The Vitamin D Council has a lot of interesting research and information on the relationship of Vitamin D deficiency and 38 health conditions, including: anemia, autism, cancer, depression, diabetes, psoriasis, heart failure, MS, sepsis and more. Most of us are deficient in Vitamin D and don’t even know it.
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods. It is produced when ultraviolet rays from the sunlight hit the skin and trigger vitamin D synthesis. What makes vitamin D unique compared to other vitamins, is that when your body gets its vitamin D, it turns the vitamin into a hormone called “activated vitamin D” or “calcitriol.” To get enough vitamin D you need to expose your skin to sunlight regularly or take supplements.
The Vitamin D Council suggests that a level of 50 ng/ml is the ideal level to aim for. They recommend Vitamin D3 as the best kind of supplement to take. It comes in a number of different forms and it does not matter what time of the day you take it. This is why the Council recommends that adults take 5,000 IU/day of vitamin D supplement in order to reach and stay at this level.
The Vitamin D Council suggests three options for the Vitamin D test to check levels:
- Ask your doctor for a vitamin D test. Be specific and ask for a 25(OH)D test. Check first to see if your insurance will pay for it.
- A second option is to order an in-home test where you prick your finger and put a drop of blood on to some blotter paper. You send the paper to a laboratory to be tested.
- The last option is to ordera test online and get blood work done at a laboratory. In the United States, there are a few websites that allow you to bypass your doctor and go straight to the testing laboratory. These websites include mymedlab.com, healthcheckusa.com and privatedmdlabs.com. You can buy a 25(OH)D test from all of these companies and have the test itself done at your nearest LabCorp. These tests are a little more expensive than in-home tests.
Some of the best sources of Vitamin D are: sunlight (my favorite), salmon, tuna, cod liver oil, milk, eggs, mushrooms, and liver.
A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that four years of follow-up, cancer-free survival was 77 percent higher in women who received 1,100 IU of Vitamin D and 1,450 mg. of calcium a day compared to those who received a placebo or just calcium. According to the founder of Grassroots Health, Carole Baggerly as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer may be related to Vitamin D deficiency.
Here’s to more sunshine!!
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