Vitamin D supplementation in Australia: Implications for the development of supplementation guidelines

High rates of vitamin d deficiency and testing have been reported in australia,yet there are few reports regarding vitamin d supplement use. australian wholesale sales data was obtained for vitamin d supplements for the period 2000-2011. there has been a threefold increase in supplement sales over the past decade,whereby over a$94 million supplements containing vitamin d in australia were sold during the year 2010. there were eighty-nine manufacturers that produce a variety of 195 vitamin d products. the amount of vitamin d in these products varies considerably,from 40 to 1000 iu per unit,although supplements containing only vitamin d had the highest amount of vitamin d. there was a trend for sales to increase in wintermonths. given the potential public health benefits of vitamin d,there is an urgent need for a better understanding of supplementation use and for the development of supplementation. copyright © 2014 k. bilinski and p. talbot.