Vitamin D3 deficiency

CatLadyNZ said:

I've never had to pay for any of the vitamin D tests I've had in NZ.

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Lucky you. Mine was going to cost $65 in NZ in June. But perhaps we fall into different payment categories? I chose to wait and get it done here in Sweden, in August.

Oh, and here is the standard vit D levels from the US, via Dr Mercola (I forgot to post). This is for comparison with the Swedish far more generous levels.

'Standard', from a functional medicine viewpoint in any case!

On vitamin D the following study, old as it is, is why I gave my children vitamin D 2,000 IUs per day for the first 12 months of their lives and now continue to give them vitamin D supplements at lower levels (both of them are very robust and are rarely ill). My 6 year old has never had a sick day in his life.

The short version of this is that children who supplemented at that level had an 80% lower incidence of Type 1 diabetes. Which is, as I think you'll agree, pretty astonishing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11705562

I've lost a really interesting article that suggested that low levels of maternal vitamin D in pregnancy result in the infant having a super stimulated immune system which theoretically should cover it for the few months until vitamin D normalises and is available to the infant through breast milk. The idea is that if the immune system isn't then 'reset' by normal vitamin D levels then auto-immune issues can develop like our friend diabetes. It was a great and very plausible explanation but like a fool I didn't save it.

Best

Dillinger

Dillinger said:

On vitamin D the following study, old as it is, is why I gave my children vitamin D 2,000 IUs per day for the first 12 months of their lives and now continue to give them vitamin D supplements at lower levels (both of them are very robust and are rarely ill). My 6 year old has never had a sick day in his life.

The short version of this is that children who supplemented at that level had an 80% lower incidence of Type 1 diabetes. Which is, as I think you'll agree, pretty astonishing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11705562

I've lost a really interesting article that suggested that low levels of maternal vitamin D in pregnancy result in the infant having a super stimulated immune system which theoretically should cover it for the few months until vitamin D normalises and is available to the infant through breast milk. The idea is that if the immune system isn't then 'reset' by normal vitamin D levels then auto-immune issues can develop like our friend diabetes. It was a great and very plausible explanation but like a fool I didn't save it.

Best

Dillinger

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I think I once read the same article. And yes, very, very astonishing, but it fits with the rest of the emerging evidence, doesn't it?

Please let me apologise - I managed to get myself confused with American measurements compared to , well, the rest of the world's in some of my comments above. I was just having a re-read of the info on Vitamin D, and noticed that Dr Mercola's table, functional medical pov from the US, the toxic levels are in fact the same as the recommendations as Sweden's. I didn't see the ng/ml thing, and read it as the same as nmol/. And that I was supposed to multiple the ng/ml by 2.5. Oops!

So Mercola's target Vit D levels in the blood translated goes:

insufficient is anything less than 125 nmol/L
Optimal is 125-175 nmol/L
For beating disease is 175-250
and toxic - 250 nmol/L and above.

(If I used my calculator correctly!)

And just a re-cap on the subarctic Sweden's official recommended levels:

Insufficient is 25-74 nmol/L
Optimal is Levels of 75-250
And over 250 is considered potentially toxic.

Still taking my 6,000 iu a day though, in liquid form with vitamin K. Knowing I have a long way to go before reaching anything close to toxic levels. (Love those tests!) (But wish liquid Vitamin D wasn't so expensive!)

Ah! And I managed to download NoCarb's recommendation of the 'dminder' app. It is, indeed, pretty cool.

http://dminder.ontometrics.com/about.html

It told me I can next get vitamin D from the sun in 143 days... (due to being so far from the equator here, and relatively close to the north pole...). Checked it online, and yes, best time to get vitamin D from the sun where I am is in... about 143 days! Yeah - March.

So I squirted another 6,000 iu into a glass and drank it. Will try and get a hold of oldsurveyor's 50,000iu- strong pills - tomorrow! (And I promise to start a 'long distance travel with T2D' thread just before the subarctic winter!)

Article in today's Daily Fail about D3: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...pressure-boost-fitness-says-new-research.html

Indy51 said:

Article in today's Daily Fail about D3: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...pressure-boost-fitness-says-new-research.html

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LOVE 'The Daily Fail', lol. I will use that too from now on - many thanks Indy.

