Which Is The Most Important Vitamin For You?

What do you think?

If you answered that one of these is the most important vitamin for you:
A, B, C, D, E or K, you are only partially right.

Our own nutritional guru shared a wise answer to this question. Think about it and you’ll realize how true that it is.

The most important vitamin for you is the one that you may be lacking at any given time.

Without extensive laboratory testing, it is impossible to determine what nutrients you may be lacking, and then it is even more difficult to determine whether the reason for the deficiency is simply not eating enough of those nutrients, or something out of balance in your body keeping you from assimilating them.  That is why it is important to be sure that you are actually getting every known vitamin and mineral from foods and supplements.

The fact is that an unresolved, long term serious deficiency in any vitamin, mineral, or trace mineral can ultimately result in serious illness or death.

WHY LOOK AT VITAMIN D NOW?

Recently research and the press have focused on Vitamin D.  William Grant PhD wrote in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, “There is also evidence that there is an epidemic of Vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency in many countries including the U.S.”  He then asked 4 questions.
–1.  What does Vitamin D do?
–2.  How much do we need daily?
–3.  How do we get Vitamin D?
–4.  What illnesses are associated with a Vitamin D deficiency, and will taking the vitamin prevent or reduce the risk of
illnesses?

A lot is known about each question, and we, still have much to learn from research. Al and I decided to act on what we know now.

Vitamin D is involved in many important bodily processes.
It:
– regulates calcium for storing it in our bones, making stronger bones
– triggers genes in our bodies that inhibit specific cell growth, which appears to prevent cancer cells from
forming
– regulates the activity of the immune system’s cells, helping to ward off infections and protect
against auto-immune diseases
– helps prevent inflammation
– regulates blood pressure, and
– helps in weight management by enhancing the functioning of leptin, a hormone that signals the
brain that you are full and should stop eating.

The amount of  Vitamin D that we need is being  debated within the scientific community.
- The current Daily Value set by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is 400 International Units
(IUs) Virtually every researcher has indicated that this level is far too low.
- A cancer study showed that 1000 IUs/per day reduced the risk of colon cancer
- Some studies estimate that the body uses 3000 to 5000 IUs per day
- In one study, 4000 IUs/day increased well being much more than 600 IUs/day
-The National Academy of Sciences says that 2000IU/s per day is safe; however there is other research
that says that up to 40,000 IUs per day is safe.
-Many doctors are prescribing from 3,000 to 5,000 a day for their patients.

We get Vitamin D from 3 sources; alas, each of whichpresents some risk.
Source #1 -  The sun is the most natural process is when the body converts ultraviolet rays from the sun into Vitamin D.

The risk is that these same rays can produce skin cancer and possibly Multiple Sclerosis. Also, if you use a high SPF sun screen, you will not get more Vitamin D by staying in the sun longer.   In protecting the skin, the SPF sunscreen also inhibits the production of Vitamin D by our body.  It is considered safe to expose most of your body to the sun for about 10 to 15 minutes at a time without protection, but even that may not provide the amounts of Vitamin D you need if you live north of the level of Los Angeles.  The further north you live, the less Vitamin D you make from the sun.  If you shower off within a half hour, the Vitamin D that your skin is making has not had time to be absorbed into your body so you’ll just wash it off.

Source #2  – Foods are great if they are uncontaminated and unfortified with synthetic vitamins and chemicals.
-  The best food sources are cod liver oil and duck eggs.  The risk is pollution.  Many fish are contaminated, and eating these fish increases your body’s toxic load.  Most of us have little access to duck eggs!

Fortified Milk is also a source of Vitamin D. This source is associated with a variety of illnesses, including prostate cancer.

Orange juice also is often fortified with Vitamin D, but it provides too much simple sugar to be a primary source of Vitamin D and is usually provided from the same source used in milk.

Source #3 – Food supplements can be the answer, but the source of the Vitamin D is important.
If fish oil is the source for the supplement, is the supplement free of contaminants.  We know of one company that uses a triple distillation process to assure that the fish oils are uncontaminated. Another consideration is whether the supplement combines synthetic Vitamin A with Vitamin D.  If so, there should be very little Vitamin A.  Large amounts of  synthetic Vitamin A are associated with hip fractures.  We choose to use supplements that are primarily food based.

Here is a list of illnesses that have been linked to Vitamin D deficiency.
- Rickets
- Osteoporosis
- Cancer
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Types 1 and 2 Diabetes Mellitus
- Osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis
- Hypertension

Studies have shown reduced risk of getting the disease and reduction in severity among users of Vitamin D in higher amounts than the minimums established at this time.

Have we managed to totally confuse you???

Well, let’s look at what seems to be known.

At least 2000 IU’s provides the greater safety than the 400IUs recommended by the government, and there is no evidence that 2000IUs/per day will harm us. So Al & I are definitely going for at least 2000 IU’s.

One of many factors to consider is the way that the product is formulated.  It is quite possible to get a bottle of Vitamin D
or a multi-vitamin/mineral product containing Vitamin D and when the blood levels are analyzed, far less than the amount on the label may be absorbed by your body.  What is called the “delivery system” is critically important in any supplement to insure that you will be able to utilize the nutrients in the bottle.

If you want to learn why we chose our supplier of nutritional and lifestyle products and see if that could be a fit for you, just click here and “Ask Sandy”!  You can also call us at home  (530) 877-4800. (remember we are on Pacific time.  No calls before 9 am Pacific, please.) Or, you can email us at: sandy@bestsupplementsforwomen.com.  We’re here to help in any way that we can.

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