by Paul Fassa
(Health Secrets) Vitamin D3 is the type of vitamin D most readily useable by humans. It has been heavily documented as an immune regulator that helps prevent many ailments, from colds to cancer. Vitamin D is considered safe at high doses and is an inexpensive and highly effective form of disease prevention. A high blood level of vitamin D can also curb a cytokine storm, which is often an over reaction of the immune system from vaccinations. Cytokine storms actually feed on the nervous system instead of attacking pathogens, and the results range from convulsions to paralysis and even autism.
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According to integrative physician Dr. Frank Lipman, “Vitamin D’s active form can interact with almost every cell in the body directly or indirectly, targeting up to two thousand genes, or about six percent of the human genome. Vitamin D is necessary for numerous cellular functions, and when the body does not have what it needs to function optimally, it follows that we experience a decline in health and put ourselves at risk of disease. We now know that almost every cell and tissue in our body has Vitamin D receptors, which raises the question: Why would those receptors be there if they didn’t have a function?”
Almost all humans are deficient in vitamin D3. Those who inhabit regions of long darkness or cloudiness are the most deficient. Vitamin D3 is manufactured from direct sunlight in our exposed skin, with help from the liver and kidneys. Direct sunlight means no glass between the sun and you. Glass lets only the sun’s UVA rays come through. UVA rays are much greater dangers for sunburn and cancer than the UVB rays that promote Vitamin D3 production.
Vitamin D is stored in the body, so if you spend lots of time in the summer sun, you may have enough to make it through the darker months. The main problem is that most of us are not getting enough sun on our exposed bodies, without sun screens, often enough. In this case, to get up to what our bodies need for preventing major and minor disease, we probably need to supplement. There’s where the controversy lies.
Bogus Dangers of D3 Supplement Toxicity
Up until quite recently, the word in nutritional circles was that D3 supplements taken in large doses could lead to hypercalcemia, too much calcium in the blood that’s not going into bone building. Hypercalcemia at low levels can be without symptoms, but if extreme enough may cause cardiac arrest. However, early stages of hypercalcemia produce enough discomfort to notice if you’re taking too high a dose of vitamin D3: nausea, headaches, vertigo, lethargy and aches and pains.
Throughout medical circles, it’s recognized that the body’s inherent ability to reduce vitamin D3 production from sunlight exposure when needed inhibits D3 toxicity. But the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB), a division of the Institute of Medicine produced a report that claimed supplemental amounts over 10,000 IU/day would lead to hypercalcemia toxicity. From that, the toxic overdose rumors about D3 supplements created a stir.
Meanwhile, the FNB and the FDA still stick to their 600 IU/day required dosage for adults. This daily amount will not come anywhere close to getting most of humanity up to normal blood levels of vitamin D3. When looking at these guildelines, one wonders how much these organizations prefer treatment to prevention. There’s not much profit for the medical establishment with D3 as a preventer of disease.