LIANA
The Liana library · monograph I

Vitamin D3 + K2

The hormone you make from daylight — with the escort that tells its calcium where to go.

In Maya's Formula Nº 001: 4,000 IU · morning, with food — because her draw read 22 ng/mL.
Three things to remember — that's all
1
Your blood test said yes.

A level of 22 ng/mL is genuinely low — this dose exists to fix that number, not to follow a trend.

2
Morning, with food.

A meal with a little fat in it is the whole trick — it absorbs about twice as well.

3
It steps down as you recover.

Retest in a season; as your level comes up, the dose comes down.

“For someone whose level is genuinely low, vitamin D is one of the surest bets in this aisle — and once you're replete, more does nothing, which is why your dose steps down. The K2 rides along to point the calcium at bone.”

Want the depth? It's all here — tap what you're curious about. Nothing below changes the three things above.

What it istap to read

Vitamin D is less a vitamin than a hormone precursor: your skin makes it from sunlight, and nearly every tissue carries receptors for it — bone, muscle, immune cells. Indoors-heavy lives, northern winters, darker skin, and age all pull levels down, and a 25-OH-D blood test reads the result directly.

K2 (as MK-7) rides along for one job: it activates the proteins that direct absorbed calcium into bone rather than soft tissue. D without K is a delivery with no address on it.

The research — and who paid for it2 studies + 1 against
Strong — for correcting a measured deficiency
Fall prevention with supplemental vitamin D: meta-analysis of double-blind randomized trialsBischoff-Ferrari et al., BMJ, 2009 · doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b3692Independently funded — university and public grants; no one selling vitamin D paid for this.
Vitamin D supplementation and respiratory infection: meta-analysis of individual participant data — benefit concentrated in the deficientMartineau et al., BMJ, 2017 · doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i6583Independently funded — UK public research money (NIHR).
Read against us VITAL: in 25,000 adults who mostly weren't deficient, blanket supplementation didn't reduce fractures. LeBoff et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2022 · doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2202106

This is exactly why Liana doses to your measured level and steps down as it recovers — not to a trend.

How we weigh a study: we read it for you — including who paid for it. A study funded by the company selling the result is flagged and never load-bearing on its own. No supplement brand pays Liana — nobody's thumb is on this scale.

How we dose ittap to read
The dose is your gap, not a default

2,000–5,000 IU corrects a low level; 1,000–2,000 IU holds a good one. Your formula sets the number from your 25-OH-D and steps it down at your next draw.

Morning, with a meal that has fat in it

D is fat-soluble; absorption roughly doubles alongside dietary fat.

K2 as MK-7, ~90–100 mcg

The long-acting menaquinone form with the best human data.

Safety — and who should skip ittap to read
  • Held under the 4,000 IU/day long-term upper limit unless your labs justify more for a season.
  • On warfarin? K2 interacts — the K comes out of the formula before it's ever composed. Tell your clinician either way.
  • Very high D over months can raise calcium; the retest cycle exists so that never sneaks up on you.
When it leaves your formulathe goal is zero
The goal is zero

Your 25-OH-D holds at 30–50 ng/mL across a retest — or summer, daylight, and fortified foods start doing the work — and the dose steps down, sometimes to zero. D is usually a correction with a maintenance tail, not a life sentence.

The bottle we chose
One bottle, not a shelf

Sports Research · Vitamin D3 + K2 (coconut MCT oil softgel)

In an unregulated aisle, the brand is half the decision — so we made it for you.

Both actives, one softgel

D3 with 100 mcg K2 as MK-7 — the pairing the formula intends, without a second bottle.

Third-party tested

Batch testing for label accuracy and contaminants, published by the brand.

Oil-based by design

Softgel carries its own fat (MCT), so absorption doesn't depend on what you ate.

Honest economics

A year of D3+K2 costs about what two lattes do.

Find it on Amazon →

Your own formula names the right bottle for your case. No brand pays to be here.