DJP,

Great question.  For starters, 10,000 IU/day vitamin D3 is not a high-dose...  Some neurologists routinely prescribe 100,000 IU/day vitamin D3 for their Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) patients.

The simple answer is there haven't been any studies completed taking sustained oral doses of vitamin D3 at 10,000 IU/day.  That said, we're out in front of the power curve and most neurologists with the anti-inflammatory regimen using a vitamin D3 dose of 10,000 IU/day as a cluster headache preventative.

There are several RCTs in progress calling for even higher doses for up to 90 days.  I might add however, that none of these RCTs are using any of the vitamin D3 cofactors.

For example, in one RCT, the dietary supplement: vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) liquid vitamin D solution (vitamin D3 in ethanol) is being taken daily at one of three possible doses (400, 10,000, or 40,000 IU/d) for 4-6 weeks prior to radical prostatectomy. 

There's another study in progress comparing daily vitamin D3 intakes of 5,000 and 10,000 IU/day for patients suffering from RRMS.

I've spoken with several RRMS patients who have taken 100,000 IU/day vitamin D3 under their physician's supervision for up to a month to combat a flare up of their multiple sclerosis before getting tested for 25(OH)D and falling back to a maintenance dose of 10,000 IU/day.

Regarding the IOM recommendations on vitamin D3 intake... You've hit a nerve... and it isn't my left trigeminal ganglion either... 

If readers of this post are not up to a tutorial on what big government bureaucrats and dirt bag politicians are doing to our healthcare and how much regulating power big government should have to restrict your access to USP supplements like oxygen and vitamin D3...  please read no further...

A vitamin D3 Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of 400 IU/day and Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of 4,000 IU/day are two of the most absurd recommendations from the big government bureaucrats I've ever seen...

The first thing you need to understand is the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) panel at Institute of Medicine (IOM), who made the initial recommendation for an RDA of 400 IU/day and a UL of 4000 IU/day was made up of four clueless bureaucrats...  not physicians.

In my humble opinion, knowing what I know now, were these practicing physicians making recommendations like this to their patients, they would be subject to malpractice...

Unfortunately, three of the "expert" members of the FNB panel who made this recommendation are tenured professors from academia... and the fourth is a long time government bureaucrat at DHHS. 

None of the four are practicing physicians or licensed nutritionists so have never treated someone with a vitamin D3 deficiency... yet when provided with the results of thousands of clinical observations attesting to the safety and efficacy of vitamin D3 at doses up to 10,000 IU/day and higher by practicing endocrinologists...  they ruled otherwise and opted for the present RDA and UL.

"Expert" panel members at the IOM from the US and Canada who reviewed the FNB recommendations appeared to have fallen into the grasp of the medical evidence mafia...  In other words, unless there are several concurring randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind clinical trials on the safety and efficacy of vitamin D3, the huge body of clinical evidence gathered over the last 20 years by practicing physicians attesting to the safety and efficacy of vitamin D3 therapy... means absolutely nothing...

The frightening part of all this is these are the same kind of big government bureaucrats who are already administrating obamacare... 

They are also among the same big government bureaucrats in healthcare who already ruled that there is insufficient medical evidence on the efficacy of oxygen therapy as an abortive for cluster headache...   

In this case, the big government bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made a non-coverage determination that denies Medicare beneficiaries suffering from cluster headache (like me), coverage for oxygen therapy...  So much for covering the treatment of existing medical conditions...  Yet another lie... and these bureaucrats already administer obamacare so stand by for more non-coverage determinations...

If that's not bad enough...  the government doesn’t just want to discourage you from taking extra Vitamin D, they also want to prohibit you from taking it at higher doses above the RDA and UL.

Senator Dick Durban, D-Ill., in 2011 introduced a bill (innocuously labeled the “Supplement Labeling Act”) which would so over-regulate the supplement industry that they could no longer supply products such as Vitamin D3 at a cost affordable to the average consumer.

Here’s an example of the IOM’s logic. It recommended 600 IU of vitamin D3 for a pregnant woman. It then said that the moment the baby is born, it should have 400 IU while the mother continues to need 600 IU. On the face of it, this makes no sense at all.

The IOM committee was also apparently about to restate the safe upper intake level of vitamin D3 well above the previous 2,000 IU per day. Then, just before publication, and for no apparent reason—certainly no reason based on science—it reversed course and pulled a meager 4,000 IU out of thin air as the new upper limit.

Scientists such as John Cannell, MD, who have really studied vitamin D3, suggest that 4,000 IU would be a more reasonable recommended daily allowance, not an upper limit.

Don’t forget that the FDA in 1972 tried to ban any supplement dose higher than 400 IU unless taken under a doctor’s prescription.

What both the FDA and the Institute of Medicine have in common is that both agencies know very little about supplements... but are nevertheless deeply biased against them.

