Quest Diagnostics admits to Inaccurate Vitamin D Lab Tests

According to the New York Times, if you’ve had your Vitamin D levels checked by Quest Diagnostics over the last two years, chances are your reading was inaccurately high, meaning you may in fact be deficient even if the results came out adequate.

According to Andrew Pollack of the Times:

The company, Quest Diagnostics, has already sent letters to thousands of doctors listing the patients who might have received “questionable” test results and is offering free retests. The company said it had fixed the problems.

The biggest concern right now is to accurately find patients who have had an erroneously high result. These folks are currently not taking vitamin D supplements when they should be. According to Pollack’s report, the Quest test results have typically been too high, although not in all cases.

Patients need to be aware that there is no standardization in Vitamin D lab testing and that the same sample could yield varying results depending on the lab it is sent to. I suppose the bottom line is to trust your instincts and retest if you feel the results are skewed.

For more detailed information, read the full article at the New York Times.

If you found this article helpful, please consider linking to us. Thanks! <a href="http://healthy-family.org/caryn/1184/quest-diagnostics-admits-to-inaccurate-vit-d-lab-results-over-last-two-years" rel="bookmark" title="Healthy-Family.org - Quest Diagnostics admits to Inaccurate Vitamin D Lab Tests">Quest Diagnostics admits to Inaccurate Vitamin D Lab Tests</a>

Printer friendly version

The editor of Healthy-family.org has a master's degree in English from Northern Illinois University and a bachelor of science degree in special education. She has taught students from early elementary school through college freshman level. Today she enjoys reading and writing about both hot topics and those not so commonly discussed on other websites. Most of her days are spent playing all kinds of make-believe with her three very young and active sons. | All articles by Caryn Talty.