Consuming enough vitamin D each day, either through diet or vitamin supplements, is one of the simplest and most important ways to maintain bone, nerve and organ health. After surveying the public health trends in the United States and abroad, the Endocrine Society recently released its recommendations for monitoring and maintaining healthy vitamin D levels among people of all ages.

The report was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and included a clinical practice guideline (CPG), which is a set of recommendations that physicians can follow when looking at vitamin D levels.

Among other things, the CPG suggested that healthcare professionals routinely test their patients for deficiencies of the nutrient, particularly if a person is part of an at-risk group, such as the elderly or those exposed to little or no sunlight.

The report also stated that for adults of any age, consuming at least 1,500 to 2,000 international units (IU) of the vitamin, if not more, may be needed in order to maintain a blood level of the nutrient above 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines blood levels less than 20 ng/mL as insufficient, while blood levels lower than 12 ng/mL are considered full-blown deficient.