#1 Vitamin D DANGER You Absolutely Must Know!

Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to  talk about the number one vitamin D danger you must know. You can make a very strong case for  vitamin D being the number one deficiency in the world and not only that but it's of critical  importance and we're only just learning just how important it is in fact some people have said  that it's a biomarker of chronic disease and Frailty in other words looking at nothing else  like you only get one thing on the blood work and there's a very strong correlation between  your vitamin D status and how well you're doing overall so we're going to talk about a number of  critical steps that we all have to have in place in order for us to utilize vitamin D properly  and if you want to follow along and get a copy of these slides then there's a link down below so  that you can get that now when we're talking about What vitamin D does there there is a classic role  and a non-classic role so typically vitamin D is primarily associated with calcium phosphorus  and Bone about depositing getting vitamin D gets calcium into the bone so it can Harden and  make proper bone and this was found out in 1920 based on something called rickets if you have a  severe deficiency of vitamin D as you're growing up as your bones are growing and lengthening  you can't make hard bone and you get what's called osteomalacia Soft bones and they found  out that vitamin D was completely responsible for these soft bones and as soon as they provided  some vitamin D they solve the problem of rickets but that was only one thing that was the first  thing that found but it's only one thing of What vitamin D does so now we have learned more  about its non-classic role and this has to do with immune function about activating immune  cells regulating immune cells has to do with apoptosis the lifespan and the programmed cell  death of cells vitamin D is critically important to regulate inflammation so if vitamin D is low  inflammation goes up it is also involved with neurogenesis that means building new brain tissue  making new brain cells new brain connections as in repairing brain tissue after concussions maybe  but also in terms of learning new things you have to make new connections and vitamin D is critical  for that so here where there's some controversy that most of these non-classic roles we have  learned in the last 10 years not all of it but the vast majority that we know about vitamin D  we've learned in last 10 years to compare with the calcium stuff we found out over a hundred  years ago but some people are kind of stuck in this old thinking so when we ask if you're getting  enough vitamin D some people kind of argue that yeah you have enough vitamin D to make bone and  that may be true but the question then is do we have enough vitamin D for all these other critical  functions but important as this stuff is there's way way more so cell proliferation for example the  production and the maturation of cells the cell differentiation the ability of a cell to become  a bone cell or a heart cell or a liver cell or a brain cell that's all about differentiation and  about Gene stability the stability of your genetic makeup of your DNA so when this is working we have  healthy tissue now there's something called cancer and cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell  proliferation it is with poor cell differentiation and with genomic instability with those three  things in place as we could have with low vitamin D that is called cancer so especially malignant  bad cancer that is uncontrolled is associated with low vitamin D another thing that is becoming  rampant is autoimmune disease the most common one is for thyroid and we test thyroid antibodies on  all of our blood work and we find it probably in 20 30% of people there are thyroid antibodies but  not just thyroid there is rheumatoid arthritis there is lupus there is ankylosing spondylitis  there is psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis and the list goes on and on and on even type one  diabetes is an autoimmune disease that can be influenced by vitamin D and then we have all of  the neurodegenerative diseases the breakdown of nervous system tissue or insufficiency such as in  Parkinson's or Alzheimer's dementia we also have neuro psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia  and depression that are also influenced by vitamin D so I think you can begin to see just  how important it is that there's virtually no body function where vitamin D is not involved so  to call it important is an enormous understatement and just like we said before you could look at  Vitamin D as a single biomarker and get a pretty good idea of how healthy this person is and then  a good question is is the vitamin D a cause or result of the disease in other words are people  sick because they don't get enough vitamin D or is the vitamin D low because they're sick and  can't process it or utilize it properly and the answer is definitely both that if you're low in  Vitamin D it can call cause all sorts of problems and if you are sick you're not going to process  vitamin D as well so it kind of becomes a vicious cycle there so just how big of a problem is this  worldwide well officially you're called deficient if you are below 20 nano-grams per deciliter on  a blood test and that's about 42 to 97% of the world's population depending on different regions  depending on the country so in some countries where they fortify and they supplement the food  more they can be as low as 40 but there's still 40% of the population in those places that are  less than 20 nano-grams which is disastrously low and in some areas especially in the Middle  East you can find as much as 97% of people being deficient and then someone said well that can't be  right that many people can't possibly be deficient so they tried to kind of change the guidelines a  little bit and they said well you know we found that even at 12.

