THE AMAZING VITAMIN D

You may be aware that a great deal of research is presently being done on Vitamin D. At the present time, it seems to be the newest, latest, and possibly the most intensely researched Vitamin in the scientific world.

Vitamin D is indeed one of the most useful nutrients the body needs for maintaining and improving overall health. Its actions are known to control phosphorus, calcium, bone metabolism, and neuromuscular function. But recent studies are telling us that Vitamin D is involved in many more health functions. These Vitamin D health functions are cognitive enhancement, depression, heart disease, cancer, immunity, and even back pain.

Bone Health: It is well recognized that Vitamin D is necessary for calcium absorption; this is why it is often added to Calcium supplements. It also helps to regulate parathyroid hormones. Its deficiencies may cause hyperparathyroidism which increases the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.

Depression: Vitamin D deficiency seems to be common in adults with psychiatry and neurological disorders. For example, in one study of 80 older adults (40 with Alzheimer disease and 40 non-demented persons) Vitamin D deficiency was associated with low mood and with impairment on two of four measures of cognitive performances.

Back Pain: A study was done on 60 female patients in Egypt complaining about low back pain lasting more than 3 months. The study revealed that patients with low back pain had significantly lower Vitamin D levels than the control group of patients.

Cognitive Enhancement: In a recent study, Vitamin D deficient subjects scored worse on mental function tests compared to individuals who had higher levels of Vitamin D.

Cancer: In the 1940s one researcher first noted the connection between Vitamin D and cancer protection when he discovered that individuals at sunny latitudes had a reduced rate of deaths from cancer. Since then many studies have strongly suggested that Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of developing many forms of cancer including breast, ovarian, prostate and colon cancer.

Immunity: Vitamin D regulates T cells, which are an important part of our white cells. Vitamin D also acts as an immune system modulator, by increasing the killing effect of macrophages but also in preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines. Vitamin D stimulates the production of anti-microbial peptides, which protect the lungs from infection. Vitamin D may also reduce the progression of auto-immune diseases.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to many other conditions such as high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and the increased risk of pre-eclampsia and insulin resistance during pregnancy, as well as prevalence of early age related macular degeneration.

Everybody agrees that this little Vitamin (once well known as the “sunshine vitamin”) has been nearly ignored for so many years, and is now being re-discovered as a “miracle Vitamin”. Of course, the “Vitamin companies” are now jumping on the wagon and adding more Vitamin D to their supplements because the recommended dosages have been set much too low for too many years. But what kinds of Vitamins are they actually putting into their bottles?

You all know very well that I am extremely particular about the sources / origins of Vitamins as I don’t believe that the body can be fooled with huge dosages of synthetic vitamins. There are two primary sources of        Vitamin D: One source is from animals which we consume and is known as Vitamin D3 which is produced by the animals in their skin and through the oil of their fur. The other source is Vitamin D2 and is synthesized industrially by irradiating yeast and is also present in small amounts in common mushrooms. Obviously I recommend the supplementation of Vitamin D3, NOT the Vitamin D2 version.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends a mere 200 IU’s per day for adults but some leading researchers such as Dr. Reinhold Vieth and Dr. Robert Heaney recommend 3,000 to 4,000 IU’s per day as being both necessary and safe. Then there are others who object that too much Vitamin D can be toxic, but of course they don’t consider the fact that there is a very big difference between naturally occurring Vitamin D from animals and the sun, versus synthetically made industrial types of Vitamin D. Natural Vitamin D is most efficient and effective when combined with its counterparts, Natural Vitamin A and Vitamin K. One can measure Vitamin D levels through blood or saliva tests by looking at a marker called Calcidiol or

25-hydroxyvitamin D. This marker will tell if you are getting enough, too much, or too little Vitamin D and / or if you are absorbing it properly.

Natural Sources of Vitamin D:

Vitamin D is the only Vitamin the body can manufacture from Sunlight. This means of course that we need not to be afraid of staying outside in the Sun, and not wear dark glasses and smear on sunscreen 365 days of the year. We have been told for so many years that the Sun was so bad for us, that most people, kids included are now deficient in Vitamin D.

Food sources of Vitamin D are the old fashion high in Vitamin D, Cod Liver Oil, Fish Livers, Fish such as Marlin, Salmon, Herring, fatty Bluefin Tuna, Grunt and Rainbow Trout, Eel, Mackerel, Sardines, eggs, pork and beef liver, pork, pork or bovine blood and un-pasteurized summer milk. The advantages of the food sources of Vitamin D are that one can obtain it all year-round in any region of the earth and it can be obtained by people who, because of their business or lifestyle do not have the opportunity or desire for afternoon sunbathing.

Dr. Weston Price

Dr.  Weston Price, a renowned research dentist from the beginning of the 20th Century, who was a genius of his time, had certainly noticed that Vitamin D was an extremely important element in people’s health. Dr. Price started to be interested in nutrition because of his observation of the increase of cavities and misaligned teeth in his patients. He decided to do a research project by traveling all around the world, to various isolated parts of the earth where the inhabitants had no contact with “civilization” to study their health. His study collected information / data on 44 different groups of remotely living people who lived according to their age old traditions in such diverse locations as Africa, Australia, the South Pacific, Switzerland, Canada, etc. He went on site and lived with each of them for several weeks at a time to observe and make notes of their
dietary habits. He took pictures of every group he studied and wrote a book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration where he recorded the results of his study.

The major conclusions that Dr.  Price made were as follows:

1. These people ate a non-processed, non-artificially enriched, non transformed type of food, and had an almost complete absence of disease, even those living in extremely harsh physical environments.