In the FDA’s case, this may be because of all the fees that the agency gets from the "big pharma" drug companies. Or because many of the agency’s outside panelists who make these determinations are paid by the drug companies.

In the IOM’s case, many of its experts of course also receive fees from drug companies. Yet these are the people whom Senator Durbin wants to give complete arbitrary power over supplements!

For example, under the senator’s bill...  that's been stalled in committee, but could emerge at any time...  the FDA could require warnings on supplement labels of any length that would say anything the government wants, no matter how unreasonable.

It would create lists of “bad” ingredients or “bad” dosages based on completely arbitrary or nonexistent standards. Whatever the FDA says would go. And once an ingredient or supplement is singled out for this treatment, there is no process to challenge the determination, not even if new or contradictory evidence comes to light.

This is really bad legislation...  just like obamacare...

Please don't take my assessment of the IOM recommendations as gospel...  Read for yourself what other experts in vitamin D therapy have stated then you decide:

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

If that's not enough, Google "Reinhold Veith + IOM" or "Robert Heaney + IOM".

I should also point out again that it's not just the idiot big government bureaucrats that make these recommendations...  We also have a politburo full of elected idiots, quislings and RINOs signing legislation they didn't write or read that was prepared by special interest groups... that will eventually prevent us from taking 10,000 IU/day vitamin D3 to control our cluster headache.

These are the same kind of elected idiot dirt bag politicians who are presently using scare tactics and fear mongering to insult us... saying that the sequestration legislation proposed by Obama, passed in 2011 by both parties and signed into law by Obama, is now going to cause the mother of all financial catastrophes...   

These include among other things, massive layoffs, furlows, school closings, no fire or police response, 3-hour TSA delays at airports, and criminals released because there are no prosecuting attorneys...  What a crock of BS!!!

In order to understand the load of bull crap these dirt bags are trying to sell us, you only need to understand a few federal budget basics...

1. We haven't had a budget passed by Congress in 4 years so we've been operating on a series of continuing resolutions...

2.  Under a continuing resolution each year's budget is equal to last year's budget (the baseline) plus an additional amount equal to the rate of inflation times the increase in population times last year's budget...

3. This increase happens automatically with each continuing resolution passed and the amount added each year to the previous year "baseline" is approximately $100 Billion Dollars or an additional annual increase in the total federal budget of 4 to 5%.

Consider the following facts provided by the Congressional Budget Office on the United States federal budget over the last five years:

2009 United States federal budget - $3.1 trillion (submitted 2008 by President Bush) 

2010 United States federal budget - $3.6 trillion (submitted 2009 by President Obama)

2011 United States federal budget - $3.8 trillion (submitted 2010 by President Obama)

2012 United States federal budget - $3.7 trillion (submitted 2011 by President Obama)

2013 United States federal budget - $3.8 trillion (submitted 2012 by President Obama)

The upcoming series of sequestration cuts will cut $1.2 Trillion over the next ten years, with $85 billion kicking in for FY 2013 on March 1...

Here's where a little math comes in handy...  If the federal budget grows by $100 Billion a year and this year's part of the sequestration is $85 Billion Dollars...  Then next year's federal budget will grow by $15 Billion Dollars...

So where is this horrendous budget cut that will do all the terrible damage Obama claims will happen?  Another lie!

Please don't get me wrong...  The sequestration legislation is terrible on several counts...  For starters, too many people don't understand the word sequestration...  or how it is being applied...  If it was called what it really is, a cut in the rate of budget growth, most would understand it's reasonable and not the end of the world.

(1) There is no actual cut in the baseline budget...  The FY 2013 budget will be larger than last year... but the increase won't be as large as in previous years.

(2) The cuts are mandatory across the board on all accounts with no provisions to move money around between accounts...  A good manager could move funds around to minimize the impact of not getting the planned budget increases...  but Congress did not want to give Department managers this option...  they might cut funding to useless pet pork barrel projects mandated by Congress...

(3) Half of these cuts come disproportionally out of the Defense Budget... The Defense budget is roughly 17% of the total budget yet it is getting hit with half the sequestration cuts... What is really disturbing is the sequestration cuts come on top of the 10% Defense budget cut Obama has already imposed.

(4) The cuts in non-defense spending are not big enough...  We will still have another $1 Trillion Dollar deficit... on top of a $16.558 Trillion Dollar National Debt...  See: Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or

In closing here are a few things to ponder... there were over 6,100 new regulations issued by the obamanoids in the 90 days prior to the November election...  and an estimate 10,000 more due out on obamacare... 

Most of these regulations will increase the cost of living and all of them rob us of our freedoms one way or another.

More and more of the promised benefits of obamacare are turning out to be lies... just as the biggest fears about obamacare are coming true.

Finally... elections have consequences... 

If you want to keep your present access to vitamin D3 and the other supplements at doses that help prevent your cluster headaches... call, write or email your Senators and Congressional Representatives.

Take care,

V/R, Batch