CrossFit South Bend

Today we’re going to talk about whether you should supplement with vitamin D. Vitamin D is something that’s been the subject of intense research over the past number of years and almost everyone recognizes and admits that is absolutely crucial for your overall health, but where things get a little bit tricky is in the amounts and what someone should or should not take depending on their individual needs and health condition.

As always, first thing up front, not a doctor. Can’t diagnose, treat, cure, prescribe anything like that. Always consult your doctor before stopping or starting self medication. That being said, vitamin D is something that the overwhelming majority of people should be taking in one form or another. That being said, I do think it’s really important to get your levels checked.

When you go to your doctor, what should you check for? You should be checking for your 25 OH vitamin D levels. 25 OH, hydroxy vitamin D levels. Now, there’s some debate where these numbers should be. Most people agree in the health and wellness arena that somewhere between 30 and 50 is going to be optimal. Below 30 is not so great, below 20 is really not so great, and below 10 is a serious deficiency. A very serious deficiency.

Where things can get a little bit tricky is some people say, “Oh, vitamin D, you can never get enough. It does all these crazy, amazing things and you should just supplement like crazy,” and that’s not quite true. It’s a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning that it’s stored in your bodies fat tissue. Meaning that there is a potential for toxicity that isn’t there with water soluble vitamins like B12 and vitamin C. With water soluble vitamins, you basically pee out the excess. With vitamin D however, you store it for longer, but it can … It can also become toxic because of that.

When you get above 50, it really depends on who you ask. I tend to think for people with autoimmune diseases, somewhere between 50 and 70 is going to be more optimal than a 30 to 50. Some people say 60 to 80. Some people say as high as 100 and I think that’s really kind of pushing it. I think really when you cross that 70 threshold, you really want to be careful and, as always, make sure you’re talking about this with a qualified healthcare professional.

You should get this value tested, because a lot of people, especially here in Northern Indiana, in the winter … It’s turning into summer now, but in the winter, you’re not getting enough vitamin D and it’s really hard to get adequate amounts from food. You can get some from egg yolks. You can get some from wild caught fish. You can get some actually from lard, believe it or not, but really not that much. Really not that much from food.

Now, once you get that tested, how much should you be supplementing with? Now again, we’re doing this in consultation with a healthcare professional, but you should consider talking with your healthcare professional about maybe somewhere around 5,000 IU a day if you are deficient in vitamin D and if you’re severely deficient and if someone has an autoimmune condition, then they should be talking with their healthcare practitioner about maybe somewhere between five and 10,000 IU a day. Above that really starts to get sketchy.

Now there are two main type of vitamin D that you can supplement with. There’s vitamin D2, which is a plant based form that is routinely prescribed in 50,000 IU amounts by doctors. This is not very well absorbed. This is not the main kind that your body utilizes. What we want to look for is vitamin D3. This is the type that you really want to supplement with. It also matters the type that you supplement with. Not just the type such as D2 versus D3, but type in the sense of pill versus sublingual.

With pills, a lot of people with vitamin D deficiency also have other … Sometimes they have other health issues going on that makes it harder to absorb nutrients in pill form. One of the best ways to bring up your vitamin D levels in a realistic fashion is with either sublingual tablets that dissolve underneath your tongue or sublingual drops that you can put underneath your tongue and get absorbed that way. That tends to be way better for absorption than your standard run of the mill pill.

A lot of people that I work with who’ve done tests with their doctors, they do the supplementation with the pill. Either a prescription or just an over-the-counter pill and it doesn’t really fluctuate or it doesn’t really change the way you want it to, but then we did the sublingual stuff, it makes a big difference.

Vitamin D, super important for immunity. Super important for hormonal health. Super important for circadian rhythm regulation. Basically whether you’re tired or energetic throughout different points of the day. It’s super important for a number of difference aspects, so what you want to do with vitamin D is you want to make sure that you get tested to find out where your levels are. If your levels are inadequate, make sure you are talking with your healthcare professional about supplementing with vitamin D3 and ideally in a sublingual tablet or drop form.

All right, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.