The Most Important Health Discovery of This Decade.....

Every so often you run into something in life that blows your mind, its impact on you is exponential. The more you get involved and understand, the more you have a dramatic paradigm shift about what it means. 

That used to be motherhood for me, that transition and institution that rocks womens’ world with the ying and yang of explosive unparalleled love, ambivalence, frustration and joy.

But now, enter emerging evidence in the health care community that’s ready to explode across our universal consciousness, and if we ignore this we’ll be giving ourselves a big slap upside our head.

Enter Vitamin D.  

Next to our growing awareness of the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and that we're eating, stressing and sitting our way to early death, this is the biggest health news, in my opinion, since vaccinating against polio.

As a natural health writer I’m head deep into articles about what can heal without the use of side-effect ridden pharmaceuticals.  Six months ago I needed to run my annual blood work.  Because I’m a picky patient in search of the perfect female DO who will step outside her traditional med box; I’m impossible to please and maverick holistic DO’s aren’t around every corner in Orlando.

But I found a DO on my plan, who although not into complementary medicine, changed my life.  She recommended I get my vitamin D levels checked.

Like most people I don’t think much about D, figuring as a Floridian, a jogger and vitamin-popper who gets her dairy, why bother.

So when Dr. Nation suggested I check my D levels I almost laughed at the idea I’d be low in any supplement. My pee is already so neon yellow from my buffet of vitamins you’d think I’m hooked up to a Mountain Dew IV line.

 But then I thought about the fact that most doctors don’t generally check vitamin levels beyond iron. Dr. Nation obviously knew what the Vitamin D Council and D researchers have known for a decade. Vitamin D, D3 or cholecalciferol, targets 2,000 genes in the body. It’s involved as a co-factor or directly, in immune function, bone health, cancer (notably breast and colon among others), respiratory health, even autism.  

The list is long and jaw-dropping.

D deserves of a far bigger awareness platform than it's received to date.  But it’s time is coming. This vitamin, (actually a steroid hormone made in the skin via UV rays from the sun) is popping up in vitamin commercials and health newsletters everywhere.  

And it should. Because, wrap your head around this for a second: 

After measuring my vitamin D this mainstream doctor put me on (drum roll please) 100,000 mg a week.

You read it right, 100,000 mg a week to get me out of “D starvation.”  I never thought starvation and my name would exist in the same sentence but apparently people like me, with no obvious reason to be D deficient, can be.

Dr. Nation prescribed D2 (D3 is actually recommended but the script is available in D2) for six months. After six months I’ll re-test and supplement with a maintenance level of 5,000 mg per day if my levels are normal.

The current RDA for adults is between 200 and 600mg and 200 mg for children. The Vitamin D’s recommendation, and an increasing number of doctors', is dramatically higher.

Exact levels, explains Dr. Cannell the Director of the Vitamin D Council, are difficult to determine because requirements vary by age, body weight, percent of body fat, latitude, skin coloration, season of the year, use of sun block, individual variation in sun exposure, and how sick someone is.

“If you use suntan parlors once a week,” says Dr. Cannell, “or if you live in Florida and sunbathe once a week, year-round, do nothing.” However, if you receive very little UVB exposure the Council recommends the following dosing levels of D3:

• Health children under the age of 2 - 1,000 IU per day*
• Healthy children over the age of 2 - 2,000 IU per day*
• Adults and adolescents - 5,000 IU per day.
  Vitamin D test: 25(OH)D. Supplement to get levels between 50–80 ng/m

*The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 400 mg per day for children.

And don’t be afraid of the high numbers. We are sorely deficient, most of us.

To quote my friend’s father in law, a doctor who attended a conference in Toronto on vitamin D, “Don’t get caught up in the numbers.  The two most important health tips I’d tell a patient for their health? Quit smoking and get adequate D.”

This is big.

Don’t ignore the potential to prevent a myriad of diseases for yourself, your spouse, your kids. Find a doctor who is tapped into the importance of D, if yours isn't, find another.

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