Vitamin D...are you getting enough?

Vitamin D..why you need to take it.

 I've been listening to a number of podcasts lately and the interesting thing that's come out of statistics concerning people who are hospitalized due to Covid-19 is that they have low levels of Vitamin D.

In a study done in a Spanish hospital in March it was found that eighty per cent of patients were low in this vitamin. That got my attention.

Vitamin D is not only an important vitamin for immune function it is also said to be a precursor to hormone production and regulation.  According to functional medicine doc Mark Hyman, "Vitamin D— isn’t even a vitamin, it’s a hormone synthesized in the skin from sun exposure, and activated in the liver and kidneys."

Since we live indoors and use sunscreen many of us are low in this important nutrient.

Your mother was right..take your cod-liver oil!

"If you live in a northern climate, you’re not getting enough sun (and therefore vitamin D), especially during winter. And you’re probably not eating enough of the few natural dietary sources of vitamin D: fatty wild fish like mackerel, herring, and cod liver oil.

 And then there's the ageing thing!

Plus, aging skin produces less vitamin D—the average 70 year-old person creates only 25percent of the vitamin D that a 20 year-old does. Skin color makes a difference, too. People with dark skin also produce less vitamin D. And I’ve seen very severe deficiencies in Orthodox Jews and Muslims who keep themselves covered all the time." Says Hyman.

It's especially important in the body's ability to utilize calcium. If you're a little long in the tooth like me you want to hold onto every molecule of calcium in your bones through diet, supplementation and of course the holy grail, which is weight bearing and resistance  exercise.

But Vitamin D on it's own isn't enough..like most things it needs other substances to help it be absorbed and do its' job. Vitamin K2 is one of those and if you are looking for a supplement you may want to combine D3 with K2.

I have a funky tummy and there are a lot of supplements that turn my stomach into a whirling dervish. It most likely is not the supplement, but instead the stuff that it is combined with. I have tried a couple of D3/K2 capsules and didn't tolerate them well so when I found this one which are drops at the grocery store I grabbed it and set about seeing if it was tolerable.

It has been so far.

It's worth doing your homework on this one. If you want to read Dr Hyman's blog on this one...here's the link

https://drhyman.com/blog/2010/08/24/vitamin-d-why-you-are-probably-not-getting-enough/