[RobinP]

Natural sources for vitamins and minerals are best in my opinion and perhaps safest. However, it is challenging to know if you are getting enough vit d in your diet and via sunshine. I've read that 800mg is necessary for bone health and 1100 mg for cancer prevention. How do you calculate the amount of vit d that you are getting from the sun? Relying on the sun for vit d is a problem for certain groups of people too. I've read that the black race does not make vit d 2 from the sun effectively and they cannot therefore convert adequate amounts of it in the liver to the effective form, vitd3. I've also have read that the elderly cannot always count on their aging livers to effectively covert vit d2 to the effective vitd3. So many researchers have documented the value of vit.d for cancer prevention and bone health that I doubt this one study unwarrants the value of vit d suppplements. I would really like more research on the risks of vit d supplementation, especially since vit d is difficult to get in the overcast north where I live. Perhaps a little more sunshine and dairy/fish vitd, like Marejo said, may be just what is safest and simplest in the long run, that is if you live where there is sun.