Overview Toxicity of vitamin D

Created September 2010

Vertical axis = log of IU, Horizontal axis = log of weeks

Summary (reading from the chart)

Examples of safe without adjusting cofactors:
- 1 million IU daily for 2 days,
- 200,000 IU daily for 1.5 weeks,
- 150,000 IU daily for 2 weeks,
- 50,000 IU daily for 5 weeks
- 14,000 IU daily for 1 year
Updated chart July 2018 to show lack of Toxicity if adjust cofactors

2,000+ people with Multiple Sclerosis with up to 140,000 IU daily

Magnesium, Vitamin K2, and other COFACTORS are in the light pink region
Also, you need to reduce Calcium when having lots of vitamin D
- Note: Dr Berg made a video explaining this chart Nov 2022

In most cases, a doctor will just let the body remove any toxic amount of vitamin D by itself

Vitamin D DOES NOT accumulate in the body WikiPedia on Bioaccumulation
No medical procedure is needed. The body deals with the excess naturally

at very high levels the half-life of vitamin D is measured in days contains the following graphic

Toxicity of Vitamin D

All items in category Toxicity and Vitamin D items
All items in category Megadose/Loading Dose and Vitamin D items

Items in both categories, Toxicity and Loading Dose, are listed here:

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Toxicity of vitamin D 300 ng but selected 100 ng to be prudent – Aug 2008
Vitamin D intoxication if more than 150 ng – March 2012
200,000 IU vitamin D daily can result in Hypervitaminosis in weeks – 1992
Deaths due to drugs and supplements in the US (0 deaths due to Vitamin D)
Sign and symptoms of vitamin D overdose - from Buzzle 2010
Toxicity of vitamins - a brief look May 2010
Review of Upper Limit for vitamin D - 2007 Several tables summarize many trials
Some people have Allergic Reaction to vitamin D
1500 IU vitamin D minimum - 10,000 IU is safe – review April 2012
No risk of hypercalcemia with prolonged 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 – July 2010
Zero Deaths from Vitamins Minerals Amino Acids or Herbs - Jan 2011
Can You Overdose on Vitamin D - It's Harder Than You Think
50000 IU vitamin D daily toxic after 3 months – Oct 2011
56 suppliers of 10,000 IU vitamin D – yet 2000 IU toxicity claim persists Oct 2010
- The 2,000 IU toxicity scare got started in the 1950’s,
- It was proven wrong in the 1960s and has persisted now for over 50 years.
20 reasons for not taking Vitamin D debunked
CLICK HERE for more on the vitamin D panic
Pharmacokinetics of vitamin D toxicity
CLICK HERE for Life Extension Organization has a good description of the vitamin D toxicity tests
20,000 IU for 12 weeks (MS) was not toxic
Deaths due to excess and deficiency of vitamins (file) No Vitamin specifically mentioned
Vitamin D Recommendations - 2009 and 2010
Osteoporosis Canada Sept 2010 Upper limit as high as 10,000 IU daily
USANA recommended 5,000 IU with a graph
US History of RDA
Must balance cofactors when increasing vitamin D
Safety Issues of Vitamin D Supplementation – Jan 2013
1000 IU of vitamin D (per kg) can indeed be toxic – 1947 the possible source of the myth - dropped off /kg
Vitamin D 100,000 IU daily was OK for Dr. Cannell for 6 months – Jan 2015

IRats are killed by >1,000,000 IU of Vitamin D per kg, high doses for humans are ~1000X smaller

📄 Perplexity PDF

From the Web

600,000 IU weekly injection with daily Calcium for 13 weeks - toxic for 67 year old woman
- stopped injections and Calcium, 9 days later, her level was 255 ng, totally recovered in a few months
Injections of 15,000,000 IU of vitamin D and 60,000,000 vitamin A caused swelling full text on-line
- The swelling is what the patient wanted - the swelling looked like bigger muscles
40,000 IU vitamin D daily was OK for 28 weeks - a small MS study reported by Cochrane in 2010 mentioned by Vitamin D Council Oct 2012
How Much Vitamin D is Too Much? The Surprising Truth Sept 2015?
- Nice overview - here are some of the conclusions
- "Bottom Line: Blood levels in the range of 20–30 ng/ml are usually considered sufficient. The safe upper limit is considered to be about 60 ng/ml, but people with symptoms of toxicity usually have levels above 150 ng/ml."
- "Bottom Line: The safe upper limit of intake is set at 4000 IU/day. Intake in the range of 40,000–100,000 IU/day (10-25 times the recommended upper limit) has been linked with toxicity in humans."
- "Bottom Line: If you are supplementing with vitamin D, then it may be important to also ensure sufficient intake of vitamin A, vitamin K, and magnesium. These may reduce the risk of adverse effects from a higher vitamin D intake."
Vitamin D exposures reported to US poison centers 2000-2014: Temporal trends and outcomes
- Oct 2015, 0.02% of reported incidents major affect outcomes
- Assuming that only 1% of people taking Vitamin D end up calling a poison center
- major effects would be 0.0002%
- This rate is 1000X less than the rate of major side effects of many drugs
Single 2,000,000 IU dose not a problem in 2014
- full free PDF is online
600,000 IU daily for 21 days probably resulted in death - April 2016
- 📄 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki
No toxicity problems with up to 50,000 IU daily unless the person was also taking Calcium supplements - 2014
- 📄 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki
How common is vitamin D toxicity? Vitamin D Council Nov 2015
- far more people are taking Vitamin D, with only 3 serious Vitamin D toxicity cases, with no deaths .