Vitamin D: The Essentials
Benefits of Vitamin D
Cancer Prevention
Immune System Support
Detoxification
Bone Health
Increased Life Expectancy
Proper Cognitive Function
Reduced Mental Fragility
Blood Sugar Regulation
And more. . .
As helpful as vitamin D is, it is estimated that roughly half of the American population is deficient. In minority groups the deficiency is closer to, if not in excess of 75%. With those stats in mind, is it any wonder we have epidemic levels of health challenges permeating society?
You may be wondering what you can do about it. The first place to start is by better understanding the complex puzzle that vitamin D represents.
Vitamin D is a steroid hormone naturally produced from cholesterol, as are all hormones (think about that), when skin is exposed to sunlight. The preferred sunlight is the UVB spectrum. The act of hiding from the sun, especially in the middle of the day behind sunglasses, sunscreen, clothing and glass/windows reduces if not eliminates vitamin D production.
Back to that cholesterol hormone comment. To produce stress hormones, sex hormones or any hormones for that matter, the body requires adequate amounts of cholesterol. Cholesterol is a foundational building block. Anything which interferes with cholesterol production or metabolism will interfere with the production of hormones. Something doctors don’t discuss as they encourage you to take cholesterol lowering drugs, trying to get total cholesterol numbers below 180 and even below 160 is this; while there is a SMALL decrease in cardiovascular disease deaths when total cholesterol is below 160, there is a statistically significant increase in all cause mortality as cholesterol drops below 160. So while you may or may not die from a cardiovascular incident, there is a greater risk of dying from something than if your total cholesterol were higher. Just something to consider
Back to vitamin D.
VItamin D is fat soluble; meaning it can be stored for future use,such as winter. This is a very helpful and survival based ability we humans have. Unless you live closer to, than farther away from the equator, vitamin D production has all but stopped during the later fall through early spring months. The angle of the rays of the sun are not steep enough to provide proper exposure, regardless of how much skin you offer it. Fortunately, you can build up your reserves during the summer for winter use. For those living in the northern latitudes year round, the consumption of wild and or grass-fed pastured animal products will greatly come in handy as a dietary source of vitamin D.
That vitamin D is stored within tissue as calcidiol, or 25(OH)D. A healthy liver is required and is very efficient at this storage conversion. If your liver is diseased or congested, its ability to perform any of its 400 plus metabolic functions, including the storage of vitamin D can be greatly reduced, if not stopped entirely.
Of interesting note is that all pharmaceutical/Rx drugs decrease liver function. Rx drugs are considered foreign to the body so the goal of the liver is to break down and safely eliminate the drug before it affects the body. Prescriptions are typically of dosages large enough to make up for this filtering or detoxification process so some portion of the drug can elicit desired change. If you are on multiple drugs or have been on them for a long period of time, the chronic stress of Rx drug exposure is hard on the liver and depleted nutritional reserves. The \Rx drugs can actually cause harm to the liver which is why doctors encourage liver tests with so many prescriptions to make sure the liver is not damaged to a degree it will harm other metabolic functions.
That stored vitamin D must be converted into its active form calciferol, or 1,25(OH)2D) before it can be used at a cellular level. This conversion takes place mostly in the kidneys. Damaged or dysfunctional kidneys inhibit this otherwise normal function. While malnutrition is a causal factor behind any metabolic dysfunction, including the kidneys, so is exposure to toxins, in particular aluminum and hormone disrupting toxins.
Interestingly enough, it is ultimately largely the liver’s function to detoxify toxins including heavy metals and even hormone disrupting variations. Plus, the liver produces bile acids which typically are sent downstream to the gallbladder to be dumped into the digestive tract for elimination. When the liver is congested, they spill over into general circulation finding their way into the kidneys which have to work extra hard to accomplish what the liver should have been able to. Everything in the body is connected, some tissues and organs more than others. Liver and kidney dysfunction tend to go hand in hand. It is almost a ‘chicken or the egg’ situation.
