Vitamin D
What it measures
ng/mL is standard on Indian reports; nmol/L is the SI unit used on many international ones and on some lab software imported from abroad.
Vitamin D — the thresholds were withdrawn
| Laboratory | Value |
|---|---|
| Deficiency (2011 guidance) | below 20 ng/mL |
| Insufficiency (2011 guidance) | 21 – 29 ng/mL |
| Sufficiency (2011 guidance) | 30 – 100 ng/mL |
These are shown because they are almost certainly the numbers printed on your report — and because they no longer carry the endorsement people assume. In 2024 the Endocrine Society stopped endorsing 30 ng/mL as a target and stopped endorsing the levels that define deficiency, insufficiency and sufficiency at all, judging that the trial evidence does not support thresholds that predict who benefits from supplementation. The same guideline advises against routine vitamin D testing in healthy adults. Most laboratory software still prints the old bands. A result flagged 'insufficient' against a threshold its own issuing body has stepped back from is worth discussing rather than acting on alone.
Source: Endocrine Society — 2011 Clinical Practice Guideline, and its 2024 successor
Reading it in a different unit
This lab reports Vitamin D in ng/ml. Reports from other labs — especially ones using European or US-style formatting — sometimes use a different unit for the same measurement. The relationship between them:
ug/l is the same value as ng/ml under a different name — nothing to calculate, just a different label on the same number.
| Reported unit | How it relates to ng/ml |
|---|---|
| nmol/l | ng/ml = nmol/l × 0.40064 |
Unit conversions verified against published molar masses and LOINC definitions. This is not a diagnostic reference — the normal range for any test is set by the laboratory that ran it and printed on your report.
Why this matters for tracking a trend
A value plotted next to earlier results only tells you something if every point is on the same scale. Two readings of the same test from two different labs, in two different units, can look like a dramatic change when nothing about your actual result changed — only the unit did. Converting to one scale before comparing is what keeps a trend line honest.
LOINC codes for this test: 14635-7, 1989-3, 62292-8.
General information about laboratory measurement, not medical advice. Whether a specific result is normal for you depends on your lab's reference range, your history and your doctor's judgement — not on this page.