, Stephens MB1, Deuster PA1.
1Uniformed Services University, 4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, MD 20814.

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VitaminDWiki
  • Suspect it has been more than 5X in the most recent 5 years
  • This appears to be number of prescriptions, not the amount of IU prescribed
  • Suspect that even more vitamin D was consumed which was not prescribed.

See also VitaminDWiki

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Thus huge potential economic benefits to military for increasing Vitamin D include:
DECREASED brain trauma, stress fractures, suicide. breast cancer, MS, time in ICU, etc.
DECREASED COST Of health care for both active military and veterans
INCREASED FORCE READINESS
   By the way: Vitamin C was the focus of perhaps the first Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) in 1758
   It took the English govt over 100 years to give Vitamin C to their sailors
    to increase "force readiness" to fight the French


INTRODUCTION:
Although prior studies have examined the prevalence of dietary supplement use among various populations, data on single vitamins prescribed by health care providers are limited.

OBJECTIVE:
This study examined trends in single-vitamin supplement (A, C, D, E, K) prescriptions by providers from military treatment facilities from 2007 to 2011.

METHODS:
We examined prescription data from the Department of Defense Pharmacy Data Transaction Service to determine trends in the aforementioned single-vitamin supplement prescriptions. Prescription rates per 1,000 active duty personnel were estimated using population data retrieved from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (i.e., [number of prescriptions/population size] × 1,000).

RESULTS:
Across the 5-year period, the number of vitamin D prescriptions per 1,000 active duty personnel increased 454%. In contrast, the number of vitamin A, vitamin E, and vitamin K prescriptions per 1,000 active duty personnel decreased by 32%, 53%, and 29% respectively. Vitamin C prescriptions remained relatively constant. Across all age groups, total single-vitamin supplement prescriptions increased by 180%.

CONCLUSION:
Together, prescriptions examined in this study increased steadily from 2007 to 2011, primarily because of the increase in vitamin D prescriptions. The exhibited trend reflects the current general-population pattern of dietary supplement use, with large increases in vitamin D and declines in vitamin E.

Reprint & Copyright © 2015 Association of Military Surgeons of the U.S.

PMID: 26126244

Publisher wants $20 for the PDF
I thought that results of Govt funded studies were to be available FREE to the public


See also VitaminDWiki

Attached files

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5890 Mil prescriptions.jpg admin 05 Sep, 2015 33.07 Kb 1101