Extraordinary New Research on Vitamin D

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Health & Nutrition Newsletter Vol. 107 Issue 9 A

Extraordinary New Research on VitaminD 9 September 2007

 

Health Freedom Resources

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1. What Harvard Studies and Other Research Found

> From the University of Michigan Health Service

> From the American Heart Association

From Creighton University School of Medicine.

 

2. Vitamin D Basics

3. Food Sources of Vitamin D3

4. More about Vitamin D from Sunlight

5. Some Other Factors Influencing Vitamin D Production

6. How Much Vitamin D Do You Need? And What About Toxicity?

7. How to Be Safer - Minerals, Oils and Vitamin D

8. Our Recommendations

 

Extraordinary New Research about Vitamin D, The Most Powerful Health

Preventative

 

We promised you a comprehensive article about Vitamin D, the powerful disease

preventative.

 

It's been all over the media lately. The worst diseases of civilization - all

the major degenerative diseases: cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, also

multiple sclerosis, and osteoporosis, the disease of women and the elderly, -

all have something in common. They are in some way related to inappropriate

calcium activity in the body. And they can be prevented by the same vitamin -

Vitamin D, and it's free!

 

We've seen this over and over again recently in magazines, newsletters, the

newspaper: Vitamin D can prevent the major degenerative diseases of our time:

cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis, and

possiblyalso atherosclerosis, the accumulation of cholesterol and fat in the

walls of arteries.

 

What is this based on? Where did it come from? Here are some sources of the

studies -

 

 

From the Harvard School of Public Health:

 

" A study of people admitted to a Boston hospital, for example, showed that

57% were deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D helps ensure that the body absorbs

and retains calcium and phosphorus, both critical for building bone. Laboratory

studies also show that vitamin D keeps cancer cells from growing and dividing.

 

" Some preliminary studies indicate that insufficient intake of vitamin D is

associated with an increased risk of fractures, and that vitamin D

supplementation may prevent them. Other early studies suggest an association

between low

vitamin D intake and increased risks of prostate, breast, colon, and other

cancers. "

 

From the University of Michigan Health Service:

 

" Researchers at the University of Michigan Health System are finding this

often ignored bone-building vitamin can play a significant role in the

prevention

of heart disease and the function of other critical body systems. And getting

enough vitamin D in your system is as easy as getting a little bit of sun.

 

" Vitamin D is very important for our bodies, and we're finding out more all

the time, " says Robert Simpson, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology in the

University of Michigan Medical School. " Vitamin D is now recognized to play a

role in

heart disease. We're finding vitamin D affects the heart's pumping ability

and the heart cells' structure, and it's important for prevention of many of the

symptoms in animals that humans with heart failure experience. "

 

" Simpson hopes to take advantage of this new knowledge to discover useful

drugs.

 

" Traditionally, the role of vitamin D, which we can get through direct

sunlight, has been understood as helping the body absorb calcium and

contributing to

strong bones. Without enough vitamin D, bones can become thin, brittle, soft

or misshapen, and deficits of D can cause rickets in children.

 

" Researchers now recognize that vitamin D does more than strengthen bones. It

also affects immune function, the ability to make insulin, cancer cell

growth, skeletal muscle and heart function. " May, 2004

 

From the American Heart Association's Asia Pacific Scientific Forum,

 

" Vitamin D gets an A+ for treating heart disease. Women over age 65 who took

vitamin D had nearly one-third less risk of dying from heart disease as women

who did not take the supplements, according to research presented today at the

American Heart Association's Asia Pacific Scientific Forum meeting today.

 

" Low blood levels of certain forms of vitamin D have been associated with

increased risk of heart attacks..., " says Paul D. Varosy, M.D., a fellow in

cardiology and medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and the

San Francisco VA Medical Center.

