Dr. Mercola

In fact, the vitamin D content of foods in nature rarely reaches the treatment level, and even the vitamin D content of fortified foods is insufficient to meet your health needs.

Although the name of vitamin D is plain, it is not an ordinary vitamin. It's a kind of sterol hormone, and the key is that it can't be obtained by diet, only by sunlight.

How widespread is vitamin D deficiency?

Until 2000, most doctors had not even considered the possibility of vitamin D deficiency.

However, with the development of technology, the cost of vitamin D measurement has been decreasing and widely used. People are studying it more and more, and they are gradually aware that the phenomenon of vitamin D deficiency is indeed flooding. For example, according to Dr Michael holick, one of the lead researcher members:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 32% of children and adults in the United States lack vitamin D. This is still a seriously underestimated data, because they use vitamin D levels that do not meet the requirements of ideal health.
• The national health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 50% of children aged one to five and 70% of children aged six to eleven were deficient or deficient in vitamin D.
• According to estimates by researchers such as Dr holick, 50% of the general population is at risk of vitamin D deficiency or deficiency.

The researchers also noted that vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in adults of all ages. These people tend to use sunscreen products (which block the production of vitamin D) or rarely do outdoor activities. People with a persistent pigmentation of their skin, such as those whose ancestors were immigrants from Africa, the Middle East or India, face the same risks as older people.

It is estimated that more than 95% of the elderly may lack vitamin D. This is not only because they like to stay indoors most of the time, but also because they are less sensitive to sunlight and produce less vitamin D (under the same sunshine conditions, people over 70 produce about 30% less vitamin D than young people).

Seven signs of possible vitamin D deficiency

Although the only way to determine if you lack vitamin D is by blood tests, you can also get a glimpse of some signs and symptoms. If you meet any of the following criteria, you should do a vitamin D test as soon as possible:

• African Americans with dark skin are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency. Because they have dark skin, they need 10 times more sunlight than whites to produce the same amount of vitamin D.
• Feel "depressed" serotonin, a brain hormone, associated with mood swings. In bright light, serotonin levels rise, and vice versa. In 2006, scientists assessed the mental impact of vitamin D on 80 elderly patients and found that patients with the lowest vitamin D levels had a 11 times higher tendency to depression than those receiving a healthy dose.
• It has reached 50 years old or above. As mentioned before, with the increase of age, the skin's sensitivity to sunlight decreases, and the vitamin D produced decreases. At the same time, your kidney function will also decline, and the efficiency of transforming vitamin D into the form used by the human body will be lower. In addition, the elderly like to stay indoors most of the time.
• Overweight or obese (or higher muscle mass) vitamin D is a fat soluble hormone like vitamin, in other words, the body's fat can collect it like a "reservoir". If you're overweight or obese, you're more likely to need vitamin D than thin people - and the same for people who are heavier because of their muscle mass.
• Bone pain according to Dr holick, many people who come to see a doctor because of pain, especially with fatigue, are ultimately misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome. "Many of these symptoms are typical of chondropathy caused by vitamin D deficiency. It is different from osteoporosis in adults due to vitamin D deficiency. " He said. "It's actually the lack of vitamin D that prevents calcium from getting into the collagen matrix in your bones, so you have painful bone pain."

"Many of these symptoms are typical of chondropathy caused by vitamin D deficiency. It is different from osteoporosis in adults due to vitamin D deficiency. " He said. "It's actually the lack of vitamin D that prevents calcium from getting into the collagen matrix in your bones, so you have painful bone pain."

• According to Dr holick, sweating is one of the typical signs of vitamin D deficiency. In fact, doctors often ask new mothers if their newborn baby has a sweat. Because newborn babies are affected by neuromuscular stress, they will have symptoms of sweating. This is also seen as an early common symptom of vitamin D deficiency.
• Keep in mind that vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. That is to say, if you have gastrointestinal disease that affects fat absorption, your absorption of fat soluble vitamins, such as vitamin D, may also be poor. The gastrointestinal diseases mentioned here include Crohn's disease, celiac and non celiac gluten sensitivity, and inflammatory bowel disease.