Calcitriol (storage form) inteacts at a cellular level with vitamin D receptor (VDR) sites found in most cells. When in contact with a VDR, vitamin D can turn genes on or off. Vitamin D is involved in gene expression.
In a ‘lock and key’ analogy, the receptor is the lock and the vitamin D is the key. Toxins can attach to receptor sites, effectively blocking the key and preventing the action that would otherwise occur. It is not only blocking the site, toxins can cause a cell, via the receptor site interaction to act in otherwise non-normal ways and be a catalyst for otherwise unexpected and unwanted health challenges.
With sun exposure the best method of producing vitamin D, assuming of course the body has all the necessary building blocks, the preferred secondary source is food. Not surprisingly, food is also the primary source for the vitamin D building blocks. The optimal form of vitamin D is D3, which is readily found in organ meats, especially beef liver, egg yolks, butterfat, lard, marine oils and seafood, (oily/fatty sources). Small amounts of vitamin D are found in rare mushrooms, but the form of vitamin D is in the hard to absorb, essentially worthless to human form D2.
When mentioning food sources, you want to ensure that the animal products/seafood were raised or grew naturally in the environment which nature intended. Factory farm food, on land or in the sea, are generally unhealthy relative to their properly raised brethren. If there is one valuable food lesson, ‘You can’t get health from unhealthy food.’
Speaking of food, vitamins and minerals do not exist on their own outside the influence of other vitamins and minerals. Proper vitamin D production and usage requires appropriate amounts of vitamins A, K and the mineral Magnesium along with many enzymes. Not surprisingly, these nutrients are commonly low in most people.
Supplements and fortified food may not be a good option as the form of vitamin D is often the synthetic D2. Synthetic D2 is correlated with hyperactivity, CVD and allergies. A synthetic D3 is used, primarily due to lower acquisition costs, but it is poorly absorbed when compared to what naturally occurs in animal products.
Fish oil and cod liver oils are very popular. There are issues with them as many are highly processed which damages the nutrients and some even contain synthetic vitamins added to ensure a specific dosage, commonly larger than what is natural, is available.
Even in higher quality supplements, they may contain a natural version of D3, but they rarely mention the source. Did you know that you can make D3 from yak fat, pig fat (factory farmed) and even oils harvested from sheep’s wool. The process to accomplish this is complex and uses chemicals, metals and other toxins which can’t be fully filtered out from the final product.
The simple solution is rarely simple!
If you are dealing with unwanted health challenges or wish to be proactive and prevent them, and you feel that a vitamin D deficiency is part of the problem, a blood test is not a bad consideration and likely paid for by health insurance. Typically, the stored form of vitamin D is tested. I would encourage you to get both forms, stored and active to gain a better picture of what may be taking place.
If vitamin D is low, consider optimizing sun exposure and increase the consumption of real foods rich in vitamin D that are appropriate for your Metabolic Type. If after a few months, you notice no, or minimal improvement upon retesting, consider investigating related or complimentary metabolic functions with functional lab testing. You can uncover problems with digestion, absorption, detoxification, liver and kidney function and more which all plays a role in your ability to manifest your health and performance potential.
The more information you have, the easier it will be to take advantage of healing opportunities and reduce blocking factors. Functional lab testing reduces the need to guess and assume.
For reasons stated, I don’t encourage high dosages of a vitamin D supplement. THe risk can far exceed any gains plus, you are not correcting the underlying problem, you are merely masking it. The odds are high that unwanted health challenges will still manifest. It is now just a question of when and how. Plus, you can spend a lot of money on supplements where that can be more effectively used in testing and the acquisition of real food which can elicit profound changes in body chemistry and function for the better.
I hope you have learned a few things, maybe even connected a few dots within your own health challenge puzzle. If you have questions or are interested in how I would approach your unique circumstances, feel free to reach out and contact me.