 

" The researchers studied 9,704 women ages 65 and older enrolled in the Study

of Osteoporotic Fractures. ... During an average follow-up period of nearly 11

years, 420 of the women died of coronary heart disease. Women who used

vitamin D supplements had 31 percent less risk of heart disease death than those

who

did not take the supplements. "

 

" In short, the benefits we observed seemed due to vitamin D and not due to

calcium, " Varosy says. He says that vitamin D, which is both a hormone and a

vitamin, is one of the most important regulators of calcium absorption in the

body.

 

" Atherosclerosis, the accumulation of cholesterol and fat in the walls of

arteries, is often associated with calcification, the buildup of the mineral

calcium in the arteries.

 

" A lot of evidence suggests that calcification in the arteries is very

similar to the calcification process that occurs in bone, " he says.

 

Earlier studies had suggested that low blood levels of vitamin D might play a

role in the calcification that may contribute to heart disease. In addition,

co-author Warren S. Browner, M.D., was among the first to observe that women

with osteoporosis are more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases than women

without osteoporosis.

 

" In fact, women with osteoporosis tend to have more calcium in the walls of

their arteries than women with normal bones, " Varosy says. " There is still no

clear explanation for the associations, but it is a promising area of research.

It is possible that the same hormonal processes that lead to calcium loss

from bones may somehow lead to accumulation of calcium in atherosclerotic

plaques. "

 

From Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska:

 

" Most Americans and others are not taking enough vitamin D, a fact that may

put them at significant risk for developing cancer, according to a landmark

study conducted by Creighton University School of Medicine....The results of the

study, conducted between 2000 and 2005, were reported in the June 8 online

edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

 

" The findings are very exciting. They confirm what a number of vitamin D

proponents have suspected for some time but that, until now, have not been

substantiated through clinical trial, " said principal investigator Joan Lappe,

Ph.D.,

R.N., Creighton professor of medicine and holder of the Criss/Beirne Endowed

Chair in the School of Nursing. " Vitamin D is a critical tool in fighting

cancer as well as many other diseases. "

 

" Research participants were all 55 years and older and free of known cancers

for at least 10 years prior to entering the Creighton study. Subjects were

randomly assigned to take daily dosages of 1,400-1,500 mg supplemental calcium,

1,400-1,500 mg supplemental calcium plus 1,100 IU of vitamin D3, or placebos.

National Institutes of Health funded the study.

 

" Over the course of four years, women in the calcium/vitamin D3 group

experienced a 60 percent decrease in their cancer risk than the group taking

placebos.

 

" In the three-year analysis, there was no ... significant difference in

cancer incidence between participants taking placebos and those taking just

calcium

supplements. " [Taking calcium alone did not prevent cancer.]

 

" There is a growing body of evidence that a higher intake of vitamin D may be

helpful in the prevention and treatment of cancer, high blood pressure,

fibromyalgia, diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis

and

other diseases.

 

" In addition, the latitude at which you live and your ancestry also influence

your body's ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D. People with dark skin

have more difficulty making the vitamin. Persons living at latitudes north of

the 37th parallel -- Omaha is near the 41st parallel -- cannot get their

vitamin D naturally during the winter months because of the sun's angle. Experts

generally agree that the RDA** for vitamin D needs to be increased

substantially, however there is debate about the amount. Supplements are

available in two

forms -- vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Creighton researchers recommend vitamin

D3, because it is more active and thus more effective in humans. "

 

Vitamin D Basics

 

Vitamin D is actually a pre-cursor vitamin substance which forms in the human

body when ultraviolet sunlight acts on cholesterol contained in oils on the

skin. This first substance is carried by fats through the blood and converted

by the liver, and then by kidneys, into a fully active hormone, calcitriol,

which controls calcium utilization. Calcium controls innumerable processes in

the

human body including activities of the muscles, bones and glands, and also

regulates the production of many enzymes, hormones, and neurotransmitters in the

nerve and brain cells.

 

Vitamin D operates with a complex of nutritional factors and compounds,

including vitamin C; hormones, collagen, and the minerals calcium, phosphorus,

magnesium, and flouride. It also helps raise blood concentrations calcium and

phosphorus by stimulating their absorption from the gastrointestinal tract;

withdrawing calcium from bones into the blood; and by stimulating the retention

of

calcium by the kidneys.

