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ASK THE EXPER T VISION Over the years, countless studies have exposed the importance of vitamin D as part of a healthy lifestyle. But many Americans don't know how much they need or how their weight and body com- position can affect the dosage. So, who needs more vitamin D: a 250- pound fit man who has 12 percent total body fat, or a 250-pound obese man who has 50 percent total body fat? a b c Obese man needs more Fit man needs more Both need the same We know vitamin D is a fat-soluble vita- min, but some "common sense" theories – predicated without much if any evidence – would have most of us believe that the 250-pound obese man needs more vita- min D because body fat acts as a "sink," collecting fat-soluble vitamins. Leave it to professors Robert Heaney and 111 SMART TAN MAGAZINE [ SmartTan.com Reinhold Veith to see the light about the sunshine vitamin. The answer is: They both need the same amount. Using math- ematical models that are beyond my psychiatric training, Dr. Andjela Drincic and colleagues at Creighton University recently wrote a beautiful paper that definitively answered the question. Therefore, muscle and fat may well act the same when it comes to storing vitamin D for future use. When you try to figure out how much vitamin D someone needs, forget the "fat sink" theory, as sensible as it sounds, and keep in mind total body weight. However, also keep in mind the obese man may have lower levels to begin with, as obese persons may typi- cally have lifestyles that are void of full body sun exposure. Finally, I am comforted by the authors' calculation of vitamin D requirements. Their data suggests that if you want the average person to have a level of 40 ng/mL, that person needs 70-80 IU/kg/ day. If you do the math, the 250-pound man would need 7-8,000 IU/day from all sources, while a 125-pound woman would need 3,500-4,000 IU/day from all sources. It is difficult to make a general recommen- dation with vitamin D for adults because you don't want to make it too complicated. That's why our almost 10-year-old recom- mendation is simply 5,000 IU/day, which serves well for the majority of adults. Drincic AT, Armas LA, Van Diest EE, Heaney RP. Volumetric Dilution, Rather Than Sequestration Best Explains the Low Vitamin D Status of Obesity. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Jan 19. doi: 10.1038/oby.2011.404. Dr. John Cannell is founder of the Vitamin D Council. He has written many peer-reviewed papers on vitamin D and speaks frequently across the United States on the subject. Dr. Cannell holds an M.D. and has served the PHGLFDO ÀHOG DV D JHQHUDO SUDFWLWLRQHU LWLQHUDQW HPHU- JHQF\ SK\VLFLDQ DQG SV\FKLDWULVW