We have read Stasha Gominak. A US neurologist, watching people who slept badly, kept finding low vitamin D. When the blood level came up, sleep often came with it. Years later some of those people slipped again, and she looked at B vitamins and the gut.
That picture fits a lot of what we already believe about indoor life, winter light, and a daily multinutrient. Agreeing with her is not the same as being allowed to print it on a food. We sell in the EU. The rule here is narrower than the US, and it is the rule we write under.
The short answer
- Her work is clinic observation, written up so other people can test it. The anatomy behind it is real: vitamin D receptors sit in brain areas involved in sleep.
- Later trials found a modest improvement on a sleep-quality score when vitamin D was given. That is in the same direction as her clinic, not a copy of her protocol.
- EU law does not authorise a sleep claim on vitamin D. The wording we may use on a food is bones and the immune system, quoted as they stand.
- Europe's population blood-level target is 50 nmol/L (20 ng/ml). Her clinic range of 60 to 80 ng/ml is a different job, done with a blood test, not with a pouch.
What she noticed, and why we take it seriously
Gominak and Walter Stumpf published in 2012. She had been looking at headache and sleep in clinic. Vitamin D kept coming back low. Stumpf had already mapped vitamin D receptors, including in brainstem regions that help switch sleep stages. Put those two facts together and you have a reason to care, not a slogan.
People who stay inside, at our latitudes, make little vitamin D for half the year. That is not controversial. It is why the NHS tells adults in Ireland and the UK to take vitamin D in autumn and winter, and why EFSA set an adequate intake assuming almost no sun. Gominak is looking at the same gap from a sleep clinic. We are looking at it from a family powder. The weather is the same.
Observational studies also find that people with lower vitamin D status more often report sleeping badly. Some of that will be circular: if you sleep badly you go outside less. That does not make her clinic notes less useful. It means a blood test still beats a guess.
What we may print, which is the actual constraint
A food supplement in the EU may only carry health claims from the Union register, in the authorised wording, with the accompanying statements.
Vitamin D contributes to the maintenance of normal bones. It contributes to the normal function of the immune system. Those sentences are available to us because the nutrient is in the pouch above 15% NRV.
Sleep is not on the register for vitamin D. Melatonin has a narrow authorised sleep wording. We do not sell melatonin. So we will not write that our powder improves sleep, even if we think Gominak is pointing at something real. That is Regulation 1924/2006, not a scientific snub.
A 2022 review in Nutrients pooled trials of vitamin D and sleep. A small set of randomised studies showed a modest lift on a sleep-quality questionnaire. Effects on how long people slept did not all point the same way. That is useful context for a reader. It is still not an authorised claim we can hang on the pouch.
Two rulers, not a quarrel
US clinic writing uses ng/ml. European labs often use nmol/L. Multiply ng/ml by 2.5.
Her working range of 60 to 80 ng/ml is about 150 to 200 nmol/L.
EFSA, setting what a healthy population is advised to take, used 50 nmol/L as the target for the blood marker, and from that derived 15 µg a day from food and supplements when there is little sun. 50 nmol/L is 20 ng/ml.
Those are different tools. One is a clinic range, held with repeat blood tests, for people she was already seeing. The other is a population figure used to write a daily intake. We are not going to pretend they are the same number, and we are not going to pretend the lower one "disproves" her.
Chasing 60 ng/ml from the kitchen table is still a medical conversation. Doses that get some adults there can approach the EU adult upper limit of 100 µg a day. A food brand does not write that protocol. A GP and a result do.
What the pouch is for
Pocket Kids carries 25 µg of vitamin D a day. Teens and Adults carry 35 µg. That sits above EFSA's 15 µg adequate intake. It is a daily food, next to K2, in a dose we can put on a label and test against. It is not a titration to a US clinic range, and we will not sell it as one.
If you are working with a clinician on blood levels, say so to them, and take the week of food and the other bottles with you.
If sleeping badly has lasted, that is still a GP first. Nothing we may print replaces that.
Sources
- Gominak SC, Stumpf WE. Medical Hypotheses, 2012
- Abboud M. Vitamin D supplementation and sleep. Nutrients, 2022
- EFSA, dietary reference values for vitamin D, 2016
- NHS, vitamin D
- EU Register of nutrition and health claims
Written by Lina and Stanislava, founders of MyDailyPocket. This is here to be useful, not to replace your GP. No supplement is a substitute for a varied, balanced diet. Stay within the dose on the pack.
