The information in this blog is not to replace information you receive from a hospital or physician. If you have concerns about your health, please contact a primary care physician.
Do You Know the Benefits of Vitamin D?
I was listening to Dr. Oz on the Today Show talking about ways to boost your immune system, with all of the concerns regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19). One of his suggestions was to try and boost your Vitamin D level. Vitamin D not only helps boost your immunity to the flu virus, but it also offers other benefits such as:
1. Helps Inhibit the Growth of Cancer: According to Michael F. Holick, Ph.D., MD with the Bone Research Laboratory at Boston University School of Medicine, activated Vitamin D is one of the most potent inhibitors of cancer cell growth and it also stimulates your pancreas to make insulin.
2. It can help reduce blood pressure.
Boston University conducted an experiment and exposed people, with high blood pressure, to UVA and UVB rays for three months. After 3 months, their Vitamin D levels increased 100% but more impressively their blood pressure normalized. Proving that everything in moderation, like suntanning outside, can be good for you!
3. It helps to increase the good gut bacteria
According to Dr. Mercola, with people staying out of the sun, due to skin cancer, they aren't getting the necessary Vitamin D to maintain good gut health - which in turn, can cause causing digestive issues.
4. It can help you sleep better (who doesn't need that??)
Did you know that when you don't have enough Vitamin D it impairs your brain stem’s ability to produce normal sleep? Vitamin D is needed to produce acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, that helps you get into the deeper, healing phases of sleep, and helps control your normal paralysis during deep sleep. (Dr. Stasha Gominak, a neurologist and sleep coach).
5. It helps strengthen bones
Vitamin D has been proven to help your body to absorb calcium better, thus helping you strengthen your bones.
Signs of Vitamin D Deficiency
You get sick often
Fatigue or tiredness
Bone and back pain
Depression
Bone Loss
Hair Loss
Impaired wound healing
Muscle Pain
How to get Vitamin D
First get a blood test to determine your current level of Vitamin D.
The best and cheapest way to increase your Vitamin D production is to get 10-15 minutes of sunshine per day, without sunscreen on exposed skin. This can be challenging in the winter months in some parts of the country, so you may need a supplement 1200 IU,'s a day (according to Dr. Oz)
Food Sources: fatty fish like tuna, mackerel, salmon, egg yokes (from free-range, chickens), raw maitake and dried shiitake mushrooms, raw portobello or raw white mushrooms.
Supplements: either liquid or pill version of Vitamin D with K2 supplements ( K2 helps your body absorb the Vitamin D).