Vitamin D used to be the Rodney Dangerfield of vitamins – often overlooked and certainly neglected by consumers.
But these days, with the sunshine vitamin hyped for everything from reducing the risk of cancer to boosting the immune system against the flu, Canadians are becoming a nation of vitamin D-poppers. The nutrient is flying off pharmacy shelves in amounts that are astonishing players in the nutritional supplement business.
Jamieson Laboratories, Canada's largest supplement maker, says its vitamin D sales eclipsed those of vitamin C for the first time ever last month, capping a year of huge growth for the product.
The company said its vitamin D shipments rose steadily month by month throughout last year to experience an eye-popping 300-per-cent increase in December over the same month in 2008. For the year as a whole, sales were up 24 per cent.
"It's just been unbelievable," said Vic Neufeld, the company's president. He said Jamieson has never experienced a sales increase of this magnitude for a supplement that has been on the market for decades.
Shoppers Drug Mart spokeswoman Tammy Smitham said the store's sales of private-label vitamin D also experienced "substantial growth" last year, although she declined to reveal the percentage increase.
It was much the same story at Rexall. The Edmonton-based drugstore giant has seen an unprecedented spike in demand for the sunshine vitamin: It was the company's fastest growing vitamin category last year, jumping 34 per cent. Sales outpaced those of vitamin C by 28 per cent. Vitamin C, the erstwhile go-to vitamin supplement, is still seeing double-digit year-on-year growth.
Not only are Canadians purchasing more vitamin D pills, but increasingly they're popping the strongest doses they can get. Rexall spokeswoman Donna Araujo said sales for the company's strongest vitamin D pill, which contains a 1,000 international unit dose, grew 56 per cent in the last year.
Ms. Smitham of Shoppers attributed some of the rise to consumers taking vitamin D as a step to help fight the H1N1 flu, because sales of other natural products linked to influenza worries, such as echinacea, also rose.
But the rise in demand also comes as a flurry of research reports link low levels of vitamin D to a variety of ailments, including cancer, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
Surveys of Canadians have found that at least a quarter of the population has insufficient levels of the nutrient, with 5 per cent of Canadians so deficient they risk developing bone disease. It doesn't help that residents of the Great White North have trouble getting enough of the vitamin naturally – exposing naked skin to powerful ultraviolet light – during dark fall and winter months.
Ms. Smitham said Shoppers has seen a seasonal spike in demand for vitamin D that reflects worries among some consumers that they're not getting enough of the sunshine vitamin in winter.
This coincides with research indicating people need much more daily vitamin D than Health Canada has been recommending: A study from the University of California, San Diego recommended doses as high as 2,000 international units a day – far more than the 200 to 600 governments recommend.
A few months ago, nutritionist Jennifer Trecartin would never have had people come to her Vancouver office asking about vitamin D, of all things. Now, it's all they want to talk about.
"There's been a huge demand: I see people that don't know much about anything saying, 'I need my vitamin D, I've been told,'" she said. "It definitely would have a correlation with the whole H1N1 outbreak, and everyone working on enhancing their immune systems. ... Vitamin D kept coming up over and over again."
The hype is warranted she said, especially given the new research pointing to the vitamin's utility beyond simply a bone-strength booster. Ms. Trecartin said she knows people who pop as much as 5,000 International Units of the vitamin, although she wouldn't recommend more than 2,000 daily.
The supplements are increasingly popular because although natural sunlight is still the best way, northern-hemisphere climates aren't conducive to long periods spent in weak sunlight. "It's definitely the 'it' vitamin of the season."
Canadians have been so eager to find out their blood levels of vitamin D that provinces are struggling to pay for a surge in demand for vitamin D tests. Last year, Ontario alone conducted more than 732,000 of the tests, which cost the province as much as $52 each when performed in private labs. Ontario's Health Ministry is reconsidering whether it's worth covering the cost of vitamin D tests for otherwise healthy individuals.
At the same time, harried but health-conscious Canadians are popping more vitamin supplements overall than ever before. Jamieson's Mr. Neufeld said 45 per cent of adult Canadians are taking some kind of vitamin supplement, compared with about 40 per cent a few years ago.