Wednesday, 6 July 2022
Journalists and numbers
Vitamin D 'overdose' warning after man admitted to hospital for excessive intake
The man's daily regime had included more than 20 over-the-counter supplements.
As part of this, he was taking 50,000mg of vitamin D - the daily requirement is 600mg.
Oops -
A microgram is 1,000 times smaller than a milligram (mg). The word microgram is sometimes written with the Greek symbol μ followed by the letter g (μg).
If you choose to take vitamin D supplements, 10 micrograms a day will be enough for most people.
Do not take more than 100 micrograms (4,000 IU) of vitamin D a day as it could be harmful. This applies to adults, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and the elderly, and children aged 11 to 17 years.
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4 comments:
My wife takes 3,000 IU per day, on my advice. I'm much bigger and spend less time out of doors so I take 5,000. I expect to raise this to 6,000 but no further unless one of the wise doctors on the internet persuades me otherwise. (I refer to Drs Kendrick, Grimes, and Rushworth.)
"I've checked this on the NHS website like they told me on the journalism course. But I can't find that funny little symbol on my keyboard, and now I've got that other article on American gun law to write. Sod it, I'll just put mg. That's close enough, and it's not as if people read all the article anyway..."
You'll often see mcg used for microgram in non-scientific circles e.g. medicine.
dearieme - we take 1400 IU per day but spend quite a lot of time outside. A friend of mine also spends a lot of time outside and only takes it between October and March.
Sam - I'm surprised nobody picked it up and corrected it, but maybe they really don't expect people to read beyond the headline.
dearieme - I've seen that too. I don't know why they fail to look it up, but maybe they do look it up in other medical literature.
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