Vitamin D Facts:
A Summary of Essential Things to Know

The substance that is commonly known as vitamin D is not a vitamin at all, but a natural hormone. Vitamin D is made on your skin, goes into your bloodstream and then to your liver and kidneys to get activated, then goes to your intestines and bones to do its biological work. This process indicates that vitamin D is, by definition, a hormone.

Vitamin D Facts:
Health Benefits of Vitamin D

Since vitamin D is a hormone that works throughout the body, it affects every facet of your health. Some of the more commonly-known health benefits of vitamin D include:

• prevention of many chronic diseases, including type-2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and osteoporosis
• helps keep your bones and teeth strong and healthy
• regulates the growth and activity of your cells
• reduces inflammation
• regulates immune system activity
• helps with calcium absorption

Vitamin D works wonders for colds and flu. If you keep your blood levels of vitamin D at optimal levels, it will be very unlikely that you'll get the flu; but if you do, you can use vitamin D to treat it as well. It's the most effective treatment for colds that I've ever tried.

Vitamin D for Cancer Prevention. Worldwide cancer rates have a direct correlation with the amount of sun exposure people get. Populations that live away from the equator have much higher rates of many common cancers, including cancer of the colon, prostate, breast and ovaries. This is consistent even across different cultures and economic levels all around the world.

Incredibly enough, studies show that
if everyone had optimal levels of vitamin D,
the rate of cancer would drop
by as much as 70 percent —
almost immediately!

Vitamin D Facts:
Where Can You Get Vitamin D?

Sun exposure has always been man's primary source of vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced by your skin from exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight. Just 30 minutes summer sun exposure in a bathing suit (without sunscreen) produces at least 10,000IU vitamin D.

Unfortunately, repeated warnings about the danger of skin cancer has made much of the public avoid sun exposure altogether. This is the primary cause of the epidemic of vitamin D deficiencies we see today.

Leif Grunseth
certified neuromuscular therapist

Vitamin D Facts:
There Are Many Reasons Why You May Not
Be Getting Enough Vitamin D From Sun Exposure

If you live north of 30 degrees north latitude (this includes most of the United States and all of Europe), you can only get adequate vitamin D from sunlight for six months out of the year — from April through September, at most.

Sunscreens — even the weakest ones (SPF 8) — block your body’s ability to generate vitamin D by 95%.

People with dark skin pigmentation have built-in sun protection that’s similar to a sunscreen with a SPF of 15-30. They need much more sun exposure to get adequate amounts of vitamin D.

Obese? Overweight individuals may be less able to manufacture Vitamin D, and, consequently, need more exposure to sunlight.

It takes up to 48 hours for your body to absorb vitamin D after sunbathing. If you wash the exposed area with soap, you'll remove the oil-soluble vitamin D, and you won't get any of it into your system.

It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. You would have to drink ten glasses of vitamin D-fortified milk or orange juice each day just to get 1000IU of vitamin D from your diet. Very few other foods have any vitamin D at all.

The food highest in natural vitamin D content is salmon. It has approximately 400IU in a 4oz. serving, much less than your daily requirement.

Vitamin D Facts:
Deficiencies and Chronic Illnesses

Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with a long list of chronic illnesses that could also have any number of other underlying causes. This makes it very difficult to diagnose. Here is a list of many of them:

• Type-1 diabetes
• Osteoporosis
• Heart disease
• Many types of cancers
• Low blood calcium levels
• Chronic bone, muscle, or joint pain

• Chronic fatigue
• Bowed limbs
• Colds and flu
• Asthma
• Infertility
• High blood pressure

• Acne
• Gingivitis, periodontal disease and cavities
• Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder
• Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
• Inflammatory bowel disease
• Tuberculosis

Other important things to know about vitamin D deficiencies:

There are usually no symptoms of vitamin D deficiency until you have a serious chronic illness, something that is extremely difficult to trace back to its cause.

Chronic vitamin D deficiency is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because its symptoms are so similar: muscle weakness, aches and pains.

Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight. It takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body’s bones and nervous system.

Vitamin D Facts:
How Common is Vitamin D Deficiency?

A number of recent studies have shown that vitamin D deficiencies are at epidemic levels. The current standard for minimum blood levels of vitamin D is set at 50 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter)

The Life Extension Foundation analyzed results from 13,892 blood tests in members who had their blood levels of vitamin D evaluated from March 2008 to September 2009.