 

Dr. Michael Hollick, who discovered activated vitamin D, showed that other

cells in the body can also make the conversion from vitamin to hormone, but that

those cells use their active hormone themselves, and that it is only the

kidney which makes enough of the hormone, calcitriol, to pass on to the rest of

the body.

 

There are two main forms of the Vitamin D found in nature: Vitamin D2 and D3.

 

Vitamin D2, called ergocalciferol, is formed in yeast, fungi, and algae by

action of sunlight. D2 is the form used in many supplements, and most

prescription vitamins. Yeast or plants are irradiated with UV-B to produce

ergocalciferol in the laboratory or factory.

 

Vitamin D3, called cholecalciferol, is the animal form, which is synthesized

in human skin when light energy from ultraviolet B rays is absorbed by fats in

the skin. Interesting that we, humans, as well as plants, can make a

substance necessary for life from sunlight! It can be found in some

over-the-counter

supplements, usually derived from fish or other animal sources, and has a

longer shelf life than the D2 supplement.

 

Once either form of the vitamin is in your body, it needs to be converted to

the more active hormone form. Vitamin D3 is converted 500 percent faster than

vitamin D2. Vitamin D2 is not as effective as D3 in maintaining blood

concentrations of Vtamin D. Its metabolites bind with protein poorly, and it is

more

rapidly broken down in the body, forming metabolites not normally found when D3

is metabolized.

 

Standard multivitamin supplements supply 400 IU of vitamin D, considered a

low-end amount. The catch is, the vitamin D may be either D2 or D3, and 400 IU

of D2 is far less potent than the same amount of D3.

 

Vitamin D3 supplements are recognized to be 60 - 80 % more effective than

Vitamin D2. To know if a supplement contains Vitamin D2 or D3, you must look for

these names in the ingredients. D2 is called ergocalciferol, and D3 is called

cholecalciferol.

 

So why isn't the Vitamin D3 form always used as a supplement?

A Pediatric Dietitian from the Children's National Medical Center wrote:

" We use ergocalciferol for practical reasons: ... To our knowledge,

Cholecalciferol is not available as a single pharmacologic agent in U.S.; it can

be

ordered online in doses less than we would prescribe and will therefore not be

covered by insurance. We do not feel it is appropriate to recommend a supplement

to our patients that can not be found in a maintstream pharmacy as a

prescription. "

 

More about VItamin D from Sunlight

 

Regarding natural production of Vitamin D from sunlight, UV-A and UV-B (refer

to different wavelengths in the light spectrum) are two kinds of radiation in

sunlight. . UV-A causes tanning. While both are responsible for aging of the

skin, wrinkles, and sunburn, UV-B is the type mainly responsible for sunburn,

and it is the only type of ray that produces Vitamin D in the body. UV-B light

will convert cholesterol oils in the skin to Vitamin D before the skin turns

pink or burns, so you need not and should not stay in the sun long enough to

burn.

 

It is very difficult to judge how much Vitamin D will be synthesized by a

person. The amount of Vitamin D produced in the body by sunshine varies

considerably from location to location . Researchers say locations north of

about 30

degrees north latitude do not get enough sunlight during 4-6 months of the year

to produce adequate Vitamin D. Also, clouds, pollutants and glass windows

block UV-B rays. Altitude affects the amount of ultraviolet radiation that

reaches

you too -- the higher up you are the more UV-B reaches you. The angle of the

sun during different times of day also matters: in most of North America and

all of Europe, UB-V rays are present in sufficient quantity between the hours

of 10 am and 2 pm , so contrary to popular advice, the best time to be in the

sun is around mid-day. You will not get enough UV-B in the early morning or

later in the day to make Vitamin D.

 

Sunscreen blocks UB-V from penetrating the skin, so sunscreen prevents the

production of Vitamin D.

