General Vitamin D Information
Vitamin D Facts
• If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you might have chronic vitamin D deficiency.
• Adequate vitamin D levels achieved through exposure to sun, consumption of oily fish, and supplements can prevent 80% of vitamin D deficiency related diseases and cancers.
• 30 times more cancer deaths are attributed to vitamin D deficiency from lack of sun exposure than to skin cancer deaths from too much sun exposure.
• Always take calcium and magnesium with vitamin D supplements. Vitamin D will pull calcium from the bones if adequate calcium is not ingested. Magnesium assists in calcium uptake.
• Per day: 4,000-14,000 IU vitamin D3, 1800 mg calcium, and 600-1200 mg magnesium. Required vitamin D dose depends on season, resident latitude, skin tone, weight, age, dress or cultural mores, and presence of D deficiency symptoms.
Vitamin D, D3, is not really a vitamin; rather it is a powerful steroid and a super hormone that tells your body how to work. It controls hormones and cellular growth; it helps to absorb calcium for strong bones and teeth; it ensures muscle strength and balance; and it protects against immune diseases, prenatal physical and neurological disorders, birth defects, diabetes, hypertension, inflammation, depression, and cancers. Vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in over 50 illnesses and diseases and has been proven to prevent or remit 28 kinds of cancers, most noted are breast, ovarian, cervical, prostate, colon, and lung cancers.
It’s been said that vitamin D is toxic in high levels and no one should take more than 800-2,000 IUs per day. That is not true and is just the perpetuation of old, outdated information relating to man-made vitamin D.
• Natural vitamin D, cholecalciferol, is named D3; manmade vitamin D, ergocalciferol, is named D2.
• Natural vitamin D, D3, has been tested at 20,000 IUs per day over a 5 year period and found non toxic.
• No incident of natural vitamin D toxicity has resulted in death.
• Cases of proven natural vitamin D toxicity have been the result of industrial accidents or accidental mega doses in excess of 1 Million IUs per day over a prolonged period.
• Hypercalcemia (high amounts of calcium in the blood) has been pointed to as an indication of vitamin D toxicity; however, hypercalcemia is also, and more often, a symptom of vitamin D deficiency.
• Vitamin D toxicity arises at a blood level of >250 ng/ml.
• Vitamin D levels can be easily tested. The test is named either 25(OH)D or 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
--Ignore the lab ranges for normal on this test as the norms were established using a vitamin D deficient population.
--Any reading below 60 ng/ml is deficient.
--Any reading of 75-125 ng/ml is optimal and preventive of cancers.
--Individuals in the tropics naturally have vitamin D levels ranging from the mid 100s-200 ng/ml.
• Vitamin D supplements are safe for all ages including fetus and infant. Vitamin D is essential in the development of fetal bone, brain, and nervous systems, and prevents birth defects and miscarriages.
--Children born June-August are seven times more likely to have learning disabilities, mental retardation, low Apgar scores, low birth weight, and dyslexia than those born in cooler months.
--Adults born in winter or spring have higher rates of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.
--A 2 year old was given 4 Million IUs of vitamin D over a 5 day period resulting in vitamin D toxicity. His symptoms were diarrhea, stomach ache, and hypercalcemia. He was treated for the hypercalcemia over a period of 3 months and fully recovered with no negative results.
--Prior to 1985 infants and children in Finland, Norway and Sweden were given 2,000-4,000 IUs a day of D3. Those countries then had the lowest rates of juvenile diabetes, and developmental, and childhood illness of industrialized nations. These children, now adults, have the lowest rates of cancer compared to those who were not supplemented.
--Breast fed infants, especially, should be given liquid vitamin D supplements.
--27 sickly children ages ranging from 2-12 were given 9,000 IUs a day of vitamin D3 for six weeks one winter; they stopped getting sick.
--Experts recommend pregnant and lactating women take 4,000 IUs of D per day, and children up to 60 pounds be given 1,000-2,000 IUs of D per day, or enough vitamin D in each case to achieve blood levels of 60 ng/ml.
• People with dark skin pigmentation need 20-30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D.
--Blacks are 10 times more vitamin D deficient than whites.
--Young Black women are 24 times more vitamin D deficient than young white women. Of those tested, almost 50% had vitamin D levels <15 ng/ml.
--87% of Black adolescents tested have vitamin D deficiency with vitamin D levels below <30 ng/mg
--Blacks have higher rates of and contract more virulent forms of vitamin D deficiency related illnesses: hypertension, diabetes, hyperthyroid, hyper parathyroid, cancers—especially prostate, breast, colon, cervical, and ovarian cancers, multiple sclerosis, obesity, and renal and heart disease.
• People with very pale skin that won’t tan, and those of Northern European heritage genetically have fewer vitamin D receptors in their skin and can not generate adequate vitamin D levels from the sun.
• People of orthodox religions or those having cultural mores that limit the amount of skin that is exposed are prone to vitamin D deficiency.
• The ability to make vitamin D decreases with age.
• It’s impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from diet alone. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body. When adequate sunlight is not available to produce vitamin D, supplements must be taken.
• Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of high dose vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system.
• Suggested vitamin D use by the body has been put at 4,000 IUs per day.
• Proven vitamin D use by the body has been shown at 7,000 IUs per day.
• The best time to produce vitamin D from sun exposure during the day is between the hours of 10-3, the time most people are indoors, and the very hours that people are advised to avoid the sun.
• Use of sunscreen/block of even SPF=8 cuts 95% of vitamin D production.
• Vitamin D cannot be produced by sun shining through glass.
• The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the midday sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.
• There is no possible vitamin D production from the sun during winter for those living above 41 degrees latitude north or south of the equator.
• Daily vitamin D needs cannot be met from the sun during winter 37 degrees from the equator.
• Clouds, aerosols and thick ozone events reduce the duration of vitamin D synthesis considerably, and can suppress vitamin D synthesis completely even at the equator.
• Rates of vitamin D deficiency diseases: high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s, MS, autoimmune, Crohn’s heart, Hodgkin’s, and Parkinson’s diseases, schizophrenia, mental illness, alcoholism, fibromyalgia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes type I & II, and cancers rise with distance from the equator.
• Having kidney disease or liver damage can impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D.
• Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption. Without sufficient vitamin D, the body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.
Vitamin D_Obesity Link
Vitamin D is stored in fat. Vitamin D controls insulin…insulin causes hunger/cravings and stores fat…fat captures vitamin D and makes it not available for the body to use…Resulting in less vitamin D which means less insulin control …higher insulin causes more hunger/cravings and stores more fat…fat captures vitamin D and makes it not available for the body to use…and on and on.
Obesity and the vitamin D deficiency--related condition osteomalacia often go hand in hand. Osteomalacia is characterized by extreme bone and muscle pain and weakness. When an obese person has osteomalacia, the bone and muscle pain and weakness make it virtually impossible to participate in any sort of physical activity that might help the individual manage his or her weight. As a result, the individual becomes even more obese, which will in turn worsen his or her vitamin D status and exacerbate the osteomalacia.
Further, for these people initial weight gain leads to more clothes covering the body, and less time spent outdoors in the sun due to practical and esteem-related reasons. When the obese are outside, less skin is exposed to the sun for vitamin D production which leads to greater vitamin D deficiency and continues the above cycles. Obese individuals, depending on weight, require 2-4 times the vitamin D supplementation of normal weight individuals because some amount of vitamin D is captured in fat and not bio-available.
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