2. The food that allowed people of every race and every climate to be healthy were whole natural foods – meats and its fats, organ meats, raw whole milk and derivative dairy products, fish and fish eggs, insects, bone broth soups, vegetables, fruits and tubers, whole grains cereals.

3. He took samples of native foods home with him in Cleveland and studied them in his laboratory. He found that these foods contained at least four times the Minerals and water soluble Vitamins – Vitamin C and B complex – as the American diet of his day. He also found that these diets contained at least ten times more of fat soluble Vitamin A and Vitamin D than the American diet of his day.

4. Dr. Price referred to the fat soluble Vitamins as “catalysts” or “activators” upon which the assimilation of all the other nutrients depended – Proteins, Minerals, and Vitamins. In other words, without the dietary factors found in animal fats, all the other nutrients largely go to waste.

5. When these people stopped their traditional diet to eat “modern food” their health and teeth started to degrade at a fairly rapid pace, in less than a full generation.

As consequences, these people had a very solid body constitution with perfect aligned teeth, and nearly no cavities. A striking example was a Canadian Indian woman who gave birth to 23 children, and who had absolutely no cavities in her mouth at all. Pregnancies are known to pull minerals out of a woman‘s body and very often are followed by several dental cavities, but not when people ate their traditional diets.

Once returned home and in his practice, Dr. Price used the combination of high Vitamin Butter and Cod Liver Oil with great success to treat osteoporosis, tooth decay, rickets, arthritis, and failure to thrive in children. Other researchers such as Dr. Francis Pottenger successfully treated respiratory diseases such as TB, asthma, allergies and emphysema in his sanatorium in Monrovia, California with liberal amounts of liver, butter, cream and eggs to convalescing patients.

Nothing New Under the Sun:

The modern literature and research tells us how important Vitamin D is for our health! I could not agree more! But Dr. Price and Dr. Pottenger had already discovered this fact through their professional experiences and extensive research. In our modern society, we are bombarded by tons of information telling us that we need to supplement ourselves with this supplement or that Vitamin. However, nobody distinguishes between synthetic and natural sources of Vitamins and nobody tells us that we need to eat meat, good fats, butter and eggs!

I do believe that even if you were to take thousands of milligrams of synthetic Vitamin D, you would still be deficient because you cannot fool or replace Mother Nature! The least you can do, if you are still afraid of sunbathing or eating a diet rich in soluble fats, is to give your body a teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil a day during summer, and 2 teaspoons during winter. If you are pregnant or nursing you can double this amount. If you have any health issue, you can double this amount! And if you have a child that is challenged by any health issue, please give him / her high Vitamin Cod Liver Oil. The only Cod Liver Oil I recommend is Blue Ice Cod Liver Oil from Green Pastures because this is the only Cod Liver Oil I know of, that doesn’t have any added synthetic Vitamin A or Vitamin D.
The Vitamins are naturally occurring in Blue Ice Cod Liver Oil.

Nothing is being “discovered” and nothing is new under the Sun. Mother Nature has always provided for us human beings, and will always provide if we listen and respect what she has to say and offer. Dr Price said: “Life in all its fullness is Mother Nature Obeyed”. How true this is!

WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

As you know, I am constantly searching for “whole food” based natural health products. Two of my best discoveries are Blue Ice Cod Liver Oil (both in Caps and in Liquid) and First Organics Daily Multiple Vitamins. These two products meet and exceed every one of my strict criteria for delivering high quality, good Vitamins and Minerals, and have assimilability approaching 100%!

First Organics Daily Multiple Vitamins comes in bottles of 90 gel capsules which is sufficient as a one month supply (3 per day). The cost per bottle is $35.95 and is available through our office (831-642-0202) or on our web store at www.YourGoodHealthStore.com.

Blue Ice Cod Liver Oil comes in bottles of 120 capsules or in an 8 ounce liquid bottle and both sell for $23.00 each. They too are available through our office (831-642-0202) or on our web store at www.YourGoodHealthStore.com.

Please rest assured any and all products that we offer through our office or through our web store www.YourGoodHealthStore.com  have been thoroughly investigated by me in an ongoing, formal and informal manner to substantiate the statements and claims of the manufacturers. It is for this reason that when I recommend a given Vitamin, Supplement or Product, I am confident that I am offering you the very best available at prices that are fair and very competitive.

OUR NEXT SEMINAR(s):

Our next Seminar will explore the issues surrounding STRESS and FATIGUE, the so called “Malady of the 21st Century”. Learn what causes Stress & Fatigue and how to avoid and overcome the debilitating consequences.

The Seminar STRESS and FATIGUE will be held THURSDAY,  October 4, 2007, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM at the Engergia Body Centre in the Del Monte Center (between Macy’s and Mervyn’s). Please call our office at 831-642-0202 to reserve you place. Or simply email john@mbaynaturo.com.  There is a $10 door fee. To view our list of upcoming Seminars, please visit our web site at www.montereybaynaturopathy.com.

The entire contents of HEALTH AWARENESS are based upon the opinions of Beatrice Levinson, Naturopath, unless otherwise indicated. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as an offering and sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Beatrice Levinson, Naturopath within the U.S. and Europe. Beatrice Levinson, Naturopath encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.

©Copyright 2007 Beatrice F. Levinson, Naturopath. All Rights Reserved.  This content may be copied in full, with copyright, contact, creation and information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit format. If any other use is desired, permission in writing from Beatrice Levinson is required.

Click here to opt out of receiving future Health Awareness Newsletters from from Monterey Bay Naturopathy.
© 2007 Monterey Bay Naturopathy