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What are your tips for injury prevention and good health for the over 50s?

As above - there are no significant dietary sources of vitamin D.

If you are a builder, gardener or such you will get enough exposure to sunlight for most of the year to make enough. If so, you may store enough to get you through the winter - vitamin D is fat-soluble so the body stores it.

Also as above, most Brit's are defficient.

Also as above - one year's supply is less than £4 on Amazon.
 
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Vinny said:
As above - there are no significant dietary sources of vitamin D.

If you are a builder, gardener or such you will get enough exposure to sunlight for most of the year to make enough. If so, you may store enough to get you through the winter - vitamin D is fat-soluble so the body stores it.

Also as above, most Brit's are defficient.
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If anyone is looking for what seems to be a reliable source of up-to-date information about vitamin D, there is an IMHO informative (but long) US university researcher's lecture here, covering modern understanding of its functions, good serum levels, human deficiency and supplementation, including tolerance and toxicity. In the Q&A at the end there is an interesting final anecdote (from about 47:15) about the average level of oral supplementation taken by a group of vitamin D scientists assembled in a committee to create publicly-facing advice.
 
Without reading all this thread, the answer is to live somewhere warm so you are able to get out for daily walks in the sunshine. You will also find you don't have to eat as much, and warmer countries often have more healthy foods for sale. It's a win win.
 
I take a multivitamin most days with 5ug vit D. This is the UK RDA and at 200 iu less than is being discussed here. This is following some testing I had that showed that even in spring, spending time outdoors and taking occasional supplements when I remember ed I was just below the minimum acceptable level. A multivitamin comes in at about 1p a day, bought in the supermarket. If it's a waste of money, I can afford it. It's a Pascals's wager.
 
John Phillips said:
In the Q&A at the end there is an interesting final anecdote (from about 47:15) about the average level of oral supplementation taken by a group of vitamin D scientists assembled in a committee to create publicly-facing advice.
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Thanks @John Phillips - that anecdote is very interesting and is very much not what the NHS website suggests.
The discussion about serum levels and fat levels is also very interesting, and only moderately recentlky available since the development of tests that will pick up vit' D accurately in serum and fat.

The NHS website states that an average adult requires 400 IU per day and that 4000 IU per day is POTENTIALLY toxic. When defficiency was first mentioned as a possibility for me, a dose of 1-2000 IU per day was recommended. The aches in one leg took maybe 4-6 weeks to resolve and my backache, that had been permanent but variable for over 3 years, has all but gone too, after12-14 weeks.

The cheapest and most convenient tablets that I could find initially were 3000 IU, so I have been taking half a tab' each day. I'll not be bothering cutting them up now.

Buying on Amazon, the dose is basically irrelevant in terms of pricing - all doses come out around 1p per tab' - presumably vitamin D is cheap and the cost involved is in the manufacturing, packaging and shipping of the tab's, not in the ingredients.
 
We started taking Vit D early in 2020. Medical friends suggested there was some early indication that Covid resistance correlated with Vit D levels. We now get in a supply in late summer and take a daily dose from Oct-May. We are gardeners and have a dog who needs walking, so get some outdoor exposure most days in the summer, though in northern climes it's often overcast or raining. Maybe we should consider taking them year-round.
 
good tips for injury prevention ? well just recently got my prostate checked out with MRI , all ok but got flow problems sometimes . the nice consultant put me on tamsulosin alternate days as a history of dizziness . second day had a very nasty fall with a blackout [ in conjunction with a sickness bug that also causes dizziness ] as this stuff drops your BP !!! needless to say one wont be taking it ever again, had to have ct scans of head and orbit but seems ok. needless to say many of these tablets can cause many sideffects .... . so be careful with prostate meds !!
 
I asked my NHS surgery for a test of my Vitamin D level. They blountly said "we don't test for Vitamin D". I continued that how do they know if I'm too low or approaching troxicity. The reply was the same, "we don't test for Vitamin D".
 
Vinny said:
Buying on Amazon, the dose is basically irrelevant in terms of pricing - all doses come out around 1p per tab' - presumably vitamin D is cheap and the cost involved is in the manufacturing, packaging and shipping of the tab's, not in the ingredients.
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Vit D must be cheap because as cholecalciferol it is used as a rat poison. It is reportedly very effective. Interestingly, it does not appear to result in secondary poisoning of non target animals, such as birds that eat the wobbly or dead rats. Owls fed a cholecalciferol poisoned rat every other day apparently were just as healthy as a control group with no poisoned rats according to one study I read. Unfortunately you can't say the same of things like warfarin, which does have problems with secondary poisoning in nature. It's what drives the pest control and food industries to using less toxin and fewer toxins and to reserving some of the more vicious ones for indoor use only, the reasoning being that a rat that dies outdoors may possibly be eaten by a carrion feeder whereas a rat that dies indoors will stay there and not be available to be eaten.
 
