ONE THIRD ARE DEFICIENT IN VITAMIN D

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 32 percent of adults and children are deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D is not only important for bones, as it helps calcium absorption along with K2 but it also needed by muscles, nerves, and the immune system. [1] Vitamin D actually acts like a hormone, it is a unique “vitamin”. It is a fat soluble vitamin which means you can take too much of it. There is also a lot of conflicting information on recommended amounts of Vitamin D. It is best to talk to a doctor to find out if you are low and to find out how much is recommended for you. From everything I have learned we need to be very weary of supplements because they are man made and we don’t know the quality or the bioavailability (how easy we absorb that specific supplement). Also, there are two forms of D- D2 and D3, it appears that D3 is much more bioavailable. Many vitamin D sources don’t specify what kind of vitamin D is present.

Humans can make vitamin D from the sun. There are a lot of factors that go into how much sun you should get. According to the Vitamin D council, you should expose yourself to sunlight but only half of the amount of time it would take your skin to get pink. Factors like time of year, distance from the equator, darkness of skin, and amount of skin exposed all play a factor in how much Vitamin D you will produce. However, it’s pretty clear that if your skin is getting pink or you start tanning that you are probably overexposed and you don’t need to spend that much time in the sun to get the vitamin D. You might even be setting yourself up for skin cancer.

When making smoothies, look for OJ that is fortified with vitamin D. They have been able to test that your body does absorb the vitamin D found in fortified OJ- specifically “1000 IU/240 mL orange juice for 12 wk”. [2]

I am an advocate of getting vitamins naturally through food, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a lot of great food sources of Vitamin D.

These are the ones commonly recommended:

Cold Water Fish: Salmon, Mackerel, Tuna, Sadines, Harring, Cod

Grass-fed is better: Beef, Beef Liver, Milk, and Butter

Egg yolks

Fortified cereal, OJ, Milk

Mushrooms also have smaller amounts of Vitamin D

Interesting enough vitamin D has a companion, K2 that should be taken with it to prevent calcification in places you might not want calcification, like your artery walls. See that blog here.