 

However, UV-B does not penetrate very deeply into your skin. The darker the

pigmentation or more tanned your skin, the less UV-B penetrates. Tanning

protects the skin from penetration of UV-B rays. So people who are tanned can

stay

in the sun longer before burning - but they also must stay in the sun longer as

they become darker in order to produce enough Vitamin D.

 

After the body has produced a quantity of Vitamin D, the UV rays begin to

degrade any sxcess D synthesized on the skin. An equilibrium is reached and the

body does not overproduce Vitamin D. Tanning is also a natural protection

against too much Vitamin D production in the skin. So increasingly more is not

better in terms of sun exposure - don't go for deep tans or burns; you just need

enough.

 

Genetics accounts for some difference in Vitamin D synthesis, too. People who

are naturally darker-skinned must get much more sunlight than lighter-skinned

people in order to produce enough Vitamin D. This is a natural protection and

balancing act of the human body:

 

Darker Skin = able to stay in sun longer and in more intense direct sunlight,

like tropical areas, before UV-B penetrates = but must get more time in the

sun to produce enough Vitamin D. Dark-skinned people living in northern areas

(much of the USA and all of Europe) usually don't get enough UV-B. In Texas

there has been an increase in the number of children with black and Hispanic

parents suffering from rickets. Statistics show epidemic rates of prostrate

cancer

in black men in the USA which may be attributable to deficiency of

sunlight/Vitamin D.

 

Lighter Skin = skin will produce Vitamin D more quickly = adapted to higher

latitudes where sunlight is less available and UV-B is less because of the

angle of sun = have to supplement during winter dark months. Peoples living in

arctic lands traditionally ate Vitamin D-rich animal foods, such as fatty fish

and the fresh livers of seals, polar bears, and other hunted animals, in order

to get enough D in the long dark winters.

 

Occasional exposure of the face and hands to sunlight can provide 200-400 IU

Vitamin D on pale skin on days when appropriate sunlight is available (midday

during mid-April to August in locations above 30 degree latitude), but for

most of us, this is an inadequate exposure, and a much larger skin area needs to

be exposed to the sun. Almost all people in modern society have difficulty

getting enough sunlight to make adequate Vitamin D because little time is spent

outdoors, because sunscreen is used to block the skin, and because clothing

covers most of the body much of the time.

 

Aging:

The ability to produce Vitamin D in the skin decreases with age, and the

kidneys become less able to convert vitamin D to its active hormone form.The

elderly are also more likely to stay indoors or use sunscreen. In fact

istitutionalized adults are at extremely high risk of vitamin D deficiency. The

result is

corresponding high risk of loss of bone strength, liabilty to falls, and

lessened immune function, as well as increased risk of all the degenerative

diseases related to Vitamin D deficiency.

 

A last point is that Vitamin D is the only nutrient that breast fed babies

lack in sufficient quantity in their milk. Even if the mother has enough from

sunshine and food, the baby will not receive enough through the milk, so it must

also have exposure to sunlight. You might wonder why the most perfect food on

the planet for humans, human breast milk, is " deficient " in vitamin D. The

answer is that Vitamin D is NOT a vitamin but a steroid hormone precursor.

Babies getting enough natural fat and enough sunshine will produce what they

need

right in their bodies.

 

If a baby is not exposed to sunshine, Vitamin D supplementation will be

needed, The darker the skin of the baby the more sun exposure will be required

for

the baby to generate enough vitamin D. Less than optimal bone development and

other problems will occur without adequate vitamin D. Typically parents are so

concerned about calcium for proper bone growth and health, but in most cases

the vitamin D is far more important.

 

Some Other Factors Influencing VItamin D Production:

 

Vitamin D synthesized and activation requires fatty acids in the diet and in

the body. Vitamin D cannot be utilized if there are no usable fatty acids on

the skin or if there is an inadequate supply of fatty acids to carry it through

the body. Vitamin D, whether from sunlight or food or supplements, cannot be

absorbed or activated without fats. You must eat sufficient quantities of

healthy fats to maintain an adequate supply of all of the fat-soluable vitamins

your body needs, not just Vitamin D.

