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"So why is Dr Vieth so frustrated? You might think he'd have cause for celebration. But for him and other vitamin D researchers around the world, the good news comes with a bitter aftertaste. They believe they can prove vitamin D could help millions live longer and be healthier and yet they have not been able to convince their own governments. In the US and Canada, official vitamin D policy is set by the Institute of Medicine. And in the opinion of Vieth, the current recommendations - 200 International Units per day for people under 50, 400 for people aged 51-70, and 600 for those 71 and older - are outrageously low. Bruce Hollis, professor of paediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina, calls 400 IU a day "a joke". That's because the best research suggests that to achieve the higher vitamin D blood levels associated with disease prevention, most adults in the US would need to take 1,000-2,000 IU a day: five to 10 times more than the current official recommendation for adult In 1999, Reinhold Vieth (pictured right) published a review of vitamin D research in response to the IOM conclusions. In it, he argued that there was no evidence that amounts lower than 20,000 IU a day could be toxic. "Throughout my preparation of this review, I was amazed at the lack of evidence supporting statements about the toxicity of moderate doses of vitamin D," Vieth wrote. Studies have since shown 10,000 IU a day of vitamin D to be safe. While any substance will become toxic in excess, vitamin D researchers today accept that the current vitamin D recommendations could be more than quadrupled with no fear of toxicity.!