Vitamin D: If You Can't Get It From Sun, Take The Pill

Vitamin D deficiency is probably the most frequent vitamin deficiency in America. I am writing this article to encourage you to go to the health food store and start taking 1000 International Units (IU) of Vitamin D everyday.

It is estimated that anywhere from 30 to 100% of Americans, depending upon their age and community living environments, are deficient in Vitamin D.

Studies have shown that more than 50,000 post-menopausal women taking medication for osteoporosis have sub-optimal levels of Vitamin D. 48% of white, pre-adolescent girls in a study in Maine had Vitamin D deficiency, and 32% of healthy students, physicians in residence, in a Boston Hospital, were found to be Vitamin D deficient, despite drinking milk and taking a multiple vitamin and eating salmon at least once a week.

In all, it is estimated that one billion people worldwide have Vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency.

We primarily get our Vitamin D from exposure of our skin to sunlight. Given our modern lifestyles of indoor or in-car living, and the continuous use of sun blocking creams (which block Vitamin D manufacture), most of us are getting very little Vitamin D absorption from sunlight on our skin. The little bit that we get from fortified milk and the fatty fishes does not provide us nearly what we need.

So how do we know if we have enough Vitamin D? The best way is to go to your personal physician and ask him or her to draw a 25-hydroxy Vitamin D blood test on you. This will tell you approximately what dose you need to get yourself into the normal range.

Very deficient people will need a prescription-strength Vitamin D on average for 8 weeks in order to bring them up to the normal range. Then it is simple to maintain your levels with 1,000 IU of Vitamin D which you can get at any health food store.

In the absence of getting a blood test, you can just start yourself on 1,000 IU of Vitamin D everyday.

Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to play a role in every major disease that we see in our country. This includes 17 varieties of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, autoimmune disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, chronic pain and periodontal disease. One study has shown that women in the lowest quartile of Vitamin D have five times the incidence of cancer compared to women in the highest quartile. 600,000 cases of breast and colo-rectal cancer could be prevented each year by adequate intake of Vitamin D, according to Cedric Garland DrPH. People deficient in Vitamin D have been found to get influenza in winter more frequently than those with normal Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D deficiency is now, most recently, being linked with autism.

If you live north of 37 degrees latitude (approximately a line drawn horizontally connecting Norfolk, Virginia to San Francisco, California) sunlight is not sufficient to create Vitamin D in your skin in the winter months, even if you are sitting in the sun in a bathing suit on a warm January day! However, given our indoor lifestyle and extreme use of sun blocking agents, living in the south is not even a guarantee that Vitamin D deficiency won't occur. A study that was conducted in Miami, Florida showed that approximately 40% of 212 adults were deficient in Vitamin D in the winter.

The normal range for the blood test for Vitamin D is currently being actively discussed in the medical literature. It appears that a minimum of 30 nanograms per milliliter, (that's ng/mL), of 25 hydroxy Vitamin D is necessary. Complementary and alternative physicians often end to get their patient's blood levels over 50 ng/mL. This is especially true when treating patients with chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes and osteoporosis.

In my own practice in Southern California, because the majority of my patients are very busy executives, I find an approximate 80-90% insufficiency of Vitamin D. That is, the patient's blood levels are below 30 ng/mL.

In summary, Vitamin D deficiency is extremely common and affects almost all chronic diseases of the modern world. Please start yourself on 1000 IU of Vitamin D per day and discuss this with your physician. Even better get the blood test and see exactly what your dose should be!

Here are some websites where you can read more about Vitamin D deficiency:

http://vitamindhealth.org/

http://tinyurl.com/yqgnu3

http://www.newstarget.com/Michael_Holick.html

http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/

Comments

[67bug]

Just started taking the D. Thank you for writing this, I will pass it on to others!

[Grammarista]

Can the entire 1000 IU be absorbed if it is taken in one pill, or does the dosage need to be in smaller amounts? I have read that only 300 units of calcium can be absorbed at one time, so that it is a waste to take a larger dosage.

[Trittydi]

Except for the part about "going to the doctor" this sounds like a good plan.

This is America. How many people can afford to go to the doctor? I can't.

*

[CanCar]

For all the women: to consume vitamin D to diminish the risk of which the baby develops autism. This is a behavioral disorders that affect a person"s social interaction, language learning skills and communication capabilities...
More in highfunctioningautism.info

[Aaror]

Isn't Vitamin D fat soluble? In other words, it is difficult for the body to remove an excess. Unless 1000 IU is the US RDA, it becomes important to know how much the body can process. I realize that most people have not heard of vitamin poisoning, and I have only heard of it happening with vitamin A, but it is a factor to consider.

[AnotherIADem]

Thank you Dr. Khalsa. I wish the MSM would cover this more. I am an arthritis specialist and I diagnose so many cases of vitamin D insufficiency (and very many of SEVERE deficiency) each week, that one of my trainees recently said: Dr, everytime I walk by your office, you are on the phone telling someone that they are vitamin D deficient! Yep. It's true. When I called one of these patients recently, and she asked me, "Dr. what caused this?" I said, "living in 21st century America". She laughed, but I was totally serious. There are so many strong correlations between D deficiency and cancer, autoimmune diseases ,etc. But the thing most people don't know is that vitamin D deficinecy HURTS. Soft (under mineralized) bones swell and stretch the nerve endings in the outer surface of the bone. Muscles require vitamin D for normal function. Primary doctors who mean well, and work so hard to lower cholesterol a few points, prescribing statins for every one over 50, would likely prevent far more debilitating disease if they spent as much energy treating and preventing vitamin D deficiency.

[realnoia]

Well I take 3000 units a day of D3 and
I don't have to discuss it with my physician
because I don't have a physician and
don't feel the need to get one. One
reason I don't have one is because I
don't take prescription medicine. One
reason why I don't take prescription medicine
is because I take a lot of D3. An ounce of
prevention is worth a lot.)

[baldblackman]

That is also why the inuit aren't blonde, eating all that fish they didn't need to have pale skin for the absorbtion of vitimin D.

[jinjinpinti]

I was advised last year that my Vitamin D level was low, but didn't realize I'd need at least 1,000 iu to maintain a normal level. Thanks for the info.

[HeevenSteven]

"If you live north of 37 degrees latitude (approximately a line drawn horizontally connecting Norfolk, Virginia to San Francisco, California) sunlight is not sufficient to create Vitamin D in your skin in the winter months, even if you are sitting in the sun in a bathing suit on a warm January day!"

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Then how did humans thrive in the great white north long before we even knew what Vitamin D was? Eating fish? Did they all die young?