 

Also it is recommended that you do not shower right before or right after

being in the sun as it washes away the oils that Vitamin D forms in. Wait at

least a half hour to an hour afterwards, if you spend only a short time in the

sun.

 

Certain medical conditions cause a reduction in the ability to absorb dietary

fat, such as pancreatic enzyme deficiency, Crohn's disease, celiac sprue,

cystic fibrosis, gall bladder disease, and liver disease, These impair Vitamin D

synthesis.

 

Obesity is also associated with vitamin D deficiency. Since vitamin D is

fat-soluble, it can be taken into fat cells and stored, making it less available

in the body's metabolism. Vitamin D production may also be reduced in obese

individuals. For example, in one study, when normal and obese subjects were

exposed to the same amount of radiation from natural sunlight, obese subjects

only

produced 55% the amount of vitamin D as normal weight subjects.

 

Diseases that affect the parathyroid gland, liver and/or kidneys impair the

synthesis of the active form of vitamin D. People with these diseases should

not supplement wioth Vitamin D as severe problems could result.

 

There are also medications that affect vitamin D utlization, and information

on these may be found in books and webpages on drug-nutrient interactions.

 

Food Sources of Vitamin D3

 

The best source of food vitamin D is cold-water ocean fatty fish, such as

salmon, mackerel, shrimp, and sardines. But not if not farm-raised - and you

have

to eat the fat in and under the skin or around tail and fins. Wild salmon and

shrimp eat algae and plankton for their own source of Vitamin D. So skinless

fillets or farm-raised salmon and shrimp which are fed with pellets will NOT

increase your Vitamin D supply!

 

Cod liver oil is an excellent source of Vitamin D. Be sure to check for

purity and rancidity (it tastes very fishy when rancid).

 

Egg yolks, codfish, beef liver also have smaller amounts of vitamin D.

Grass-fed, pasture-fed animals have much higher levels of Vitamin D than

grain-fed

or soymeal-fed animals. Milk, cream and cheese from grass-fed, pasture-raised

cows can provide a significant amount of Vitamin D. Grass-fed, pasture-raised

chickens have deep orange yolks with much more Vitamin A & D than most

chickens, even those so-called free-range chickens which are fed grains and meal

in a

dirt yard.

 

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need? And What About Toxicity?

 

That is the 1,000 Dollar Question.

The government has been recommending 400 I.U. of Vitamin D for years, so this

is the amount put in fortified milk and multiple-vitamin supplements. But now

many, many studies have found widespread deficiencies in our population, and

that higher levels of Vitamin D are needed to prevent from major degenerative

diseases.

 

A few years ago, doses as high as 4,000 I.U. were often recommended, based on

therapeutic levels of Vitamin D used in short studies. The figure of 10,000

I.U. was even talked about, because that is the amount that sunlight can

produce in 30 minutes in a healthy naked individual at noon in tropical Africa,

the

assumed birthplace of humankind. However, a couple of years later, after

numbers of people experimented with these levels using supplements or a

combination

of sources, news of high toxicity came out.

 

The National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplementation on their

website says this about Vitamin D toxicity:

 

" Vitamin D toxicity can cause nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, constipation,

weakness, and weight loss . It can also raise blood levels of calcium, causing

mental changes such as confusion. High blood levels of calcium also can cause

heart rhythm abnormalities. Deposits of calcium and phosphate in the body's

soft tissues such as the kidney, can also be caused by vitamin D toxicity. "

 

" Sun exposure is unlikely to result in vitamin D toxicity. Diet is also

unlikely to cause vitamin D toxicity, unless large amounts of cod liver oil are

consumed. Vitamin D toxicity is much more likely to occur from high intakes of

vitamin D in supplements. "

 

The Office of Dietary Supplementation's low end recommendation of Daily Value

for Vitamin D is 200 IU for children, 400 IU for adults and 600 IU for the

elderly. But this Daily Value, is based on Recommended Daily Intake, RDI, that

has an expection of satisfying only 50% of nutritional needs of people in each

age group.

