I don't want to sound like a broken record but here is one of the cheapest forms of medicine that can do more for your health than you can imagine. For years vitamin d has been known for bone health when used with calcium. Well please, please read and understand that vitamin d can not only help with your bones but with many more conditions. The research is overwhelming to the efficacy of building your immune system. Research over the past two decades is now gone way beyond the norms of showing how powerful this one small supplement can improve your life. In many cases can it can save your life.
Females: Correct levels of Vitamin D can reduce breast cancer by 50%.
You may or may not know but I've been preaching about vitamin d for years once I learned about how powerful it really was. But I needed facts so I began taking vitamin d for myself taking 5,000 iu per day. After three months I had my blood tested and found out that I was still deficient and below the normal values of vitamin d. So I began taking 10,000 iu per day and found that was the trick and my values normalized.
Vitamin D deficiency is at epidemic proportions in the United States and many other regions around the world today, largely because people do not spend enough time in the sun to facilitate this important process of vitamin D production.
The best way to get your primary dose of vitamin d is to get exposed to the sun. You need to sun at least 40% of your body in direct sun light for period of time conducent to your skin type. If you are fair skin you will only need 15 to 20 min and you can continue to add time the darker complected you are. Even African-Americans need direct sun light because of the fact that all humans are designed to receive UVB spectrum of light. It's the UVB that is important to the production of vitamin d to your body.
So what happens if you live in an area like me that doesn't allow to absorb that type of light? There are two ways that can help you get the appropriate amount of sun light. If you live in the upper portion of the U.S. you won't be able to get UVB sun light that will provide the needed vitamin d. You have two alternatives:
1. Tanning Bed or Salon
2. Oral Supplementation
Yes, you heard that right a tanning bed that uses UVB bulbs is completely safe AS LONG AS YOU DON'T BURN! The key is that you get enough that your skin turns LIGHTLY pink. You can do this two to three times per week which will give you the vitamin d needed to boost your health.
Oral supplementation is good however not as effective as the upper two suggestions. But it still works pretty well if the other ways are out of the question. You need to take 8,000 iu per day and in about three to four months you need to have your vitamin d levels tested.
Occasional sunlight exposure to your face and hands is not sufficient for vitamin D nutrition for most people. To optimize your levels, you need to expose large portions of your skin to the sun, and you may need to do it for more than a few minutes. Ultraviolet light from the sun comes in two main wavelengths -- UVA and UVB. It's important for you to understand the difference between them, and your risk factors from each.
First there is UVB, the healthy wavelengths that help your skin produce vitamin D. Then there is UVA, which is generally considered the unhealthy wavelengths because they penetrate your skin more deeply and cause more free radical damage. Not only that, but UVA rays are quite constant during ALL hours of daylight, throughout the entire year -- unlike UVB, which are low in morning and evening, and high at midday.
So to use the sun to maximize your vitamin D production and minimize your risk of skin damage, the middle of the day (roughly between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.) is the best and safest time. During this UVB-intense period you will need the shortest sun exposure time to produce the most vitamin D.
Based on recent research published by Grassroots Health from the D*Action study, the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU's of vitamin D per day in order to elevate his or her levels above 40 ng/ml -- the bare minimum requirement necessary for disease prevention. Ideally, you'll want your levels to be between 50-70 ng/ml.
As Carole Baggerly, director and founder of Grassrootshealth.com, noted:
"We just published our very first paper. We have about 10 people in this study now that are taking 50,000 IU a day and they're not reaching a potential toxicity level of 200 ng/ml. It should be noted, however, that this is not a recommended intake level. The study reported data on about over 3,500 people.This means that even if you do not regularly monitor your vitamin D levels, your risk of overdosing is going to be fairly slim -- even if you take as much as 8,000 IU's a day. As an aside, there is evidence that the safety of vitamin D is dependent on vitamin K, and that vitamin D toxicity (although very rare with the D3 form) is actually aggravated by vitamin K2 deficiency.
… One very significant thing shown by this research was that even with taking the supplement, the curve for the increase in the vitamin D level is not linear. It is curvilinear and it flattens, which is why it's even hard to get toxic with a supplement."
My hope for you that you heed this advice and begin to get your Vit D in any form that is comfortable for you. The scientific evidence is overwhelming now to help you boost your immune system.
Dr. Malcolm Conway
www.conwayclinic.com
www.raisingeliteathletes.com
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