Age Bias In Vitamin D Prescriptions

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tex
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Age Bias In Vitamin D Prescriptions

Post by tex »

Hi All,

A recent study of prescriptions written to correct a vitamin D deficiency shows that prescriptions are closely linked with the age of the patient. A graph of the data shows that while prescriptions written for vitamin D are increasing rapidly for patients who are 44 years old or older, they are only very slowly increasing for those patients who are 18 years of age and younger. And as you can see by the graph in the article, prescriptions written for patients between those age levels are directly proportional to the other 2 groups, IOW, they are increasing at a rate between the other 2.

It appears that many mainstream doctors are beginning to recognize the importance of vitamin D, but pediatricians seem to be much slower to recognize the value of vitamin D for their patients. I'll bet a GF cookie that Polly is way ahead of her colleagues though, since she is well aware of the importance of maintaining a vitamin D level in the normal range.

Recent study shows the current trends in prescriptions for Vitamin D

Tex
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It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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jlbattin
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Post by jlbattin »

Tex,

That's really interesting. The problem I have with some of our PCP's or MD's is not that they aren't letting us know about vitamin D deficiencies because they are, but take mine, for example. Several years ago, he identified my vitamin D deficiency. I tested at 6.8 (and he even told me it was the lowest he had ever seen). He put me on a prescription of the normal 50,000 IU's of the vitamin D2 that they normally prescribe (of which I know now is not what I needed) and it climbed up very slowly but I never got out of the deficiency range until just a couple of days ago (and only because of all you on this board, and especially you, Tex. I read your book and read everything on here and realized I needed much more vitamin D3 than I was getting. Why do they not tell us how much we need to take to get out of that deficiency range and why do they keep pushing the D2? Maybe I wouldn't have had all of these issues if I had addressed it back then like I tackled it this summer. And maybe I still would have ended up with MC. There's no way of knowing, but I do have to wonder!
Jari


Diagnosed with Collagenous Colitis, June 29th, 2015
Gluten free, Dairy free, and Soy free since July 3rd, 2015
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tex
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Post by tex »

Hi Jari,

I have no idea why they continue to prescribe D2 when published research clearly demonstrates that it's a very poor choice. Apparently they just don't consider it important enough to be concerned with. Part of the problem is that all prescription vitamin D is apparently in the form of D2. For all I know, maybe there's a law against prescribing an OTC vitamin supplement. :shrug:

And they only rarely recommend a therapeutic dose, because the asinine official government-affiliated recommendations are set way too low, despite many, many research reports to the contrary. But on the bright side (for them, not their patients), it's good job insurance for them. :roll:

Tex
:cowboy:

It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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