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Pharmacy Study Finds Current Recommended Daily Intake of Vitamin D Not Sufficient in Seniors |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: A new study from the University of Colorado Denver's School of Pharmacy has found that a simple educational intervention provided by a pharmacist can make a significant impact in the amount of vitamin D intake in geriatric outpatients, resulting in increased serum, or blood levels of this key nutrient. Surprisingly, the study also found that the overall increase in serum levels in the patients who received the intervention were still not in the target range, indicating that current national recommendations for vitamin D intake may be insufficient. "The educational intervention was simple to administer and can be reproduced by pharmacists in a variety of settings, including a community pharmacy or a clinical practice site," said Joseph Vande Griend, PharmD, assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the UC Denver School of Pharmacy and lead author of the paper. A pharmacist reviewed the sheet with the participant during a 15-minute, one-on-one educational session about vitamin D, in which it was recommended the participant consume a total of 1,200 IU per day of vitamin D. A recommendation of 1,200 IU was chosen because the amount was estimated to increase patient serum levels to the study-defined sufficient vitamin D concentration of 32 ng/mL. The 1200 IU per day of vitamin D is also easy to obtain from over-the-counter resources; it is higher than the current Institute of Medicine recommendation (400 IU/day under age 70 and 600 IU/day over age 70) but below the upper daily intake limit (2,000 IU/day). "Many pharmacists today are focusing on research, and are making many recommendations to physicians and other health care providers to improve care of patients.
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