Tag Archives: immune support

• Optimal levels of 60-80 ng/mL is based on the reports done by Dr. Gominak M.D. a Neurologist on over 5000 patients. It has been a very consistent observation for more than 7 years of testing. Most patients test an average of 3-4 times per year in order to keep their sleep at its best.
• Hormone D is made from the sun UVB light. When your skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D from cholesterol. The sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) rays hit cholesterol in the skin cells, providing the energy for vitamin D synthesis to occur.  There is no UVB light in the winter months.
• What you will need to have, in order to use vitamin D safely, is a blood test called the vitamin D3 25 OH blood level. In the past our vitamin D blood level fluctuated with the seasons, high in summer, low in winter. Because humans are hairless we developed our own sunscreen (melanin) to block the sun and the formation of D. In the summer, as we stay in the sun day after day we make vitamin D but we also make a tan, which blocks the formation of more D, regulating the amount we make.
• Most people can make 20,000 IU of vitamin D on a summer day, lying by the pool in a bathing suit. Darker-skinned people need longer sun exposure to make the same amount of D. There are break- down processes in the skin that prevent the D blood level from rising above 80 ng/ml from just sun exposure. So that level appears to be the “natural” upper limit. Supplementing vitamin D as a pill can easily take the D blood level above 80 ng/ml and it turns out that a D level over 80 usually makes sleep worse.
• Darker skinned people have a harder time converting UVB rays into Hormone D. Melanin reduces the penetration of UVB and thus contributes to vitamin D insufficiency in individuals with darker skin.
• Your Vitamin D blood level it should be tested by using D3 25 OH, (LCMS technique, not immunoassay) and not the D 1,25 OH level.

Vitamin D deficiency has again become a major public health interest with its association with osteoporosis, osteomalacia, fractures, and more recently with prevention of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.

Regular sun exposure has decreased due to changing lifestyles. Vitamin D deficiency is especially prevalent in dark skinned children and adults living in Northern latitudes, and obese children and adults.

Improving the vitamin D status worldwide would have dramatic effects on public health, and reduce healthcare costs for many chronic diseases. The most cost-effective way to remedy this deficiency is to increase food fortification with higher levels of vitamin D along with sensible sun exposure, and adequate vitamin D supplementation.

INDICATIONS FOR VITAMIN D TESTING

• Patients diagnosed with any of the Vitamin D related diseases (cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and other others)

• Patients with osteoporosis or rickets

• Persistent and nonspecific musculoskeletal pain

• Signs of depression or lack of energy

• Patients with gastrointestinal disease and/or who have had a cholecystectomy

• Elderly individuals

• Patients having problems sleeping

• Overweight individuals with a BMI >25

• Infants that are exclusively breastfed or children without a well-balanced diet

• Individuals taking Vitamin D supplementation greater than 50 mcg (2,000 IUs) per day

• Individuals that reside above 42 degrees north latitude (a line approximately between the northern border of California and Boston)

• Individuals with medium to dark complexions or who do not regularly receive 20 minutes of direct sunlight each day