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Overprescribing vitamin D – yes, 600,000 IU daily for 3 weeks is too much – Oct 2014

Hyper Vitaminosis D: Are we Overprescribing Vitamin D?

J Family Med Prim Care. 2014 Oct-Dec;3(4):464-6. doi: 10.4103/2249-4863.148153.
Hemachandar R1, Shanmugam L2, Malepati B2, Venugopal S2.

VitaminDWiki Summary

In the paper, not the abstract, we find:

  • One woman had "received intramuscular injections of
    cholecalciferol 600,000 IU daily for 20 consecutive days"
  • Her Vitamin D level was >150 ng/mL
  • From this single instance the authors conclude that vitamin D is being overprescribed.


Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin is now considered to be a hormone due to its important role in many physiological functions. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with many disorders ranging from bone diseases, cardiovascular diseases to cancer. Hence, there is a recent surge in the empirical prescription of vitamin D for various disorders without documentation of vitamin D deficiency and monitoring the treatment. We report a case of iatrogenic hypercalcemia and acute kidney injury due to vitamin D toxicity after empirical and overzealous use of vitamin D and calcium supplements. We present this case to remind clinicians the importance of monitoring the patients treated with mega doses of vitamin D.

PMID: 25657969
 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki.


See also VitaminDWiki

has the following chart showing toxicity might occur after 10 days of 600,000 IU daily
Graph of dose vs week

Attached files

ID Name Comment Uploaded Size Downloads
5036 Hyper Vitaminosis D- Are we Overprescribing Vitamin D.pdf admin 11 Feb, 2015 1.27 Mb 1140