let's talk about vitamin D deficiency the ignored pandemic when we're talking
about a pandemic we're talking about a large group of the population worldwide
and I'm not sure if you knew this or not but there are over 1 billion people on
this planet that are either deficient in vitamin D or have vitamin D
insufficiency which means that they might have a subclinical or somewhat of
a deficiency but not a full-blown vitamin D deficiency but vitamin D is
such a necessity for so many biochemical reactions there's over 200 biochemical
reactions in fact 5 percent of the genome is influenced by vitamin D it's
not just involved with bone health and calcium metabolism it's really important
in your immune system and that's what I want to focus on now these four
countries are very deficient in vitamin D China India South America and the
Middle East and when a woman is pregnant and she's not getting enough Sun or
eating the food with vitamin D or not supplementing she could become very
deficient very fast because that baby inside is just sucking the vitamin D for
growth and development also if a woman is locked 80 that can create a
deficiency unless she's taking vitamin D or getting a lot of Sun and infants
commonly are vitamin D deficient now if you don't have enough vitamin D very
specific things happen within the immune system the T helper cells have a
difficult time working those are the cells that would be equivalent to the
general of an army they're involved with communication and coordination of the
entire military team also the T regulatory cells are influenced highly
with vitamin D and these cells prevent autoimmune reactions they also involved
with suppressing inflammatory responses especially in the lung there's a
condition called cytokine storm which is involved in acute respiratory distress
syndrome which is actually killing people with a weak immune system without
vitamin D it's very difficult to inhibit this
inappropriate immune reaction so vitamin D is regulating how much inflammation or
how little inflammation you need to overcome an infection vitamin D also can
help to inhibit the iron in certain cells because certain pathogens actually
eat the iron so vitamin D is needed to help to prevent these microbes from
getting that iron also those vitamin D receptors in a lot of immune cells
themselves and one of the purposes of the receptors to help convert the
inactive vitamin D to the active form of vitamin D now there's another player
called the macro fashion and this mewn cell actually eats garbage and it also
eats viruses and bacteria and other microbes so vitamin D stimulates the
number of macrophages as well as the the pre macrophage which is the monocyte
turning into the macrophage and lastly vitamin D helps to make antimicrobial
weapons they're called peptides I just wanted to show you the very important
link between having not enough vitamin D and what it potentially can do to your
immune system and the vital importance of using vitamin D as a preventative
thing as well as something you can use if someone is sick or if they have
pre-existing health problems conditions like cardiovascular disease high blood
pressure diabetes obesity all are vitamin D deficient if you have friends
or family that have these pre-existing health problems and they're concerned
about the virus get them on vitamin D especially if they're in a critical care
I mean right now there's a lot of doctors that are recommending
hydroxychloroquine and zinc and an antibiotic but also add in the vitamin D
now I also want to mention how people are deficient in vitamin D as we get
older it's very difficult to absorb item D especially in the skin because the
skin becomes thickened and so when sunlight hits our skin you just don't
get the full capacity vitamin D version like you had when you're in your
20s the more clothing you have the more vitamin D deficient it's very difficult
to get vitamin D from your diet the Sun is the best way to get vitamin D but you
also have to be exposed to the Sun so wearing a bunch of clothing is not going
to help the latitude of where you live the closer you live to the equator the
more vitamin D you could potentially get people that live in the northern
hemisphere typically have lower amounts of vitamin D excluding the Nordic
countries and that is because they consume a lot of fish I mean think about
where you would get cod liver well it's from that area of the world the more
pollution that you have the more deficient you're going to be a vitamin D
and this would be a really good evaluation to evaluate the most polluted
areas in the world and then look at the outbreaks the infection rate and the
death rates I already know in Italy the most polluted cities have the highest
mortality situations I do know that in Rihan China it's highly polluted ok skin
color what determines the color of skin is melanin and melanin actually protects
against UV radiation the darker your skin is the less vitamin D you're going
to be able to absorb and then we just have the general the health of your skin
if you have very unhealthy skin then you're not going to actually have the
capacity absorb vitamin D the more sunblock that you use the less vitamin D
now genetics yes there are genetic weaknesses that prevent you from
absorbing vitamin D and that's what I wanted to pause and just talk about this
for a second polymorphism what are polymorphisms well
we have 63 of them and basically they're a alteration or a variation of the
vitamin D receptor if you have an infection let's say for example you have
this chronic infection that goes on for months and months microbes tend to
deplete you a vitamin D both because they block the vitamin E
scepter and also because your immune system is needing more vitamin D to work
so the more infections you have or the more chronic and infection is the more
vitamin D you're going to need and then lastly if you have malabsorption for
example if you have gut damage or some inflammatory condition your gut that is
going to prevent the absorption of vitamin D if you want more information
about vitamin D I put up a video right here check it out