Plate IV.
In plain words
Vitamin D, and the calcium it is there to move.
Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium and keep the level in the blood steady. Three of these are vitamin D at different strengths and the fourth is the calcium itself. All are food supplements, not medicines for osteoporosis.
DetriX 2000
Soft capsule, 30
Fifty micrograms of vitamin D3, which is 2,000 IU and ten times the European reference amount.
DetriX 4000
Soft capsule, 30
One hundred micrograms, which is 4,000 IU. That is the tolerable upper intake level for adults exactly, so it is a ceiling rather than a starting point.
DetriX Advance
Capsule, 30
The same 4,000 IU as DetriX 4000, in a vegetarian capsule rather than a gelatin softgel, on a sunflower lecithin carrier. Choose it if you do not eat gelatin.
Osteocor Ca
Capsule, 30
Calcium from calcified marine algae with vitamin K2 and vitamin D3. The other side of the same transaction.
How many, and when
One capsule daily for any of the three DetriX strengths, and do not exceed it. Two capsules daily for Osteocor Ca, which is what the figures on this page are calculated on. A food supplement is not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet.
What these will not do
None of these treats osteoporosis or mends a fracture. Vitamin D is also one of the few supplements where more is genuinely not better: 4,000 IU a day is the upper limit for adults, not a target, and taking two of the strongest capsules would put you over it. If you do not know your vitamin D status, it can be measured with a blood test, and that is a better basis for choosing a strength than guessing.
00 / Bone and vitamin D status
Dose is the whole argument.
Vitamin D is not a product decision, it is an arithmetic one. How much a person needs depends on how far below they already are, which is measurable. The range exists so the amount can be matched to the deficit rather than to a price point. Beside it sits one product about the mineral the vitamin exists to move.
01 / The evidence
The deficit is measured, not assumed.
A pooled analysis of 308 studies and 7.9 million participants found that across the WHO European Region 53.0 per cent had serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D below 50 nanomoles per litre and 18.0 per cent below 30. Prevalence in winter and spring ran at 1.7 times the summer and autumn figure.
In Ukraine, a cohort of 7,418 adults tested between 2016 and 2022 found 19.5 per cent deficient and 27.3 per cent insufficient, at their lowest in March and their highest in September. The authors are careful to say it is a single-centre cohort of people who came in for testing rather than a population sample, and so are we.
Cui A et al. Front Nutr 2023 · Povoroznyuk V, Balatska N et al. BMC Nutr 2023;9:49
02 / Vitamin D
Three strengths, and a ceiling.
The European reference value for vitamin D is 5 micrograms a day. The tolerable upper intake level for adults, set by EFSA and confirmed in its 2023 re-evaluation, is 100 micrograms a day. Every figure below is stated against those two numbers, because a dose means nothing without them.
01
DetriX 2000
Soft capsule · 30
Fifty micrograms of vitamin D3 per capsule, which is 2,000 IU and ten times the reference value. Vitamin D contributes to the maintenance of normal bones and normal teeth, to normal absorption and utilisation of calcium and phosphorus, to normal blood calcium levels, to normal muscle function and to the normal function of the immune system. It also has a role in the process of cell division.
Coming off the carton: optimal daily dose. Optimal for whom is not a question a carton can answer.
02
DetriX 4000
Soft capsule · 30
One hundred micrograms per capsule, which is 4,000 IU. That is the tolerable upper intake level for adults exactly, not a fraction of it. Vitamin D contributes to the maintenance of normal bones and to normal muscle function. A dose sitting at the ceiling is a dose taken on advice, which is why this strength exists alongside the smaller one rather than instead of it.
Do not exceed one capsule daily. Not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet.
03
DetriX Advance
Capsule · 30
One hundred micrograms of vitamin D3, the same 4,000 IU as the strength above it, in a vegetarian HPMC capsule. The difference is the carrier and the shell. The vitamin is delivered on d-lipo, a sunflower lecithin encapsulate spray dried onto gum acacia and maltodextrin, at 80 mg per capsule. Redispersed in water it measures 97 nanometres with a zeta potential of minus 35 millivolts, and electron microscopy shows spherical vesicles. Those are measurements of the material. What the carrier changes in a person has not been measured in a person, and the supplier’s comparison is a cell culture permeability model rather than a human study, so we make no absorption claim for it here. The other two strengths are gelatin softgels. This one is not, and for anyone who does not eat gelatin that is the reason it exists.
