Vitamin D-3

Vitamin D is sometimes called the "sunshine vitamin."

I've been reading so much on the importance of optimizing Vitamin D levels for so many reasons:
* may help defend against cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure
* may help prevent multiple sclerosis
* may help relieve diffuse pain when administered to some people with low vitamin D levels
* may have protective effects against prostate, colon and perhaps breast cancer
* may play a role in preventing diabetes

More importantly to me... vitamin D found to stimulate a protein that inhibits the growth of breast cancer cells.

Well, I finally addressed my oncologist about testing my Vit D levels and she agreed. A simple blood test and one week later my results came back - 39.7 ng/mL. I'm in the normal range (normal range is 30.0 to 74.0 nanograms per milliliter). I'm happy with those results however, I want to boost my levels up some more. Ideally, I would like to get my values above 70 ng/mL. I want to be on the "high" end of normal not the low end of normal.

I have opted for a Vitamin D-3 supplement. I am taking two tablets daily which has 2000 IU per tablet. I will retest my levels in several months. I'm hoping with supplementation that my levels will increase. I'm also hoping that this will be another tool in my "cancer prevention bag" to keep recurring cancer at a far distance.

There are only 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D has been shown to influence over 2,000 of them. That is one of the primary reasons it influences so many diseases, from cancer and autism to heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

15 Facts About Vitamin D (taken from Vitamin D myths, facts and statistics:

1. Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight.

2. The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don't generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.

3. It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.

4. A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.

5. The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.

6. People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. That's why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men -- it's a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency.

7. Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.

8. Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system.

9. Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.

10. It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.

11. If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you may be suffering from chronic vitamin D deficiency right now.

12. Vitamin D is "activated" in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.

13. Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D.

14. The sunscreen industry doesn't want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products.

15. Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required.


Check out this one hour lecture on Vitamin D from Dr. Mercola at Mercola.com.

*If you are concerned about your vitamin D status and intake, talk with your physician about testing. It's highly recommended that you have your levels checked first before starting any supplementation. You want to avoid Vit D Toxicity.

If supplementation is recommended then you want to be taking a high-quality vitamin D supplement. The most important thing to keep in mind if you opt for oral supplementation is that you only want to supplement with natural vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), which is human vitamin D. Do NOT use the synthetic and highly inferior vitamin D2.