When the nurse suggested that I might be D-defficient, she first searched my records - I have had almost countless blood tests over the past 3 years as a consequence of what the GP said was long covid, and she said that I had been tested for just about everything possible, except vit D. So, she sent me a sample bottle and asked me to get my GP to take a blood sample for vit D measurement. Long story - it did not get done.

At the end of the day, the NHS and nutritionists in general state that most Brits are D-defficient. It is lunatic-cheap to take, so there is no reason not to.
 
les24preludes said:
I asked my NHS surgery for a test of my Vitamin D level. They blountly said "we don't test for Vitamin D". I continued that how do they know if I'm too low or approaching troxicity. The reply was the same, "we don't test for Vitamin D".
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i get a full well man check up blood tests from private GP , that tests for vitamin d deficiency . thats how i know i am low . crazy NHS dont do it
 
hifinutt said:
i get a full well man check up blood tests from private GP , that tests for vitamin d deficiency . thats how i know i am low . crazy NHS dont do it
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To be honest, given that any fule kno that most people are Vit D deficient in the UK, especially those with dark skin or who stay indoors, there's little point in testing when 1p a day will fix it. Sensible precautions will prevent poisoning.
 
indeed , however i had no idea i was deficient until they tested me . i am out all the time in the sun !!!! wish i had got tested years ago !!
 
stevec67 said:
Sensible precautions will prevent poisoning.
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If you view the video linked to by John, above, poisoning is exceedingly unlikely - especially somewhere around 8-10 minutes in. It is also slowly sinking in to the medical profession, that an inability to accurately measure vit D in anything has led to very misleading advice. Vitamin D has been found in food in significant quantities, but not enough compared to what humans need, and humans probably need far in excess of what current guideline suggest.

The video is posted by the University of California.
 
Vinny said:
Current thinking is that most Brits are defficient in Vit' D, most of the year. It is made by UV action on the skin and there is no significant dietary source.

No need for debate, conjecture or anything else. Adult requirement is for around 400 IU per day. A year's supply of 1000 IU tab's costs less tha £4 on Amazon (hunt around...........................)

Vit' D is harmless in modest excess (4000 IU per day is potentially toxic).

A no-brainer IMO.
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Been taking a bog standard multivitamin suppliment for nearly 20 years now. Just to cover my bases. Mostly because I've always known my diet is not perfect. My mum (who's 85) was told recently that she should suppliment Vit D for exactly the reasons you state.
 
I've been taking anywhere between 3000 and 5000 iu of vitD for some years.

While I haven't noticed any benefits I have long been persuaded of its importance, ever since hearing a show on R4 in which some academics mentioned, similarly to the vid linked earlier, that all the experts they knew took vit D in much higher doses than are recommended by the govt.

So far I've been unable to discover whether children should receive vit D supplements, and if so at what dose.

I tread carefully in this regard and give my kids a multivitamin supplement intended for children.
 
John Campbell on YouTube got me started on Vitamin D just after Covid started
Coincidentally madam was diagnosed as Vit D deficient the year before and was on it
4000 a day now. Knock that back when it is sunny, warm and my lovely body has exposure to sun
 
Video linked to above is very highly recommended viewing, not least because it goes through explanations and logic about where vit D knowledge was 10 years ago (that is how long ago the lecture/seminar was). There are brief mentions of several studies and experiments conducted across the world.

Current belief amongst dieticians/doctors/scientists with an interest in vit. D (at least in the US), is that total daily intake, from food, action of the sun on your skin, and any supplements, should be 4-6000 IU per day and actual requiremnts of the body are far in excess of what is mentioned on the NHS website, for instance.

One problem that had recently been overcome at the time of the lecture, was measurement of vit D in food and fat. Meat is now reckoned to contain a significant amount, but the lecture goes no futher than saying that, no mention of quantities.

The video also looks at toxicity, and says that it is exceedingly unlikely.

Why this has not filtered down to the NHS.............................
 
The NHS like so many large and/or medical organisations takes a while

Never thought 'normal' people like me needed Vit D.
400 is only just better than nothing
 
Tips for good health etc.

Actively maintain a loving relationship with your partner (if you have one) and dispense with harmful relationships.

Don’t use supermarket/food delivery services unless you have a disability that stops you from getting out.

If something changes negatively that you haven’t intended - Sleep pattern, weight or State of Mind etc. get it investigated by a professional. Better to be informed that there is nothing to worry about than let something fester.

Recognise that increased age can bring limitations, but becoming increasingly forgetful isn’t a sign of growing old necessarily.
 
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