 

The National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplementation,

recognizes the difficulty in determining how much active Vitamin D a person

produces.

Because there is such a wide variation in factors affecting it: location,

season, time of day, weather, age, health, amount of skin color present from

genetics or from tanning, they can't actually say how much Vitamin D anyone or

any

age group produces on average from sunlight . - - So they ignored that in

their calculations! They base their " safe amount of supplement to take " on the

idea that supplements are your ONLY source of Vitamin D - no other sources being

counted - which isn't true for most people! So when they calculated the

maximum amount Vitamin D supplement that is safe to take, they assumed that NO

VITAMIN D WAS BEING MADE FROM SUNLIGHT AT ALL! With that in mind, here is what

they came up with: " The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine

has set the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin D at 1,000 IU for infants

up to 12 months of age and 2,000 IU for children, adults, pregnant, and

lactating women . " Remember, this upper level of " safety " (to avoid toxicity)

assumes

the person is getting NO VITAMIN D FROM SUNLIGHT OR FOOD. So you must lower

the amount of Vitamin D supplements according to what you are getting from

sunlight and food. No way to know? Right! Get a blood test - the only reliable

way

to find out.

 

Are you starting to get the idea that it is nearly impossible to know

accurately how much active Vitamin D you are actually producing? If so, you are

right! The only reliable way currently to determine how much Vitamin D is active

in

the body is by blood test, which can be ordered by a medical doctor or a

clinical nutritionist.

 

We feel it is so important to stress this point to you because we know

trustworthy health consultants who experimented with higher doses of Vitamin D

from

sunlight plus foods plus supplementation and who suffered TOXICITY. Since

Vitamin D is stored in the body fat, it takes time to reverse toxicity and any

damage to the body.

 

How to Be Safer - Minerals, Oils and Vitamin D

 

When people increase their Vitamin D to good functioning level, they run

smack into the second greatest deficiencies of modern man: minerals and good

fatty

acids.

 

The active D hormone must use calcium and its partner magnesium, which many

people are already not getting enough of. So deficiency diseases of calcium and

magnesium are exacerbated by the increase of Vitamin D which requires use of

those minerals! Also trace minerals are required, and the full complement of

minerals that which are missing from our foods and poor modern soils. Most

people in our society have mineral deficiencies, since we do not have the

heavily

mineralized soils and water which we once had.

 

So when you increase your Vitamin D to have well-functioning body, you must

also increase your mineral intake by some means. Just taking supplements to

improve your health can backfire, because you can often cause a deficiency of

other nutrients that are needed to work together with the ones you are taking.

Your body needs all the nutrients to work together to create good health. That

is why we recommend to increase your nutrition as much as possible through pure

whole properly grown foods - then supplement with whole food supplements when

more of a boost to normal function is needed over a short period.

 

Good fatty acids are also needed in order to use VItamin D, a fat-soluable

vitamin and hormone. Omega-3 fatty acids are the ones we are most. lacking. On

the other hand, a deficiency of omega-6 is extremely rare in diets of those

living in North America. In fact, we are eating far too much omega-6 fatty

acids.

Although some are essential, the ratio we eat is far out of balance: we eat

several times too much omega-6 (vegetable oils, muscle meat fats) compared to

omega-3s (fatty fish, real raw dairy, organ meats). A healthy diet should

consist of roughly one omega-3 fatty acids to four omega-6 fatty acids. A

typical

American diet, however, tends to contain 11 to 30 times more omega-6 than

omega-3 fatty acids. In tryng to stay away from adulterated meat and dairy, we

have

cut our sources of good omega-3 fats, so we are less able to utilize the

fat-soluable vitamins and minerals - including Vitamin D!

 

Omega-3 oils reduce the tendency to sunburn. People who increase omega-3 oils

can stay in the sun longer before burning, and can produce more Vitamin D. On

the other hand, skin cancer has been largely related to the over abundance of

omega-6 oils that we eat. When sunlight hits these fats it can convert them

to cancer-causing molecules. And if one is not healthy, these cells then can

develop into cancer.

