D3 diet supplement paper posted here

Kapidolo Farms

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Page 255 left column half way down. But please do read the whole thing. We can debate the merits here, and argue over the best name for my new pet tortoise, both 'advanced' topics.
 

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@Tom here is that holy grail paper you have sought, food source D3 turning a MBD tortoise around, indicating that diet based D3 is real.

•Vitamin D dosage: (Source: Mader, p. 1069) Formula for mammals is 10-20IU/kg of body weight a day. Since reptiles have roughly half the mammal's metabolism, using 1/2 of that dosage 5-10 IU/kg/day seems to work well. Vitamin D toxicity is rare, and most often seems to occur when over 50 times the recommended dosage is given for weeks at a time. The primary symptom of vitamin D overdose is calcification of the soft tissues. Vitamin D toxicity is not an issue when the D is delivered by UVB lighting.

These authors went way over Mader's 'safe' limit, and that was the low ingestion rate (2000 IU/kg/Day) compared to 50 x the 5-10 IU/kg/day would be a range of 250 to 500 IU/kg/day based on Mader's calculation. The high ingestion rate in the paper's experiment was 50,000 IU/kg/day, a whopping 5000 x the safe rate Mader suggests.
 

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@Will I saw this yesterday and downloaded it onto my desktop to read through when I get a minute. Thank you for posting this. :)
 

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here is a study, which I find some flaws with, that indicates over feeding calcium may be detrimental.

The base diet was made for the purpose of being low calcium. The high calcium diet did not offer more calcium proportionally to other nutrients, but rather exclusively more calcium.
 

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last one for today. Look at the first column in Table one for tortoises. %DM means percent dry matter. Hatchlings is 26% adults are 65%, so the other side of that is hatchlings are 74% water and adults are 35% water. If there was ever an argument to substantiate that hatchlings need a high humidity and frequent drinking husbandry regime, I don't know a better one.
 

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Olddog

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Kapidolo Farms

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Not necessarily applicable but you might find the following of interest:

Vitamin D Toxicity: A 16-Year Retrospective Study at an Academic Medical Center
Humans not tortoises, they kept bouncing around on what concentration they found, ng/dl and mg for kg etc. It's hard to read. But I guess you already know that. Some had a co-reported calcium blood level some did not. Those that showed the worst clinical signs were accidental overdoses of young children of the order of 100 to 150 times the recommended (bottle instructions) amount to consume.

So what was your intent to post this here? Please explain.
 

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So this paper reports blood level of some of the D3 things (D3 is created and used and all those sub- or super- components can be measured and used to infer D3) as well as D3 itself.
These authors are looking at tortoises with access to sun versus tortoises that had access to UVB emitting artificial light sources.

The kick is that the Hetenyl paper never reports any blood chemistry, and soft tissue calcification can be easily overlooked in x-rays. They could have ended up with tortoises that had calcified muscle tissue. That the mushy shell individuals tuned around and had hardened shells give some opportunity to think 50,000 IU/kg/day is not too much for a mushy shell tortoises.

I would have liked to see their 2000 IU/kg/day, and a few other increments before jumping to 50,000 IU/kg/day, like 2000, 10,000, 25,000, then 50,000 along with blood chemistry at day 0, Day 30, day 90, day 180, and day 365. That would have been so much more rigorous.

The quote from Madders book is feces, mammals get this much so reptiles should get that much. Dude how about taking into account that herps are exothermic, and tortoises have proportionally more 'skeleton'. That's such a crap reference for people to rely on.
 

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So this paper reports blood level of some of the D3 things (D3 is created and used and all those sub- or super- components can be measured and used to infer D3) as well as D3 itself.
These authors are looking at tortoises with access to sun versus tortoises that had access to UVB emitting artificial light sources.

The kick is that the Hetenyl paper never reports any blood chemistry, and soft tissue calcification can be easily overlooked in x-rays. They could have ended up with tortoises that had calcified muscle tissue. That the mushy shell individuals tuned around and had hardened shells give some opportunity to think 50,000 IU/kg/day is not too much for a mushy shell tortoises.

I would have liked to see their 2000 IU/kg/day, and a few other increments before jumping to 50,000 IU/kg/day, like 2000, 10,000, 25,000, then 50,000 along with blood chemistry at day 0, Day 30, day 90, day 180, and day 365. That would have been so much more rigorous.

The quote from Madders book is feces, mammals get this much so reptiles should get that much. Dude how about taking into account that herps are exothermic, and tortoises have proportionally more 'skeleton'. That's such a crap reference for people to rely on.

Those were pretty much my thoughts as well. With cholecalciferol having a faster absorption rate than straight D (or arguably D2), I would like to have seen a longer testing period of the lower IU rates. I'm not sure of the reaction of too much D3 in torts, but I know that over-calcification in the bloodstream of humans can cause nausea and loss of appetite. I'm with 100% with respect to an HCT, perhaps coupled with a bone density measurement. Being exothermic, I wouldn't think it would be too difficult.
 

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I still haven't read the paper. Just looking at the comments.

I want to do a simple study:
Group 1: Indoors only, no UV, no supplements.
Group 2: Indoors only, no UV, calcium with D3 supplement two or three times a week.
Group 3: Indoors only, good UV source like a 10.0 HO with UV levels verified by meter, no supplements.
Group 4. Mostly indoors, but outdoors with access to sunshine for an hour or two daily. No supplements.

