How to actually raise Vitamin D levels
Mother Nature is wise beyond anything we understand. Vitamin D isn’t in many foods, and the foods in which D is have low levels. We’re supposed to get D from the sun. We only get small amounts of it in our food. End of story. You can’t bottle the sun and the supplement fad of taking synthetic hormones is dangerous!
Yep! Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin. It’s a hormone (Source) and we aren’t meant to eat hormones. We’re meant eat the building blocks that our bodies use to make hormones, which include vitamins, minerals, and cholesterol (fat).
There’s no denying Vitamin D is a crucial hormone, but synthetic vitamin D supplements cause excessive absorption of calcium in the gut, which increases serum calcium levels, and can lead to arterial calcification (Source) as well as other soft tissue calcification. Isolated D also causes renal potassium wasting (Source) and a loss of magnesium. Nearly everyone that has an extremely deficient level of potassium on their hair test will have used Vitamin D supplements in the past.
It’s the iron, stupid
Originally published on How I Recovered
If you research either vitamin D or copper enough, you’re bound to come across Morley Robbins contrarian views eventually. I tend to listen to people who seem to have deep knowledge in tightly confined areas especially when they say everyone else is wrong. So about a year ago, I stopped trying to take vitamin D and stopped giving it to my family because of Morley Robbins.
Ray Pete’s writings convinced me to stop taking fish oil at some point. Not much happened when I stopped and I’ve since restarted the fish oil, albeit at much lower doses.
I don’t like feeling like the Lone Ranger so this year I consulted Rick Malter on my copper toxicity picture. Then for good measure I sought out Morley Robbins for a second opinion (my most recent HTMA on the right). Rick thought I was mostly on the right track but wanted me to be a little less aggressive with my copper detox because of the risk of cardiac arrest. Read More
Vitamin A: The Key to A Tolerant Immune System?
Originally published at ClinicalEducation.org
Vitamin D and Vitamin A are essential co-partners in immunological and bone health.[1],[2] I’m particularly excited about vitamin A because of its profound effects on the gut mucosal immune system—a specialty of mine. Just as vitamin D has attracted attention for its ability to increase antimicrobial peptides and help us defeat pathogens, it’s fascinating to me that vitamin A is also essential for the very tissues that protect us from the same pathogens.
The availability of vitamin A in our food is a key factor in a tolerant, highly functional immune system. To quote from the title of a brilliant commentary in the March 2008 issue of Nature’s Mucosal Immunology, “Vitamin A rewrites the ABCs of oral tolerance.”[3]