|
Vitamin D - It's
So Inexpensive Yet It's So Essential that You're Probably Sick
Sure, you've heard that Vitamin D builds strong bones. You may even know that you might not be getting enough of it in winter. But to say that this is just the tip of the iceberg about what vitamin D is capable of is to wear this old cliche thin. You see, vitamin D is responsible for regulating over 2000 genes in your body. Yet the current recommendations about how much vitamin D you should getting, along with the warnings about "Vitamin D poisoning" are almost criminal. I'll explain below. Vitamin D supports the following functions:
Furthermore, vitamin D prevents cancer, including skin and breast cancer and shrinks enlarged prostrate (in men). Low vitamin D levels probably are a primary reason that colds and flu spread so easily throughout the population in winter since the immune system is so compromised. Unless you're living in the extreme southern part of the United States, you're probably not getting enough vitamin D. And don't expect a couple of glasses of milk, or even a multi-vitamin to help much. Recent research now puts the suggested daily dose of vitamin D for OPTIMUM health at 5,000 IU per day. The current recommendation is for 400 IU per day. This is one twenty-fifth as much as you need. Even a 1000 IU pill is still 1/5 as much as you need. In fact, for decades you've been told that if you take thousands of IUs, you risk destroying your liver. I hope the low recommended daily allowance (RDA) of 400 IU was set in ignorance. If that's the case, then this is a great case study on how poorly funded health science can be when there is no profit to be made. You see, vitamin D is quite inexpensive and there is no way to patent it or otherwise create a profitable monopoly. The low vitamin D RDA has lead to decades of chronic vitamin D deficiency for most of us. The resulting increase in disease this has caused is mind boggling. It's likely that all the wars that have taken place since the low RDA has been set have killed fewer people than the forced vitamin D deficiency during this time. As a result of these criminally low recommendations for vitamin D intake, it's likely that you're not as healthy as you should be in winter.
Still, you don't have to get your vitamin D from the sun; you can get it from a pill. Recommendations from leading vitamin D researchers such as Dr. Reinhold Vieth suggest taking as much as 5000 IU per day. However, you should not do so without getting your blood levels tested. The new optimum blood level for vitamin D is 80-120 nmol/L. Note that there is currently a controversy about whether a common test, done by Quest Laboratories, measures vitamin D accurately. By the way, you don't have to take vitamin D every day. You could just take it once a week or once a month. I take 35 (5 x 7) pills every Sunday during winter because it's easier for me to remember to take it once a week instead of every day. Vitamin D can be stored in your body for months. However, in most of the United States you are likely to become deficient in Vitamin D during the winter and early spring. Also, it's easy to find 1000 IU pills, but if you don't want to swallow so many pills, there are sources for 5000 IU pills. I found one at http://www.progest50.com/vitaminD5000.htm Note: I have no financial interest in this source. Let me know if you found this article helpful and if there is anything I should add to it. To your health
Rachel P.S. By the way, I'm about to get a new shipment in of our Crystalline Goji. It is raw and we can only ship it in fall, winter and spring because summer heat makes it melt during shipping. We've got some raving fans for the Crystalline Goji because it's MUCH less expensive than the juice, and the essential Goji nutrients are intact. Bottling the juice destroys them.
|
Dear Friend,
What to do? You could get more sun. For a
Caucasian person, 20
minutes of near noontime sun over a mostly uncovered body should take care of
it. What about the risk of skin cancer? It turns out that low
vitamin D levels cause 25 times as much cancer as the skin cancer that you might
get from the sun.