Vitamin D Deficiency and 38 Serious Health Conditions

The Vitamin D Council has a lot of interesting research and information on the relationship of Vitamin D deficiency and 38 health conditions, including: anemia, autism, cancer, depression, diabetes, heart failure, MS, sepsis and more!

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods. It is produced when ultraviolet rays from the sunlight hit the skin and trigger vitamin D synthesis. What makes vitamin D unique compared to other vitamins, is that when  your body gets its vitamin D, it turns the vitamin into a hormone called “activated vitamin D” or “calcitriol.” To get enough vitamin D you need to expose your skin to sunlight regularly or take supplements.

The Vitamin D Council suggests that a level of 50 ng/ml is the ideal level to aim for. They recommend Vitamin D3 as the best kind of supplement to take. It comes in a number of different forms and it does not matter what time of the day you take it. This is why the Council recommends that adults take 5,000 IU/day of vitamin D supplement in order to reach and stay at this level.

The Vitamin D Council suggests three options for the Vitamin D test to check levels:

1. Ask your doctor for a vitamin D test. Be specific and ask for a 25(OH)D test. Check first to see if your insurance will pay for it. 
2. A second option is to order an in-home test where you prick your finger and put a drop of blood on to some blotter paper. You send the paper to a laboratory to be tested.
3. The last option is to order a test online and get blood work done at a laboratory. In the United States, there are a few websites that allow you to bypass your doctor and go straight to the testing laboratory. These websites include mymedlab.com, healthcheckusa.com and privatedmdlabs.com. You can buy a 25(OH)D test from all of these companies and have the test itself done at your nearest LabCorp. These tests are a little more expensive than in-home tests.