in this video we are going to be talking about a nutrient that over 75% of
Americans are not getting enough of vitamin D vitamin D is both a nutrient
and a hormone every single cell in our body has a receptor for it it helps to
regulate over 2,000 genes and is critical for our immune health disease
prevention our mental health and more in this video we are going to talk about
the difference between a vitamin d3 and vitamin d2 why it is important for our
health why most people are deficient in it and how we can fix that hey guys
welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is Kait I'm a health coach
and I post videos on a high fat nutrient-dense way of eating if you like
this video please give it a thumbs up feel free to share and make sure
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should be posts every single day welcome to episode 3 of my series nutrients we
are not getting enough of in episode 1 we talked about salt in episode 2 we
talked about iodine and today we were talking about vitamin D like I said at
the start of this video every cell in our body has a receptor for vitamin D
and this means it's important for so many functions right now our immune
health is a really important topic we want our bodies to be able to prevent
and fight off virus and disease and I'm going to go into exactly how you can use
vitamin D to optimize your immune system later in this video
so make sure to stick around for that what is vitamin D vitamin D it
technically isn't a nutrient at all it actually acts more like a hormone within
the body our bodies create vitamin D when UVB rays hit our bare skin
sunscreen blocks these UVB rays so if you're out in the Sun with sunscreen on
your body is not going to be able to create vitamin D and a little bit later
we will go more into how you can safely give
from the Sun we can also get vitamin D from our food cold water oily fish such
as sardines salmon herring and mackerel all have a decent amount other seafood
as well egg yolks and dairy all contain a vitamin d3 now you may have noticed
that every food I just mentioned was an animal product and this is because
there's actually no plant that contains vitamin D there are some foods the
vitamin D is fortified into such as cereal some orange juice almond milk but
there is no plant that naturally contains it and one important
distinction to make is the vitamin D that is found in these animal products
it is vitamin d3 and the vitamin D that is fortified into these other foods this
is vitamin d2 when we look at studies that compare supplementation of the two
vitamin d2 only raises your blood levels marginally and after two weeks those
blood levels have returned down to baseline
whereas vitamin d3 raises your blood levels significantly and has reached its
peak after two weeks the significance here is that vitamin d2 is not as
effective as vitamin d3 the health benefits vitamin D is critical for so
many functions within the body including immune health nutrient absorption
digestion mood memory skin health sleep vision heart health bone health blood
pressure fertility weight control and more we will get to the importance of
vitamin D with physical health in a moment but first I want to talk about
its importance with mental health it is well known that lack of sunlight can
cause seasonal affective disorder a mood disorder also known as sad this affects
more people than realize it during the winter months
that live in colder climates and vitamin D supplements can help research also
shows that people with low levels of vitamin D are up to 11 times as prone to
depression now moving on to the physical aspects vitamin D is also super
important for calcium absorb without adequate levels our bodies
cannot absorb and use the calcium we are consuming and this can lead to bones
weakening and in some cases osteoporosis vitamin D can also prevent disease
vitamin D supplementation has been shown to reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis
as well as heart disease and even your chance of catching the flu and this
leads to how we can use vitamin D to help boost our immune system immune
health so how exactly does vitamin D support your immune system research
shows that having normal levels of vitamin D can help to keep your immune
system healthy low levels have been associated with an increased
susceptibility to infection disease and immune related disorders since the early
19th century it has been known that both environmental vitamin D so sunlight as
well as dietary vitamin D cod liver oil are an effective treatment for
tuberculosis tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that mainly affects the lungs
vitamin D has anti-inflammatory properties and is critical for the
activation of immune system defenses there is no denying the link between low
vitamin D levels and an impaired immune system in 2007 Time magazine cited
benefits of vitamin D in its list of top 10 medical breakthroughs so why are more
of us not prioritizing it increasing vitamin D levels is so easy anyone can
do it and it's super effective so how exactly do we increase vitamin D we can
get vitamin D from 3 places from the Sun from our food and from supplements
earlier in the video we talked about some of the foods that contain vitamin D
and while these can provide us some the Sun is really our best source 20 minutes
in the Sun that when UV rays are strong can generate 10,000 IU which is a very
significant dose in comparison 100 grams of salmon has a bit over 1000 IU now
let's take a step back and about what dose of vitamin D is optimal
the RDA is set at 400 to 800 IU but many top researchers believe this is set way
too low like I said 20 minutes in the Sun can generate up to 10,000 now here's
an interesting fact to take into consideration the color of our skin
determines how much vitamin D we can absorb lighter skin and we can absorb
more darker skin and we can absorb less the reason behind this is that people
whose ancestors lived near the equator they were exposed to more sunlight and
stronger sunlight throughout the year because of the stronger and more
consistent exposure they required less to be absorbed at once on the other hand
people whose ancestors lived further away from the equator we're exposed to
less sunlight throughout the year and therefore really needed to absorb all
the vitamin D they could get and this is why our skin gets darker the more time
we spend in the Sun as our vitamin D stores fill up we require less okay so
back to the question of what dose is optimal if you're wanting to get vitamin
D from the Sun your skin it needs to be exposed nothing covering it no sunscreen
and indirect sunlight now we have all been told that the Sun causes cancer
that we should cover up as much as we can when we are outside but for every
one case of cancer that is attributed to too much sunlight there are 55 cases
that are attributed to not getting enough when I read that statistic my
mind was blown now I'm not talking about sitting outside all day in the Sun until
you burn if you're outside all day then of course at some point you're going to
want to put on sunscreen or cover up but if you can get some uncovered exposure
before that your body will thank you a good rule of thumb for how long does
stand the Sun to get an adequate dose is for half the time it would take you to
burn now of course this varies depending on where you live at the time of year
the time of day and your skin tone but the same rule works for all of these
scenarios vitamin D now if you cannot get adequate amounts
from the Sun whether that be because of the time of year or you simply just
can't get outside you might have to supplement dr. Zoltan P Rona is one of
the top experts on vitamin D he has a book called vitamin D the sunshine
vitamin which is a wealth of information on this topic anyways he recommends
supplementing 4000 IU of vitamin d3 every day if you have low levels he also
says that the fear of vitamin D toxicity is well overstated this is pretty
obvious just by the fact that you can go out in the Sun for 10 20 minutes and
generate so much vitamin D naturally dr. rain hold vite researcher at the
University of Toronto notes the vitamin D toxicity begins at 40,000 IU daily
only after many weeks of use taking 10,000 IU daily for months at a time
provided there's no sun exposure is perfectly safe blood levels can be done
periodically to verify this personally every day that I am not hurt in the Sun
I supplement 4000 IU of vitamin d3 and this is what works for me this is
obviously less in the summer and more in the winter anyways guys that is all I
have for you today let me know in the comment section down below if you
prioritize vitamin D do you supplement are you supplementing right now let me
know down below and if you want to check out my video on other tips to boost your
immune system you can click here if you want to catch up on my most recent
upload you can click here and if you're interested in starting a keto or
carnivore diet you can check out my coaching program
here thanks again guys if you made it this far please remember to give this
video a thumbs up and click that subscribe button I'll see you next time
bye guys