What is the deal with Vit D. Is Sun light and Milk just not enough? (Not that I can go within 5 feet of milk without gaining weight now! ) But I am concerned about my health and my children.

We live in Arizona but do not get out enough in the sun I think. We take walks, at night!

What is the best way to help increase my Vit D, brand? Cost? And how can I help my children?

The first point that we need to understand is that NATURALLY, when exposed to full body sunshine our bodies attain and maintain a 25(OH)D status around 125~250nmol/l 50~100ng

The body uses Cholecalciferol in exactly the same way as it does the biologically identical Vitamin D3 it makes itself so there is no good reason to believe that regularly using supplemental D3 to achieve the levels normally acquired by sun exposed individuals is harmful.


The problem is getting sufficient at the right time so you both avoid burning and excessive exposure to UVA. At latitude 52 where I live it is indeed difficult to spend sufficient time in the sun, because we have a lot of cloud and wind and spending a lot of time fully naked is not socially acceptable. I think regular full body sun exposure is worth doing and is a good idea to boost status (you cannot overdose on vit d from sun exposure as the body only absorbs what it needs and any d3 remaining near the surface of the skin gets processed on into substances the body does not use at all so it's wasted. So getting your minimum daily requirement from supplements and boosting levels to acquire a reservoir of D3 for use in emergencies seems sensible to me.

Where milk is fortified (not in EU or UK) this may be done with D2 and some people do not absorb or utilise d2 efficiently so you cannot assume that drinking Vitd fortified milk is helpful, also when subject to independent testing most samples tend to contain less that stated on the label so it can never be relied on. As for the amounts even if you drank a full glass this would at best only contain 100iu so even if you also consumed a full portion of wild salmon (400iu) you would only achieve a tenth of your daily requirement.

The earlier children start using effective strength supplements the healthier they will be as adults. Those babies getting 2000iu/daily supplemental D3 grew up to have an 80% lower incidence of Type 1 diabetes in later life. Generally speaking 1000iu/daily for each 25lbs should achieve optimum status.

Providing your shadow is shorter than your height this usually indicates that UVB is present and Vitamin d can be made. So for UK readers the best time is midday when shadows are shortest but for you in Arizona, because of the danger of sunburn at midday, you may have to use the times when your shadow is nearer but not greater than your height.


these 5000iu are what I have used.
If you also give your children liquid omega 3 fish oil then getting these 50,000iu[/url] from the same source would be a good idea. A 40 portion sample as shown in the link could be supplemented with the contents of 2 capsules 100,000iu/d3 to provide 2500iu/daily together with a sensible amount of omega 3.

Well that solution costs 60cents for the D3 +12.83 = 13.43 for 40 days supply omega 3 and D3

These Carlsons 2000iu are recommended by Dr Davis from the heartscanblog.

Dr Cannell has suggestions for supplementing children with D3 here

If you think drops would be easier here are some to consider

UK readers averse to importing from the USA may be interested in these 2000iu

these 5000iu in olive oil seem a reasonable price

Apart from breastfeeding mothers it makes very little difference if you supplement daily or weekly providing the total iu divided by the number of days = a sensible amount. Dr Davis's findings at Wisconsin those who live further north may need more those further south may need somewhat less, depending on skin colour, bodyweight and time spent outdoors.

Regular testing is the ideal way of keeping track of your status As it generally takes around 3 months to replete a body and the vast majority of people have significantly less that optimum status it is generally safe for an adult to supplement for 3 months at around 5000iu and then check to see how much more they require to achieve a status over 50ng 125nmol/l or between 60~70ng 150~175nmol/l for perfectionists.

For people with limited incomes using the IHERB rewards codes provides a way to reduce costs, this is particularly so for those importing to the UK where customs duties are levied on the value of the order. Reducing the value by obtaining discounts enables you to sneek under the tax threshold and save not only the tax but also the £8 handling charge the Post Office adds. My code is ~~~~~~ but I'm sure there are plenty of others about.

Details of the rewards program can be found on the Iherb site. We wouldn't sneer at people taking advantage of all legal means of reducing their tax bills so in these recessionary times we should be doing all we can to enable scientifically proven effective strength supplements being made available as cheaply as possible to those on limited incomes.

Bear in mind this new article by Mike Adams on Vitamin D3

No, it is not enough! I'd consider a supplement for everyone in the family.

Excellent response. May I refer others to you post Hutchinson? It would save me a lot of time compiling all of this info myself.

Hutchinson, thank you so so much! The URL you tried to put in for the childrens items does not work so I am a little lost to what you where talking about!

Sorry 50,000iu
These capsules slide apart if you use your fingernails to grip the gelatine covers at the end. Do it over a glass or clean tissue. The contents are a fine white powder.

You can put this powder into a glass with some of the omega 3 fish oil from the bottle, stir it until you it looks as if all the powder has dissolved, then pour it back into the omega 3 fish oil bottle, put the lid on, and give it a good shake. If may be worth giving it a shake each time you use it as well, but, as Vit d3 is soluble in oil their shouldn't be an problem. I'd write on the bottle that each tsp now contains 2500iu. or whatever 50,000 divided by the number of tsps contained in bottle equals.

If you wanted all your family to benefit and ensuring they each individually remembered to take their vitamin D was a problem, you may want to consider using the contents of ONE OF THESE into your cooking.

If you sprinkled the white powder into a cookie mix and made sure it was well mixed in then you could reasonably assume that each cookie contains the same percentage of the 50,000iu. So dividing the mixture equally to make 25 biscuits and each biscuit has 2000iu.

This may be a good idea for elderly relatives who get overwhelmed by the number of tablets they are supposed to be taking. It should work for any meal that uses fat/oil so you could add it to the salad dressing as easily.

