Recently I spent some time in a much sunnier clime, and noticed a very curious, and entirely unexpected, benefit. Somewhat serendipitously, I think I’ve found an explanation for what happened.
First, the benefit: my breathing problems—which had begun worsening in the fall, and which didn’t respond to increased dosages of my meds—abated after a few days. The change to my diet was not that great; and the overall change in my activity level was probably for the worse, not the better—even though I was more active every day, few activities gave me as sustained a workout as karate training does. I was outside much more, however; and I was in a location substantially south of our home, so I got a rather nice (but already quite faded) tan. Of course, that means that my skin made a lot of Vitamin D.
Having learned of the newly–emerging research on the overall benefits of Vitamin D some time ago, and living far enough north that naturally–made levels are an issue much of the year, our family has been supplementing with Vitamin D for a few years. This video—an interview with longtime activist Dr. John Cannell—suggests that we aren’t taking enough Vitamin D in the winter, as well as explaining my recurring “winter asthma slump”. In the interest of helping others become better informed, I happily pass it along:
(Link to vid on YouTube, for those who prefer that)
Thanks to The (Skeptic’s) Health Journal Club for posting the video.
Intriguing Vitamin D Information
In Winter I increase . . .
Since I don't get outside as often as I should even during the summer, I take 2K IUs of Vitamin D3 from April to October or so. This year, starting about November or so, when my Garden died, I upped my Vitamin D3 to 7K IUs most days. I've had almost no cold or flu this winter.
What I have had has been very, very mild compared to other people in my household. Julie has now upped hers to about 5K IUs. She isn't as large as me so needs a bit less. D3 supplements are quite inexpensive considering the benefits.
We had just a touch of flu ...
...or something flu–like, and it hit us when the Ballerina was in the midst of her Nutcracker performances: we were all not eating nor sleeping very well. Even so, our illnesses were quite mild compared to others around here.
I am quite laissez faire about the snolfs’ eating habits, but Vitamin D3 (as you note) is so important that I do nag them about taking it every day during the dark months.
I had no idea about the
I had no idea about the other stuff, or the huge dosage. However, I do know I start to get strange if I don't take some in the winter.
PS, can I get you to email me my password again. I think I'll actually change it this time.
How do you know?
That you “get strange”, that is? ;-)
I’ll email your password in the morning ... it’s been a long day and I’m about to fall out of my chair.
Huge dosages?
Many doctors now routinely recommend 2K IUs a day.
My dosage at 7K IUs is only "huge" in comparison to the RDA which is quite inadequate.
I have a friend who was put on 100K IUs per day by a physician after a test showed almost no cholecalciferol in his blood. That's perhaps a "huge" dosage.
If we led more "natural" lives perhaps supplementation wouldn't be needed.
Different perspective, perhaps...
I don't always eat right, I don't exercise much at all, and I don't take supplements as a rule... I have only had a few, mild "colds" in my life and I've never had the "flu." I generally don't get other infections. I also used to have severe asthma (among other things), and now I don't.
Must be more to it than vitamin D. :) Valuable as it is, and I think it certainly can't hurt to take some... but maybe it is worth looking a little deeper.
Or maybe I'm an alien... [big grin]
Sunlight makes your own vitamin D3
Somewhere I've gotten the idea that you get outdoors quite a lot. If one gets a fair amount of sun one's body makes its own Cholecalciferol. It really is more a hormone than a vitamin, since the body will make it.
UVB
Yes, your body will make D3 -- if you are exposed to UVB radiation. But if you live in a northern latitude, you won't be exposed to UVB during the winter no matter how much sun you get. One scientific presentation I read recently provided a helpful rule of thumb: if your shadow is longer than you are tall, you're not receiving any UVB, which means your body can't produce any D3. I live at about 40 degrees north latitude and right now if I go outside at midday my shadow indicates that I'm not getting any UVB, so it's D3 supplements for me...
Must be more to it.
I wonder how all the Alaskan natives, Laplanders, Norse, etc. managed to survive for uncounted centuries before vitamn D was isolated?
Always More
There's always more to it. :) Perhaps consuming lots of fish has something to do with it -- after all, for decades the best source of Vitamin D3 to fend off rickets was cod liver oil. Yum!
Fishy fishy fishy fish
I take D3 supplements, 7K IUs today.
I also believe you are correct that fish and other sea creatures high in D3 helped the Inuit and others in extreme northerly climes in the past.
Smart Humans
They also know which parts of animals contain Vitamin C so that scurvy is not a problem. Not much citrus up there, after all.