I had a quick look at the video within that Daily Fail article, and was very puzzled at the idea we should always contact our physicians before considering changing our diet (what? good lord. My GP back in the home country would be hugely puzzled why I would consider her au fait with nutrition, and my doctor here in the cold country - her contribution to my diet was admonishing me not to eat pork. Wonderful doctor, but - really?!)

But more bizarre than anything - the idea that breastfed babies need to be supplemented with Vitamin D. Hmmm. Wouldn't the mother/beholder of the breasts taking vitamin D supplements pass it on through the breast milk? Way nicer way for the baby to take vitamin D than supplements!

AloeSvea said:

I had a quick look at the video within that Daily Fail article, and was very puzzled at the idea we should always contact our physicians before considering changing our diet (what? good lord. My GP back in the home country would be hugely puzzled why I would consider her au fait with nutrition, and my doctor here in the cold country - her contribution to my diet was admonishing me not to eat pork. Wonderful doctor, but - really?!)

But more bizarre than anything - the idea that breastfed babies need to be supplemented with Vitamin D. Hmmm. Wouldn't the mother/beholder of the breasts taking vitamin D supplements pass it on through the breast milk? Way nicer way for the baby to take vitamin D than supplements!

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Oh yes - agree on both counts.

Unfortunately, like on this forum, people have to be incredibly careful not to be seen to be giving out medical advice - so the 'consult your doc before exercise and dietary changes' has become a standard mantra in the british media.

Apparently there have been a few cases where extreme plonkers have leaped up from sedentary lifestyles and exercised themselves to death, or have changed from the standard UK pizza and chip diet to breatharianism (or similar) and ended up with 'issues'.

The only time I thinik the advice is really worthwhile is where people are doing something like the Newcastle Diet, where it is common sense to have beginning, continuing and end blood comparisons, and the eating change is extreme enough that there is a liklihood that supervision is needed. And that includes people with iffy cholesterol results switching to LCHF (IMO - lol)

Brunneria said:

Oh yes - agree on both counts.

Unfortunately, like on this forum, people have to be incredibly careful not to be seen to be giving out medical advice - so the 'consult your doc before exercise and dietary changes' has become a standard mantra in the british media.

Apparently there have been a few cases where extreme plonkers have leaped up from sedentary lifestyles and exercised themselves to death, or have changed from the standard UK pizza and chip diet to breatharianism (or similar) and ended up with 'issues'.

The only time I thinik the advice is really worthwhile is where people are doing something like the Newcastle Diet, where it is common sense to have beginning, continuing and end blood comparisons, and the eating change is extreme enough that there is a liklihood that supervision is needed. And that includes people with iffy cholesterol results switching to LCHF (IMO - lol)

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Oh yes - quite right!

I looked at my D-minder app at the beginning of a subarctic winter, on Friday I think it was, and read 'You will next get Vitamin D from the sun in 108 days'. UVI reading of 0, of course.

I am now in Auckland in Aotearoa, and have seen the sun. Sort of (it's quite cloudy). UVI reading of 10. I will get actual sun exposure to my actual exposed skin! (You have to excuse me, as a new/Swede we get a bit sun crazy at this time of the year. Due to the lack of it in Sweden.) (Go live in Sweden or anywhere at that latitude, for 8-10 years and then you will know entirely what I am talking about .)

I have to worry about sunscreen again. Or making sure I don't get more than 15 minutes of sunscreen-less exposure.

And I realised that I forgot to put my liquid vitamin D in a little plastic bag for airplane security folk! No-one said anything. I believe this to be meaningful. (I'm going to be spiritual - the sun is god. God is a sun god! The sun is the source of all life no less!) (That was me being spiritual.)

The sun is indeed a truly awesome thing. As long as you respect it, re the malignant melanoma risk factor. (Big in this sunny ozone- holed part of the world.) But with the sun we can grow plants (all year round here, wo ho! lol), and with the sun, and/or a good vitamin D supplement, and fatty fish (as the Scandos well know) - we can get enough of it to help our insulin production (re type 2 in any case) and sensitivity!

An excuse to re-post the wonderful explanation of vitamin D's essential initial role in insulin sensitivity:
(takeaway quote from below: "If you don't have enough vitamin D it is going to be very hard for your glucose to talk to your pancreas so you can get an insulin release."


OK, my religious chant to the sun, and to insulin sensitivity is over.