The startling findings looked like this:

• 38% of test results for vitamin D were less than 30 ng/ml (the previous minimum threshold).

• 69% of test results were less than or equal to 40 ng/ml, and

• 85% of test results were less than or equal to 50 ng/ml, now recognized as the minimum acceptable level.

The Whitaker Wellness Center, the largest alternative medical clinic in America, tests nearly every patient for their vitamin D levels when they are admitted. And guess what they find? Roughly 95% of new patients have deficient vitamin D levels.

Vitamin D Facts: Most hospitals in America — and most doctors practicing medicine — don't even test for vitamin D levels. Why not? Because doctors are nutritionally illiterate. They are so absorbed with other therapies such as drugs, surgeries and toxic chemotherapy treatments that they have completely overlooked the simplest and most powerful tool for health and healing: nutrition.

Vitamin D Facts:
Vitamin D Blood Tests for Measuring
Your Blood Levels

How do you know if you have a low vitamin D level? If you don't spend much time in the sun, live someplace away from the equator and don't take any vitamin D supplements, you are almost certainly vitamin D deficient.

The only sure way to determine if you have a normal vitamin D level is to get your blood levels tested. You can arrange this with your health care provider, or order an inexpensive home blood test.

The Vitamin D Council, a nonprofit educational corporation, has partnered with ZRT Labs to offer a discounted vitamin D home test kit that you can order through the ZRT Lab website.

Vitamin D Facts:
How Much Vitamin D Do You Need?

For many years, the official recommended daily allowance for vitamin D has been set at 200-600IU per day. That now appears to be significantly too low to provide the greatest health benefits of vitamin D, such as good bone mineral density, dental health, fractures and cancer prevention. It's also nearly impossible to achieve these levels through diet alone, because very few foods contain any vitamin D.

Current Recommended Dosages of Vitamin D for Preventive Health. Most recommendations for vitamin D now call for at least 1,000-2,000IU per day. 5,000IU per day is not unreasonable, especially if you get little or no sun exposure, live in northern latitudes, or are dark-skinned or overweight. Even more may be necessary if you're chronically deficient.

Vitamin D Facts:
Fears About Vitamin D Toxicity
Are Wildly Overblown

Vitamin D toxicity seems to be a very common notion today, especially among physicians. If you examine it closer, though, it's a theory based on very flimsy evidence and often misinterpreted observations taken from a handful of unusual cases.

Cholecalciferol/vitamin D is certainly toxic in excess. However, vitamin D toxicity is virtually unheard of until the dose exceeds 10,000IU per day. In adults, taking 50,000IU/day for more than a few months can produce toxicity. However, there would be no reason for anyone to do this, unless they are being treated for vitamin D deficiency by a health care provider.

Vitamin D Facts:
Supplements Offer Cheap Insurance

Every recent study on vitamin D blood levels indicates that the majority of the population is deficient in vitamin D, whatever the reason. If you don't sunbath regularly and take vitamin D supplements in the winter, you almost certainly have low vitamin D levels in your bloodstream. Fortunately, vitamin D3 supplements are very inexpensive and safe to take.

I recommend getting vitamin D drops because they're so easy to keep on hand. Carlson Ddrops offer an entire years' supply of vitamin D in just one small bottle that costs less than less than $20. Each drop gives you the minimum daily requirement of 1,000 or 2,000 units of vitamin D.

Having an ample supply of vitamin D on hand will also allow you to have extra vitamin D available for treating colds and flu.

That's right — megadoses of vitamin D are one of the most effective ways of beating the flu. See my page on Health Benefits of Vitamin D to learn how to treat a cold or flu with vitamin D.

Name-brand Vitamin D3 products are essential identical, but you won't find any better prices than you will at iHerb.com. It's a great place to find all your supplements and natural health products. Just take a look at all they have to offer:

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Other Great Resources for Vitamin D Facts

Grassroots Health A consortium committed to solving the worldwide vitamin D deficiency epidemic.

Dr. Mercola Video Lecture on the most up-to-date science on vitamin D.

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need? An article by Dr. Mercola.

Back to Antioxidants Home Page from Vitamin D Facts

Have You Improved Your Health
by Using Vitamin D Supplements?

Have you tried adding vitamin D supplements to your daily routine, or used them to treat some health condition you have? Have you ever been tested for your vitamin D levels? Tell us your story — if you take supplements, how much do you take and have you noticed any difference.