Top Ten Reasons You Need To Supplement with a Quality Vitamin D Product

• The Truth About Canada & Vitamin D - Here in Canada there are 4 months of the year (essentially "summer") when your body can produce vitamin D from exposure to the sun. Yet, even during this time frame most of us still don't get enough proper exposure to do this. This is due to most people not being aware of what "proper" exposure is. For one thing our faces are the least effective area of the skin for creating vitamin D, so we need to expose at least 50% of our body to the sun, and for at least 15 minutes on a clear, sunny day. If we have dark pigment then that times needs to be doubled, and if one is obese the body has difficulty producing sufficient vitamin D.


• Does Sun Block Affect your Vitamin D Supply? If we use a sun-block of course, we will produce no vitamin D in our skin, but less obvious is the fact that if we bath before sunbathing we will also produce little vitamin D. This is because the vitamin D is produced by the ultraviolet light from the sun reacting with sebum (cholesterol-bearing oils) on our skin. Even if we apply a moisturizer after bathing, unless it is lanolin (cholesterol based), the sun cannot do its job on your skin.


• Cancer Prevention and Vitamin D - “It has more potential than any other vitamin or micronutrient to prevent cancer.” This quote is from one of the foremost vitamin D researchers in the world, Dr. Cedric Garland, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Some scientists believe that up to 80% of cancer may be related to vitamin D deficiency, because 80% of cancers occur on the linings of organs, and vitamin D is critical to maintaining the lining (epithelium) of our insides.


• Disease Prevention and Vitamin D - Vitamin D is a genetic master switch, involved in turning on and off at least 200 genes in the body, since “virtually every cell in the body has receptors for vitamin D.” (John White, McGill University, Montreal) This may be why diseases that seem unrelated on the surface of it are all linked to vitamin D deficiency. These include asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis and psoriasis, among others. Vitamin D even makes us resistant to viruses, with studies showing people with high blood levels of D getting sick about half as much as those with low blood levels.


• Why You Need To Supplement With Vitamin D - If you are deficient in vitamin D and you sunbath properly you can make up to 10,000IU of vitamin D within a half an hour. What is available through diet is a small fraction of this. For example a cup of milk contains about 100IU of vitamin D (if it is not skim milk since the D resides in the fat) and an egg yolk provides about 25IU. Our best sources are from oily fish with sockeye salmon offering around 700IU per 4 oz serving and a serving of sardines providing about as much.


• Vitamin D and Depression - Dr. Abram Hoffer (a recently deceases psychiatrist who was a pioneer in the field of nutritional therapy) used to say that the reason a tropical holiday was so invigorating was mostly because of the high levels of vitamin D produced and its effect on one who is severely deficient in vitamin D. He routinely advised his patients (here in Canada) who suffered from depression in winter to take 10,000IU of vitamin D daily. For those with mild depression vitamin D can have a dramatic effect on improving the mood.


• Seniors Especially Need Vitamin D - Seniors are often particularly low in vitamin D, due to a combination of factors including often being housebound, not being comfortable sunbathing partially disrobed, and years of insufficient intake of vitamin D from food and supplements. Remember that up until recently the medical profession only recommended 400IU of vitamin D daily, and since their bar was set so low, their tests often assumed that these low levels found in the blood were adequate. Such a low level may be adequate to prevent osteoporosis but is clearly not enough to prevent cancer and the other ailments linked to D-deficiency.


• Newly Discovered Benefits of Vitamin D - New discoveries about the potential benefit of higher vitamin D levels are constantly being reported (or, in some cases, rediscovered as old, ignored studies resurface). The latest reported ailments that have some link to vitamin D deficiency include: autism; cataracts; cavities; celiac disease; Crohn’s disease; joint pain; juvenile diabetes; low energy; myopia; Parkinson’s disease; schizophrenia. One small study even showed a reduction in abdominal body fat (the most dangerous kind) in those taking the vitamin D supplements, compared to no loss for those on the placebo.


• Internal Rebuilding With Vitamin D - Because vitamin D is critical to building and maintaining our internal lining of mucosal membranes (along with its partner vitamin A, also commonly deficient in modern people) it is of great therapeutic benefit to use it in cases that involve a thinning of that lining. These include sinus problems, lung problems, food allergies (due to the thinning of the lining of the intestinal tract), intestinal problems (IBS, Crohn’s, colitis, etc) and even interstitial cystitis.


• The Best Way To Supplement With Vitamin D - Not all vitamin D supplements are equal. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble nutrient, and like all such nutrients (including vitamins A, E, K, COQ10, Omega 3’s, etc) is best absorbed when taken at a meal containing fat. Recent anecdotal information has shown that vitamin D tablets do not appear to elevate blood levels of vitamin D. In these cases the soft gel version (a capsule filled with a fatty liquid base for the D) did work to elevate blood levels. The drawback of the soft gels is that if you are taking higher levels you may have to swallow 5 to 10 capsules per day (the law limits dosage to 1,000IU per serving) at a fatty meal. The ideal supplemental form of vitamin D is in emulsified liquid form. At 1,000IU per drop this product is easy to use by just taking the required amount of drops all at once under the tongue, with no meal required for it to absorb.