5 nano-grams most people still  mineralize bone pretty well but see now they're back into that classic role where they're mostly  concerned with whether you can put calcium in the bone or not they're not really addressing the  bigger picture either way even 20 nano-grams is way way too low and then the next level up they're  not calling you deficient just insufficient and that is when you're below 30 nano-grams per  deciliter but like I hinted a lot of these numbers are mostly concerned with the classic role  are we able to mineralize Bone so the question is what's really optimal if we really want the  full benefit for hundreds and hundreds of these critical functions how high do we really need to  be so we're going to talk you through a few steps where you can start understanding that a little  bit better so I'm going to tell you a little story about the steps necessary for utilizing vitamin D  so classically the idea is that we are out in the sun and we get sunlight and as our skin is exposed  to the UV radiation now we make vitamin D in the skin and all should be well but most people would  agree today that what we can produce via the skin is just not enough today because there's so many  different factors that can interfere and one for example is air pollution that because of the  extensive amount of air pollution we're not making vitamin D the way we used to another thing  is that if you rent around naked in the sun all day long you'd probably be okay but I have noticed  most people tend to wear clothes and they tend to spend quite a bit of time indoors and and also  pigmentation the darker your skin the more you kind of repel that UV radiation so the darker your  skin the less you can convert and make vitamin D latitude if you live really far from or quite far  from the equator you also don't get as much sun or not the same intensity of sun uh the intensity  will change with the season and the time of day if you're most F out in the sun like toward the  end of the day then the sun isn't strong enough to really convert a lot either then as we age the  conversion goes down further and then there's all these different conditions like insulin resistance  which 80% of the population has to some degree where they eat too many carbohydrates and too much  sugar and the insulin stops working properly it's not enough so we have to make more insulin and we  be become insulin resistant that also interferes with vitamin D production so for most people  the only realistic alternative is to get vitamin D also through diet and or supplementation and  whether we get it through diet or supplementation now of course we have to absorb it and in terms of  diet there's very very few dietary sources really it's a few animal products the only Rich product  really is is cod liver oil and cod liver pate if you eat those on a regular basis and the other  one would be irradiated mushrooms that's a pretty strong source so mushrooms that have been exposed  to UV light there's a little bit in various animal products and animal fats like butter and cream  and animal fats and eggs but not really enough so supplementation is really the only practical  and reasonable way for most people to get their vitamin D on a daily basis so now when we eat it  as food or a supplement of course it gets into the stomach and we have to break it down and in  order to break it down we need digestive enzymes to break down our food and because vitamin D is  a fat soluble vitamin we also need to eat it with fat if you eat a very low fat diet and you don't  release enough bile for example you're not going to break down and make use of that vitamin D very  well in fact they found that by eating a vitamin D supplement with the biggest meal of the day you  could increase absorption by 50% because it's absorbed as part of food as part of fat and if you  have a bigger meal then there's going to be more digestive enzymes and a more involved absorption  process for that but then the vitamin D has to be transported so just because it got in your stomach  and you managed to absorb it and even get it into the bloodstream it still doesn't do you any  good and there is something called a vitamin D binding protein VDBP for short and if that  protein is is low that means that there's less vitamin D activity because virtually no vitamin D  is floating around by itself it's all carried to where it needs to go by this VDBP so not only  do you need to have enough vitamin D you also need to have enough of this protein and if you  don't for example they have found an increased risk of malignant tumors especially as it relates  to breast cancer prostate cancer and colorectal cancer and there is a strong association with  these Cancers and a low VDBP and then of course if you don't have enough of the protein it's  still going to help to take more vitamin D so that you can saturate it better so that there's  more available and in fact I found that in a group of people just taking 1,00 international  units per day which still isn't a whole lot they reduce the risk of this cancer by 60 to 77% but  the binding protein also isn't enough it can only transport it but now we need to get it into  the cell so we have all these different steps that build on each other and the next is like  I mentioned to get it into the cell and now we have something called a vitamin D receptor so The  Binding protein is going to take this Vitamin D from the bloodstream or from the skin and take it  to its Target organ and now we have these little receptors on the surface of the cell and only  if those VDR receptors are working can we get the vitamin D in and express that biological  function and these vitamin D receptors are basically on every cell in the body but they're  more highly expressed where the vitamin D is the most important and these would be places like your  kidney cells your immune cells your bone cells but also in special places in your nervous system  a lot of different places but among others the substantia nigra which is associated with making  dopamine and Parkinson so if you have low vitamin D you can't really get the full activity out of  your substantia nigra your dopamine goes down and you're at increased risk for Parkinson.  