Precisely.
The more I learn about various cultures’ culinary traditions, the more I see this. In México, for example, people learned very long ago to use slaked(?) lime with the ground corn to make their tortillas—doing so “unlocked” more of the nutrition in the corn. Culinary history is fascinating stuff—and shows our forebears not to be as dumb as some make them out to be today.
Thanks for the reminder, tzo.
Those tricksy little vitamins
Yeah, the poor folks in the southern US didn't know about that in the early 20th century when they attempted to survive with corn as a staple. Everyone thought the widespread pellagra was an infectious disease when it was in fact a vitamin B deficiency because they didn't know what the Mexican Indians knew about preparing corn.
Similar story with white rice and beriberi in Asia.
Of course now we are advanced and smart enough to know that the right way to eat food is to strip away most of the nutrients through processing and then put some of them back in and call it 'fortified.'
Sunni-have you read Weston Price's "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration"?
Yes, we are soooo smart.
Ha! Yes, what towering intellects we have, to accept such assertions.
No, I haven’t read anything by him; I have occasionally visited the foundation’s web site, though. Is the book worth reading in addition to the material gathered there?
Short answer: Yes... Long, windy answer:
I value above all getting my hands on primary sources of information, so for me the answer is yes, it is worth it. Many times the widespread interpretation doesn't match the original intent. I'm not saying that is the case here with the WP website, but the original work really makes an impact that a summary can't quite capture.
By reading the details, you also believe the information because you are interpreting the firsthand data and not receiving it through anyone else's filters. The conclusions drawn are truly yours, from your direct experience.
We are fed so much *(&%^%* from all the experts that I have pretty much completely given up on anyone except me. And when it comes to your health, why would anyone think that some other person has your best interests at the top of his list instead of his own? Not everyone is out to getcha, but even if you trust an expert, the action you take is ALWAYS your responsibility, and the consequences are yours to deal with.
If nothing else, the book is a snapshot of a person who truly was pursuing science (which he funded himself) in the purest sense of the word—seeking information and letting his research lead him to whatever logical conclusions he could draw from it. Almost impossible to find real science today. And the photos are priceless, no pun intended.
Thanks.
You confirmed the sense I had developed of Weston Price, which alone intrigued me. What can I say, I adore iconoclasts (if only on that basis alone, sometimes).
I will begin a quest to find his book. Oh, and look for some of your words here to grace the top of my right sidebar ...
Thanks, Sunni
and here's a little taste I found online:
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0203CAT/020305ppnf/PPNFpartII.html
Read this and examine the photos and you will forever thereafter be looking at people's faces and noting the effects of rampant malnutrition, set in bone.
I do believe I'm going to go back over this book again myself. It's easy to forget how important this stuff is, especially when you are making your way through a bag of Oreos.
[Edited by Sunni to make link hot]
In defense of culture
In addition, most indigenous and/or regional peoples have been around long enough for their bodies to have "perfected" their response to certain foods, and learned to live without other foods and nutrients. This is where the complexity of the human body allows itself to adapt.
See Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food wherein he discusses a culture's influence on the body. His theory is that if their bodies couldn't adapt to the food available over time, they would not have survived as a people (and their culture wouldn't have been handed down).
[Edited by Sunni to make link hot]
What a concept ...
Learning to live without certain nutrients, that is. It is completely counter to modern nutrition theory, at least as far as I understand it—which admittedly, isn’t very far.
Well, I do think certain
Well, I do think certain nutrients are probably necessary, but because humans are so diverse, particular lineages may need more or less than others, or may metabolize them better or worse or differently; and so regional or cultural differences have sprouted up over time -- the result being that, just as some cultures can't tolerate milk whereas others can, nutritional needs may seem to vary from one area of the world to another.
(I apologize -- that paragraph seems to be one sentence. Do you understand it?)
Looks fine :)
I've been saying the same thing for a lot of years. Not only do we have various nutritional requirements according to genetics, I am convinced that we develop different needs as we mature and as we move from place to place. Different areas have different foods available, as well as different minerals in the water - lots of other differences.
Our bodies are also a complex matrix of mind, spirit and the physical tissues which cannot be truly separated, so how and what we think and believe has an affect on how our bodies use nutrition and everything else. This does not mean we can easily control these things consciously, of course, but we can learn to control - or even just influence - at least some of it. :)
I understand
... and I should have thought of the milk tolerance issue myself, since I’ve brought it up a few times here. Sheesh.