 

In 2000, a study was done which was published and is available from the

National Library of Health and National Institutes of Health, a comprehensive

review showing that the omega-3:6 ratio was the key to preventing skin cancer

development. From the study: " Epidemiological, experimental, and mechanistic

data

implicate omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids as stimulators and long-chain

omega-3s as inhibitors of development and progression of a range of human

cancers, including melanoma. " The cancerous transformation doesn't happen with

omega-3 fats. So, changing the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 oils in your diet is

one

the keys to preventing skin cancer. The best sources of omega-3 fat are fatty

fish, cod liver oil, and grass- fed animal foods.

 

You may have heard of studies done of Swiss, Peruvian, Eskimo and South Sea

Island peoples who lived far back away from modern civilization and its diets -

and who enjoyed excellent health from their natural diets. These peoples all

had much higher amounts than we do of Vitamin D through sunlight and/or fatty

foods, including fish, coconut, grass-fed milk, cream, cheese and butter, and

animal organs high in fats and fat-soluable vitamins. Good fats were essential

parts of the primitive diet. Most also had heavily mineralized soils or

waters, with much higher levels of calcium and other minerals. Traditional

methods

of food preparation preserved these nutrients and enhanced them with fermented

plants or animal foods that added beneficial bacteria which also contributed

to their incredible health.

 

Once last point: Traditional cultures, even earlier American culture, often

used Cod liver oil for its rich Vitamin A and D content. These fat-soluable

vitamins work together, and are often found together in foods (egg yolks is

another example). But each has its own toxicity level. Add cod liver oil to your

diets, especially in northern latitudes, but don't expect that to be your only

source of Vitamin D. You should also seek Vitamin D from other natural sources

like sunlight, and enough Omega-3 fatty acids and minerals to ensure your body

has balanced nutrition to function properly. Use natural food sources

whenever possible to get the natural co-factors.

 

Our Recommendations

 

1. Sunlight Is Your Ideal Source of Vitamin D. Get more sunlight during the

best time of day: around noon. Plan to go outside at lunchtime. Arrange

exercise, gardening , walking, sunning, as many outdoor activities as you can

that

will get you outside in the sun. Get in the sun with as much skin exposure as

possible for approx 20 to 40 minutes daily (or 3-6 times longer for pigmented

skin), between at least the hours of 10 am and 2 pm.. Don't use sunscreen; buy a

light cover-up to put over shoulders or other areas when you feel as though

you might start to burn. Sunlight is very healthy for the endocrine system too;

you need to allow your eyes to have some natural light as well. Enjoy the

sunlight and extroverting space!

 

2. Continue to educate yourself: find out more about Vitamin D and your

health. Read all of our article above again to understand the information. Read

other articles and websites to keep yourself informed about research on Vitamin

D. Check around when you find conflicting information and try to sort it out.

(There is a lot of it on this subject!)

Find out when (seasons and time of day) UB-V rays are sufficient to penetrate

the skin at your latitude. .

~For serious readers and researchers, read the original book Nutrition and

Phyarsical Degeneration by Dr. Weston A. Price, D.D.S. , the dentist who

traveled the eth to find how people with perfect teeth and health lived and what

they

ate.

~You can look into this and other books on our website at Health Freeedom

Resources Book Store.

 

3. Get more Vitamin D and Omega-3 fatty acids through foods rich in these

nutrients. Look for vegetable and clean animal foods with these healthy fats.

Some suggestions are wild salmon and shrimp, grass-fed beef liver, raw milk and

cream, pasture-raised chicken eggs. This may be a shock for some of you who are

vegan/vegetarians. You will have to go where your conscience leads you, but

research foods that will provide you abundant omega-3 fatty acids, as you need

these.

 

~Find out if there are any locally-raised, caught, or grown sources of

omega-3-rich, or vitamin D foods in your area. Look for markets, co-ops or

groups

that obtain these and also educate about them. Find out how to prepare foods

that are high in good omega-3 oils,