PS Of course I am delighted that others link to my posts to spread the word. Providing you understand the importance of raising your 25(OH)D to the level associated with least incidence of chronic disease that's all that matters to me.
I am on a fixed income myself so I understand why many people are under financial pressure at the moment and may be interested in obtaining effective strength supplements at the cheapest possible price.
For that reason I go on about the IHERB rewards program.
If people can increase their discount credits by spreading the word that generally speaking IHERB are as cheap as elsewhere, offer an efficient service and by using the discounts available that may allow UK readers to get under the customs tax threshold that may be helpful to some of the readers here.

Thanks, Hutchinson - good post. I added vitamin D to my regimen this past year.

Thank you Hutchinson.
"Providing you understand the importance of raising your 25(OH)D to the level associated with least incidence of chronic disease that's all that matters to me."
This is my goal also.

Are you sure the Vit. D doesn't get degraded by cooking?

That depends on what you believe. Is the Atkins plan good enough for your children? Or do you feed them cake, candy, chocolate, pasta, corn flakes, potatoes, rice, soy, bread, nutella, skim milk, margarine, cookies, and sugar?

If you feed your kids a high carb diet, I doubt supplementing with vitamin D will make much of a difference. But then if you feed your kids the same thing you feed yourself, in this case all good things on the Atkins plan, supplementing with anything won't do much of a difference either.

Why would a healthful diet, the Atkins plan, need supplementation anyway? It's a healthful diet. How could supplements improve this? On the other hand, if you want peace of mind, then go ahead and supplement with anything you want, including vitamin D. But then, do you want peace of mind, or do you want health?

Are your kids healthy now? I gotta ask myself, why would a healthy kid need supplements?

Yes I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise. There is a bakery in USA I read about that makes Vit d enriched biscuits and Vitamin D is a stable compound. Neither cooking nor long-term storage significantly reduce vitamin D levels in food.

Good to know, thanks!

While I agree that it is unreasonable to expect any amount of vitamin D to compensate for the adverse effects of poor dietary and lifestyle choices it is also common sense that the 900+Vitamin D receptors cannot function as they evolved with anything less than the natural level of 25(OH)D our genes are programmed to attain and maintain given ample full body sun exposure as we evolved. Over 200+ different enzyme actions depend on having a reservoir of vitamin d to power the formation of the active hormone at it's maximum velocity.


This thread is particularly about vitamin D and no amount of healthy eating, Atkins or otherwise, can possibly provide sufficient vitamin D for normal people. With Full body Sun Exposure in Arizona it should be possible to get sufficient vitamin d but only at the risk of increasing skin cancer incidence. I think a compromise is best, that is some regular full body non burning sun exposure in short sessions through the day combined with a basic effective amount of vitamin d from supplements. Allow 5 minutes full body prone exposure for each 1000iu. but remember if your skin burns that means all the vitamin D near the surface of the skin will be wasted, it gets processed on into substances the body doesn't use and therefore is not available to repair the damage.

To correct omega 3 insufficiency, most people cannot afford to buy free range grass fed meat, or wild fish as opposed to farmed fish and may prefer to ensure their omega 3<>omaga 6 ratio is improved. This short power point presentation sets out the basics for improving omega 3 intake. (while also reducing omega 6 input)

Similarly much of our veg these days is grown on soil depleted of it's natural magnesium content. Supermarkets sell Veg by it's looks and not for it's nutritional content. If you can prove your fast grown hot house veg that may never have been near soil at any time has exactly the nutritional content as slowly grown outdoor veg grown on organically managed land then maybe it will be fine but I'd rather have good health and peace of mind.



May I suggest that it may be to improve their sheer muscle power and force so that they can stand up for themselves against the school bullies

None of this tells us why 25-D is low. Nor does it tell us if low 25-D is the cause of all those problems. Nor does it tell us that supplementing with vitamin D will improve, or worsen, anything. At best, it tells us there's a problem and 25-D is merely an indicator of this problem.

A healthy kid doesn't need supplements. He's healthy. Unless, of course, we believe in preventative medicine. But look what kind of trouble that got us into. Also, to claim that supplements will help with muscle growth is like claiming that the diet is deficient in some respect. But then that's a contradiction because the kid is healthy. If he's healthy, then his diet is not deficient.

To claim that no amount of healthy eating can possibly supply enough vitamin D is like claiming that we don't exist, that we are not here, that we did not survive all those millions of years to get where we are now. How did we survive all this time without supplementation whatsoever? Of course, the answer is that the food we eat today is deficient, that the soil is depleted, and so forth. That's a contradiction. We have the best technology possible to grow the best foods possible to raise the best animals possible. How can we claim that we produce deficient foods?

The original poster follows the Atkins plan. By all accounts, this plan is not deficient in any nutrient. If anything, it returns us to good health. If it was deficient in any nutrient, it would not return us to good health. Unless, of course, it was merely a step up from the sorely deficient food pyramid. Anything is a step up from this. But the Atkins plan is not merely a step up from this. It's better by leaps and bounds.

Before we convince ourselves that we need supplementation, we must first convince ourselves that the diet we eat is deficient. Let's ask the Atkins proponents. Indeed, let's ask the original poster if her diet is deficient. Then, if she answers that it is deficient, let's ask her why she continues to eat a deficient diet. Because ultimately, that's what she is asking us.

Our main source of vitamin D was never through food. It was from sunlight. And the amount of sunlight we get is NOT the same that our forebears got. A great majority of us spend our days indoors, only venturing outside after we have slathered on the sunscreen.

I personally DO believe in preventative medicine. That's why I exercise, even though I am already healthy. And it is why I try to eat healthfully, even though I am healthy. And I take supplements, because my health has improved since I started taking them.