"Many of these symptoms are typical of chondropathy caused by vitamin D deficiency. It is different from osteoporosis in adults due to vitamin D deficiency. " He said. "It's actually the lack of vitamin D that prevents calcium from getting into the collagen matrix in your bones, so you have painful bone pain."

Optimizing vitamin D content can prevent cancer, heart disease, etc

Researchers point out that every year around the world, increasing vitamin D3 levels in the general population can prevent a variety of chronic diseases, which are said to affect nearly one million people. It can also halve the risk of certain types of cancer.

Vitamin D is also resistant to infectious diseases, including colds and flu, because it regulates gene expression that affects the immune system, attacks and kills bacteria and viruses. Optimizing vitamin D levels also helps prevent:

• Cardiovascular disease. Vitamin D plays an important role in reducing hypertension, atherosclerotic heart disease, heart attack and stroke. According to Dr holick, vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of heart attack by 50%. What's worse, if you're a vitamin D deficient person who happens to have a heart attack, your risk of death is almost 100%.
• Autoimmune diseases. Vitamin D is a powerful immunomodulator and plays an important role in the prevention of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease.
• Infectious diseases, including influenza. It also helps you fight off infectious diseases. For example, according to a study in Japan, school children who take 1200 units of vitamin D a day in the winter can reduce their risk of contracting influenza A by about 40%.
• DNA repair and metabolism. According to a study by Dr holick, healthy volunteers who took 2000 international units of vitamin D every day for several months upregulated 291 different genes and controlled up to 80 different metabolic activities. It affects a wide range, from improving DNA repair to natural oxidation (which occurs when oxygen and / or ultraviolet light are present at the same time). For example, it could mean aging and cancer), and then strengthening the immune system and many other physiological processes.

How much vitamin D does it take to achieve optimal health?

When it comes to vitamin D, you certainly don't want to be in the "average" or "average" category. You must reach the "best" category. The reason for mentioning this is that over time, researchers have constantly improved the scope. At present, based on the assessment of healthy people with sufficient sunshine, the optimal range of vitamin D to achieve overall health seems to be between 50 and 70 ng / ml.

As for how to optimize the content of vitamin D, I firmly believe that adequate sunshine is the best way. In fact, in the past three or four years, I have not taken any vitamin D supplements personally, but the content in my body is within the range of 70 ng / ml.

How long you need to stay in the sun is uncertain, depending on the following factors:

No matter why you can't receive enough sunshine, a good sun bed may be the best choice for you. Many sunbeds use magnetic ballasts to generate light. As we all know, these magnetic ballasts are electromagnetic radiation sources, which may promote the occurrence of cancer. If you can hear a lot of noise in the sun bed, it means that it has an electromagnetic ballast system. I strongly recommend that you do not use this type of tanning bed, and do not use those beds with electronic ballasts.

If you don't have the conditions to get sunlight or use a safe tanning bed, there's only one option left to increase vitamin D levels. That's taking vitamin D supplements. If you do choose vitamin D supplements, remember that you also need to increase your intake of vitamin K2 through food and / or supplements. If you're getting vitamin D from the sun, it's wise to make sure you get enough vitamin K2 from your food, although it won't have a critical impact.

Measure your vitamin D content through the d * action program

How can you know if your vitamin D content is in the right category? The most important factor is to test vitamin D serum concentration every six months, because people's response to ultraviolet radiation or oral D3 supplements varies greatly. The test is called 25 hydroxyvitamin D (25 (OH) d), also known as 25 hydroxyvitamin D. In fact, any doctor can do this test for you. Understanding the content of vitamin D is one of the most important tests that can be carried out, so if you haven't tested it before, please do it now - its importance is beyond the description.

• Wellness Today May 6, 2014
• 1 Am J Clin NutrMarch 2004 vol. 79 no. 3 362-371
• 2 The International Society for Clinical Densitometry, Vitamin D Deficiency: The Silent Epidemic of the Elderly
• 3 American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry December 2006; 14(12): 1032-1040
• 4 Mayo Clinic Proceedings June 21, 2013