Home vitamin D testing: Perfect timing to assess your levels - and it's now possible right from your residence
Ingeborg van Lotringen, GTG Beauty Director, shares her insights on the importance of testing Vitamin D levels at home and the various options available.
Vitamin D, often dubbed the 'sunshine vitamin', plays a crucial role in maintaining bone and muscle strength, immunity, mental wellbeing, skin health, and more. Despite peaking after the summer, deficiencies are still common, with one in six adults in the UK being deficient.
Several home testing kits are available to help you understand your Vitamin D status. One such kit is Medichecks Vitamin D (25 OH) Blood Test, priced at £39. This test provides personalized reports with actionable insights from a doctor within two working days.
Another option is the Boots Vitamin D Rapid Test, priced at £7.99. This test delivers results in ten minutes using NHS parameters for disease prevention, but it does not provide further guidance or interpretation. However, users have reported the process to be fiddly, requiring blood droplets to be added to a special cassette.
For those seeking additional insights, W-Wellness Vitamin D Test, priced at £49.99, offers a half-hour consultation with a nutrition expert. Similarly, the Bare Biology vitamin D test kit, priced at £50, includes a free consultation with Kirsten Humpreys.
It's essential to note that Vitamin D2 from plant-based sources is less effective than D3 from animal foods or sunlight. The official NHS recommendation for vitamin D supplementation is 400 IU (10 micrograms) daily between October and March, but some NHS guidance prescribes 800-2000 IU as a more realistic maintenance range.
Experts argue that aiming for higher levels (75nmol/l and above) could offer extra benefits for optimal health. Up to 4,000 IU (100mg) is considered safe for long-term use in adults.
Testing vitamin D levels is valuable as some people maintain adequate levels without supplementation, while others need much higher intakes to reach or sustain those levels. September is the perfect time to get a vitamin D level test at home with a finger-prick blood test.
The reference range for vitamin D levels set by the NHS is 25 nmol/L for inadequacy and 50 nmol/L or above for sufficiency. However, some experts suggest that a level of 75 nmol/L or above could be optimal for overall health.
Ingeborg van Lotringen emphasizes the importance of sorting the wheat from the chaff and avoiding hype when it comes to health and wellness. She encourages everyone to take control of their health by testing their vitamin D levels at home and making informed decisions about their supplementation needs.
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