2,000 IU of vitamin D daily helped 80 percent of adolescents

Created January 2021

Treatment with Vitamin D3 in Vitamin D Deficient Adolescents: A Pilot Study

Glob Pediatr Health . 2020 Dec 16 doi: 10.1177/2333794X20976240. eCollection 2020.

Mohan Kumaratne 1, Franck Vigneron 2, Jasmine Cisneros 3

* Fact: There is 4X difference in the size of the response to a dose of vitamin D between individuals * Obese teens need more than 2,000 IU of vitamin D for 3 months– RCT Feb 2015 * Overweight children are 3.4 X more likely to have low Vitamin D – March 2019 * 26 X increase in Vitamin D prescriptions for youths in England in 8 years – Dec 2019 * Half of obese black teens achieved at least 30 ng of Vitamin D with 5,000 IU daily – June 2018 * Note 98% of the youths in the study on this page had dark skins Items in both categories Intervention and Youth are listed here: {category}

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Multiple epidemiological studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent amongst adolescents in the USA. However, recommendations regarding the treatment of vitamin D deficiency in healthy adolescents are not well defined.

We carried out a prospective pilot study, to determine whether treatment with 2000 international units of vitamin D3 daily for 3 months, would normalize the vitamin D levels in vitamin D deficient adolescents.

Following treatment there was a 56.02% increase in the vitamin D levels from the mean baseline values and 80.39% of the subjects normalized their vitamin D levels. There were no adverse effects associated with this intervention. This study offers complementary guidelines to the existing recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics on the optimal dose and duration of vitamin D3 therapy in vitamin D deficient, but otherwise healthy adolescents. Further prospective, large scale, case control studies are indicated to validate our results.

Tags: Intervention Youth