In this post:
- how to know if you should take supplemental vitamin D.
- the “sweet spot” for vitamin D blood levels.
Author: Nick Ortego is the owner of N 2 Action, a wellness studio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, offering personal training, health coaching, yoga, and assisted stretching.
Also find more on the Nick Ortego Fitness YouTube Channel
Transcript:
Hi Nick Ortego here today. I’m
answering the question: Should I take
vitamin D? The best way to know if you should
take vitamin D is to have your levels
tested, your blood levels tested. You can
do that through your doctor. The doctor
can order that test and you’ll get your
blood work back. You can also order it
yourself. I’m gonna put a link in the
description to a place online where you
can order that test and have the blood
drawn locally. It’s about sixty dollars
to get your vitamin D tested, or if you
want to have your doctor do it and your
insurance may cover it as part of like a
regular checkup. But anyway you want to
get your levels tested. That’s how you
know for sure should I take vitamin D.
Having inadequate levels of vitamin D
can lead to a lot of health problems.
If they’re very low it can interfere with
bone formation about a thousand
different genes in your twenty four
thousand or so genes in your human body
rely on vitamin D to activate them. So
it’s involved in a lot of different
processes. The level you want to shoot
for, the sweet spot for vitamin D levels,
is between 40 and 60 nano grams per
milliliter.
That’s a millionth of a gram so it’s a
very small unit. What’s been shown in
studies to take most adults up to at
least 30 nano grams per milliliter is
4,000 units a day. That may or may not be
true for you. That’s just a study with
most adults getting their levels up to
30 nanograms per milliliter with 4,000
units a day of supplementation. There are
a lot of factors that can change how you
turn sunlight into vitamin D and there
are a lot of factors in how your body
processes it, so testing is the best way
to know also if you do have adequate
levels. If you
have your vitamin D in that sweet spot
between 40 and 60 there’s no benefit to
bumping it up above 60. There’s actually
some detriment. So if you look at the
whole population the people in the 40 to
60 range of vitamin D have the lowest
all cause mortality and then those that
are far below that range have higher
mortality and those above that range the
80 to 100 or so have increased risk of
mortality, so the sweet spot seems to be
40 to 60. You can get your levels tested
with Wellness FX. I’m going to put
the link and the description of this
video I’m also gonna link to a very
simple and informative infographic from
FoundMyFitness, Rhonda Patrick. There’s
this great blog called FoundMyFitness. It
has a lot more info on the specifics of
how vitamin D does all these things in
your body, but the easiest ways to know
is just get tested. Otherwise you’re just
making a guesswork.
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