Hypothalamus is an area that regulates your hormones and your hunger and your thirst and  temperature and so forth so now when these areas don't work now we have neuro-psychiatric  effects like schizophrenia depression we have neuro-cognitive like Parkinson's and various  motor disorders and dementia and we even have a lot of different endocrine disorders and hormone  imbalances even diabetes has a very strong link to vitamin D and they link it specifically to  this vitamin D receptor both type one and type two diabetes so when vitamin D is low now there is  less insulin release we produce less so we can't manage blood glucose as well but the main thing  of course leading to diabetes to type two is in insulin resistance when we have a lot of vitamin  D then insulin resistance goes down when vitamin D is low insulin resistance goes up and when our  immune system is down if vitamin D is low immune regulation goes down now we have less defenses  against type 1 diabetes which is an autoimmune disease and that brings us to co-actors so we can  go through all these different steps we can get the vitamin D into the cell but we still can't  necessarily have vitamin D activity at least not all of it because most nutrients most enzymes  and co-actors they work together with other things and the number one co-actor to help you process  vitamin D is going to be healthy foods rich whole healthy foods that are grown the right way and  cooked the right way provide more nutrients more co-actors than anything else possibly could if you  eat processed food and a bunch of sugar now you're missing a little bit of everything the number  two thing is exercise believe it or not because exercise optimizes the function it activates every  cell in your body it allows it to live up to its potential if you will now first and third place is  is adequate vitamin D intake so whether you get it from the Sun or whether you need to supplement uh  obviously you have to get enough vitamin D one way or the other number four is magnesium magnesium  participates in hundreds of different chemical reactions and Pathways in the body and it is the  most important co- factor for vitamin D to do its thing number five is omega-3 fatty acids the EPA  and the DHA they are also essential for activating and transporting vitamin D number six is zinc  if you haven't noticed yet zinc tends to show up in all sorts of places number seven is boron  which is another essential mineral and number eight is vitamin K2 now some people need to add  that as a supplement some people can manufacture it through the gut and we do get some through  food as well a lot of times it is recommended that you get your vitamin D3 in combination with  a vitamin K2 I haven't found that to be optimal most of the time I find that a lot of people need  to start with vitamin D3 and do that for maybe 3 to six months and then maybe for some of them to  start adding adding in vitamin K2 but how much vitamin D do you need to take we've pretty much  concluded that most people should supplement but how much so the basic recommendation is that you  should get at least 600 IU's per day international units and if you're over the age of 60 or so you  should get 800 IU's now if you're in a different part of the world sometimes they measure this in  micro-grams and then you divide the international units by 40 to come up with the micro-grams and  some nutrition labels will have both the standard guidelines also say that 2,000 IU's is the max  that you should ever get now here's the problem that for a lot of people that is not going to  be enough that 2,000 IU's might be okay for some people and it's a lot of genetic factors  it's about sun exposure Etc but 2,000 IU's is not going to be enough for most people 5,000 is  going to be okay for a lot of people but we also have a lot of people in the clinic taking 5,000  IU's and they're still deficient on their blood work even after months of taking that and we test  vitamin D on everyone in the clinic some people take 10,000 and it is probably too much for most  people so in the clinic we find that the majority of people probably Center in around 5,000 IU's if  they take 10,000 that if they're really deficient we probably put them on 10,000 for a month or  two but in the long run 10,000 is going to put you over it's going to put you into Vitamin  D toxicity which is also something that you really don't want so here's the thing because  there's so many variables so much individual variability and so many factors to weigh in you  really don't know unless you measure you got to get a blood test and you got to get the level so  next time you do blood work you have to either order it or insist that they they put it on there  and once you get your results back from the blood levels what are we talking about about what should  a good level be well less than 20 nano-grams is like we said it's deficient it is much under it's  in the Red Zone basically and if you're in the US typically they're going to measure nano-grams  per deciliter if you're in other parts of the world they might measure in nano-moles per liter  and the way to get from one to the other is you multiply the nano-grams by 2.