Find Out If You Need Vitamin D – No Blood Test Required!

Without a doubt, there is a lot of confusion about every vitamin, especially about where or not you should be a certain one, and how much of that vitamin you need. There is also no doubt that Vitamin D causes some of the greatest confusion of all. On one hand it’s touted as almost a salve of sorts, on the other hand there are thousands of articles, sites and even medical professionals warning us of the dangers of TOO MUCH VITAMIN D and the hazardous effects it can have on one’s health.

Well I may not set it all straight in a single blog article, but what I will do is explain a simple and straightforward way of understanding if YOU are in need, if you are lacking Vitamin D and therefore in need of more, whether that be from a supplement or your diet. That’s the key here, if you determine that you are not getting enough vitamin D then you can simply change your diet to increase your levels and reduce symptoms associated with insufficient levels of vitamin D. 

So are people wildly and recklessly overdosing on Vitamin D? Well if you do a simple Google search about vitamin D overdose you would be scared half to death. You would be made to assume this is a very dangerous and even common occurrence. Here is the truth, according to NHANES which is a division of the CDC, OVER 95% of all American adults are not consuming the daily recommended levels of vitamin D. Over 95%. That is shocking and almost unbelievable really, that so many people do not consume even the low guidance level set by the health officials. 

So are you getting enough? Well according to the CDC 95 out of every 100 are NOT getting enough so odds are you may fall into that category and I am going to show you how to determine that quickly and easily, without getting your blood drawn. 

Speaking of blood work, we should set some other things straight here. When you get blood drawn to test your Vitamin D levels you are testing an unusable form. That’s right, the form that they test for in your blood is not usable by the body, it must be sent to the kidneys and converted to another form before it can be utilized. So, what good is it to test a form of vitamin D that the body doesn’t even use? Sure there may be sufficient levels of this precursor in the blood but that does not mean it is converted and used effectively does it?

The form we test in the blood is 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the form our bodies use is 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D , otherwise known as calcitriol – the hormonal version that we USE.

Think about it this way: you need the vitamin D delivered to the cells to be utilized, just like you need gifts delivered to the recipients by a courier. You can count the number of delivery trucks on the road but that does not mean the deliveries were made, it does not mean that the gifts weren’t damaged, or that they were on time. It would be ludicrous not to talk to the recipients, to ask them if they got the delivery, if it was on time and if everything was as it should be.

Knowing how much of the precursor is in the blood can be useful, but out for delivery is not the same as delivered is it?

We need to ask the recipients, we need to ask the cells and the tissues if they have received the vitamin D. We  know if these cells do not receive vitamin D that they break down, and processes are affected within the body. So we simply need to look at what happens to the cells when the vitamin D is not delivered. In the case of vitamin D, it has been clinically documented to cause the following 10 symptoms:

1. Depression
2. Insomnia
3. Constipation
4. Bone pain
5. Fatigue
6. Muscle aches/cramps
7. Susceptibility to colds/flus
8. Osteoarthritis
9. Excessive cavities
10. Rickets disease

In order to be accurate and consistent you need to experience 3 symptoms in order to assert that you need more vitamin D. Using 1 stand alone symptom is not reliable and can be attributed to other causes such as prescription drug use, allergies or intolerances and of course, possible other nutrient deficiencies. 

Symptoms may also be caused by antagonistic substances, substances which inhibit the conversion and assimilation of vitamin D. So while you may be consuming adequate amounts of the vitamin, there are other substances which may be inhibiting it and therefore causing an acquired deficiency.

The substances to look out for are:

• Laxatives
• Mineral oil
• Insufficient sunlight
• Stress

We know stress is bad for us, that it is implicated in nearly all illnesses, because it truly strips the body of its vital nutrients, in this case vitamin D. If you are under stress you will not be converting vitamin D correctly and therefore may be lacking due to stress, not due to inadequate consumption.

The first thing you want to do is remove these antagonists and then at that point you can take a quality vitamin D supplement, of course D3 is recommended because we know it is better used by the body as evidenced in the blood work we explored earlier in this article.

If you choose to use foods to get your vitamin D than you will want to consume good amounts of the following foods:

• Herring
• Sardines
• Mackerel
• Fish eggs
• Cod liver oil
• Egg yolks
• Liver (beef or lamb)
• Cheese
• Tuna
• Salmon
• Butter

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!