Liposomal describes how the capsule is built and nothing else. We attach no absorption claim to it, because a superior absorption statement is a health claim in European law and none has ever been authorised for vitamin D in any carrier.
03 / Calcium
Calcium is the thing being moved.
Vitamin D’s main work in this segment is to get calcium absorbed and to keep the level in the blood steady. Osteocor Ca is the other side of that arrangement: the mineral itself, drawn from calcified marine algae, with vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 alongside it.
04
Osteocor Ca
Capsule · 30
A daily portion of two capsules provides 500 milligrams of calcium from calcified marine algae, 15 micrograms of menaquinone-7 and 10 micrograms of vitamin D3. Calcium is needed for the maintenance of normal bones and normal teeth, and contributes to normal muscle function, to normal energy-yielding metabolism and to the normal function of digestive enzymes. Vitamin D contributes to normal absorption and utilisation of calcium. Vitamin K contributes to the maintenance of normal bones.
Take two capsules daily. A food supplement is not a substitute for a varied and balanced diet.
The daily portion is two capsules, and that is a formulation decision, not a marketing one.
The European reference value for vitamin K is 75 micrograms, and the threshold that permits any vitamin K claim to be made is fifteen per cent of it. One capsule carries 7.5 micrograms of menaquinone-7, which is ten per cent, and would entitle us to say nothing at all about the K2 in it. Two carry 15 micrograms, which is twenty per cent, and do.
So the pack says two. The alternative was to keep a single capsule and quietly drop the vitamin K sentence, or keep the sentence and hope nobody did the arithmetic. Changing the sentence to fit the pack is a marketing decision. Changing the pack to fit the sentence is a formulation one. They are not the same decision, and we do not treat them as though they were.
05 / What is in them
Three strengths, and the mineral they exist to move.
The three DetriX capsules differ only in how much vitamin D3 they carry. Osteocor Ca is the other half of the transaction and its figures are given for the declared daily portion of two capsules, which is how the pack is meant to be taken.
DetriX 2000, one capsule
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol
50 mcg
1000%
0.75 mcg
DetriX 4000, one capsule
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol
100 mcg
2000%
0.75 mcg
DetriX Advance, one capsule
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol
100 mcg
2000%
0.75 mcg
d-lipo carrier, sunflower lecithin, gum acacia, maltodextrin
80 mg
no NRV
no minimum
The carrier is 25 per cent sunflower lecithin, 30 per cent maltodextrin and 45 per cent gum acacia, which is 20 mg of lecithin per capsule. What it changes in a person has not been measured in a person, and we make no absorption claim for it.
Osteocor Ca, a daily portion of two capsules
Nutrient and form
In ours
Of reference value
Legal minimum
Calcium, from Lithothamnion calcareum
500 mg
63%
120 mg
Vitamin K2, as menaquinone-7
15 mcg
20%
11.25 mcg
Vitamin D3, cholecalciferol
10 mcg
200%
0.75 mcg
The number that is a ceiling, not a target
One hundred micrograms is 4,000 IU, and it is the tolerable upper intake level for adults set by EFSA. It is not a target and there is nothing above it. Two capsules of the 4000 would put a person over the limit, which is why the pack says do not exceed one a day and means it. If you do not know your vitamin D status it can be measured, and a measurement is a better basis for choosing a strength than a habit.
04 / The line
What is a supplement not allowed to say?
European law lets a supplement say that vitamin D contributes to the maintenance of normal bones. It does not let one say that a product prevents osteoporosis, rebuilds bone density, or treats a deficiency state. Osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency are both classified conditions, and a supplement presented as treating either becomes an unauthorised medicine.
There are two authorised reduction of risk claims in this area, and the conditions attached to them are stricter than the ordinary ones. Where a formulation meets them we will use them, in the words they were authorised in. Where it does not, we say nothing rather than nearly saying it.