All fed the same foods. All soaked daily. Blood drawn and D3 levels checked weekly.

Why is it so difficult for these studies to check D3 levels in the blood instead of leaving us to guess? Doesn't seem like a hard concept to understand.
 

Olddog

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Humans not tortoises, they kept bouncing around on what concentration they found, ng/dl and mg for kg etc. It's hard to read. But I guess you already know that. Some had a co-reported calcium blood level some did not. Those that showed the worst clinical signs were accidental overdoses of young children of the order of 100 to 150 times the recommended (bottle instructions) amount to consume.

So what was your intent to post this here? Please explain.


Bottom line is: It is extreamly rare to get true Vitamin D toxicity from Vitamin D supplements based on this human study.

Out of 73,000 patients with elevated 25(OH)D, only 4 truly had Vitamin D toxicity. Two of the patients were children getting liquid vitamin D drops in excessive quantities. One was a 62 yo who was taking excessive (50,000 IU of Vit D) daily in drop form, and the last was a 70 yo reportedly taking 1000 IU daily in tablet form with a questionable history.

There are several concerns with the study. 25(OH)D was measured (as opposed to the hormonal 1,25 dihydroxyyvitamin D (D3,active form)) for technical reasons. It was a retrospective study. It does encompass a lot of cases of elevated Vitamin D. It would have been nice if ionized Ca and PTH were measured simultaneously.

This is out of my working knowledge and I can only speculate why there was not more Vitamin D3 toxicity. Apparently some mechanisms functioned to prevent symptomatic toxicity. There are positive and negative feedbacks in Vit D3 synthesis and catabolism. Vitamin D receptors (VDR) are in most tissue and transcription is comodulated. There are different analogs of D3, some of which are synthesized and used for osteoporosis Rx. Production of D3 from other than skin/proximal kidney is apparently under control of many factors. Control of catabolism is multifactorial.
 
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Just jumping in here, but does Mazuri have enough D3 in it as to make the D3 supplement irrelevant?
 

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Just jumping in here, but does Mazuri have enough D3 in it as to make the D3 supplement irrelevant?
It is my understanding that yes it does, but I will defer to anyone with more experience that says otherwise.
 

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It is my understanding that yes it does, but I will defer to anyone with more experience that says otherwise.

That's assuming a tort will eat the Mazuri (or derivative thereof).
 

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Bottom line is: It is extreamly rare to get true Vitamin D toxicity from Vitamin D supplements based on this human study.

Out of 73,000 patients with elevated 25(OH)D, only 4 truly had Vitamin D toxicity. Two of the patients were children getting liquid vitamin D drops in excessive quantities. One was a 62 yo who was taking excessive (50,000 IU of Vit D) daily in drop form, and the last was a 70 yo reportedly taking 1000 IU daily in tablet form with a questionable history.

There are several concerns with the study. 25(OH)D was measured (as opposed to the hormonal 1,25 dihydroxyyvitamin D (D3,active form)) for technical reasons. It was a retrospective study. It does encompass a lot of cases of elevated Vitamin D. It would have been nice if ionized Ca and PTH were measured simultaneously.

This is out of my working knowledge and I can only speculate why there was not more Vitamin D3 toxicity. Apparently some mechanisms functioned to prevent symptomatic toxicity. There are positive and negative feedbacks in Vit D3 synthesis and catabolism. Vitamin D receptors (VDR) are in most tissue and transcription is comodulated. There are different analogs of D3, some of which are synthesized and used for osteoporosis Rx. Production of D3 from other than skin/proximal kidney is apparently under control of many factors. Control of catabolism is multifactorial.

Thank you so much for sharing your thinking process. I know that can be a onerous thing to do in so many ways. Thanks.
 

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https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/...com/&httpsredir=1&article=1506&context=theses

I have to re-read this study to better answer with my opinion on the matter that if a tortoise will eat Mazuri does it provide enough D3 to compensate for 1) a total lack of UV radiation, or 2) a partial lack of Uv radiation, or perhaps 2) could result in too much D3 in any circumstance.

What I have experienced and from what I am reading (thanks @Olddog ) and the authors in that first posted paper in this thread is that the upper tolerance by at least some species of tortoise to D3 supplementation (regardless of UV) is very high.

D3 is called a vitamin (a cellular process building block) by many 'authorities' but others consider it a hormone so that would be more of a regulatory function. I'm thinking from what I am reading is that is plays both roles when you take into account the pre-cursors and post-cursors of the molecule know as D3.
 

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Page 255 left column half way down. But please do read the whole thing. We can debate the merits here, and argue over the best name for my new pet tortoise, both 'advanced' topics.
When they start talking about nutrition facts in the table on page 2, what do they mean by "crude ash?"
 

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I thought it was interesting how they stated that tortoises have few Vitamin D binding proteins, which indicates that perhaps assumptions made for radiation requirements in humans and other animals may not be the same as with tortoises, and as q result tortoises may not be able to absorb as much D3 in one sitting, and therefore require prolonged exposure sessions in order to absorb all they need for the day.
 

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That's assuming a tort will eat the Mazuri (or derivative thereof).
I let it soak in water until it is completely broken down, and then thoroughly blend it in with their greens. If you use the right amount of water, it will clump against it in small amounts. This way it is completely covering all of their food. I do this with ground limestone every day on their food.
 

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