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Article: Integrative orthopedics and vitamin D: testing, administration, and new relevance in the treatment of musculoskeletal pain.
- Article from:
- Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
- Article date:
- October 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Townsend Letter Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Introduction
While we are all familiar with the importance of vitamin D in calcium absorption and bone metabolism, many doctors and patients are not aware of the recent research on vitamin D and the widening range of therapeutic applications available for cholecalciferol, which can be classified as both a vitamin and a pro-hormone. (1) Additionally, we also now realize that the previously defined upper limit of safe intake at approximately 800 IU/day was set far too low and that the physiologic requirement for vitamin D may be as high as 5,000 IU/day, which is approximately half of the >10,000 IU that can be produced endogenously with full-body sun exposure. ...