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Assessing Vitamin D3 Stability in Dietary Supplements

It is well recognized that vitamin D plays an important role not only in bone health but also in the prevention of various chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancers. The awareness of the wide spread of vitamin D‐deficiency and vitamin D‐insufficiency world‐wide has prompted the use of vitamin D supplementation to maintain normal vitamin D nutritional status. In recent years, vitamin D supplementation has been made available in the forms of softgel, tablet and capsule, and is sold in drug stores, supermarkets and through mail orders. The amount of vitamin D3 as stated on the labels ranges from 400 to 5,000 IU per softgel, tablet or capsule. We have obtained ten commercially available vitamin D supplements and analyzed their vitamin D3 content by high performance liquid chromatograph at the time of purchase, one, two and three years after they were stored in room temperature, 4°C or ‐20°C. We found that there was no detectable degradation after 3 years of storage under all three conditions. Our results therefore suggest that vitamin D3 in the form of softgel, tablet or capsule is stable and is suitable as a supplement for maintaining optimal vitamin D nutrition.