Over the last couple months, I have been taking fairly large doses of Vitamin D supplements (8,000 Units/day tapering off to 4,000 Units now and planning to go down to 2K/day during Summer) as well as a good balance of Omega 3, 6 and 9 saturated fats. The change in my sense of well-being has been profound. My skin has cleared up as well (I have had atopic dermatitis since childhood and my skin is now as clear as it ever has been.)
Patrick Cox has some really interesting information about other benefits of maintaining proper levels of Vitamin D over at Pajamas Media:
Sunshine, Vitamin D, and Death by Scientific Consensus
The traditional 'Top Ten Breakthroughs of the Decade' lists have been appearing in science-related publications. One breakthrough, however, is conspicuously missing from every list I've seen so far. I'm talking about the new understanding of the role and proper dosage of the sunshine vitamin D.
The 'scientific consensus' that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old 'settled science' is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and the implications are staggering.
Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.
As a financial writer, I bemoan the fact that no one can patent sunshine. Biotechs with therapies supported by far less evidence have exploded in value. Sirtris, for example, was bought by GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million to acquire IP for certain resveratrol-like substances. If you compare the evidence supporting the benefits of resveratrol vs. sunshine, sunshine leaves resveratrol in the dust.
I do, however, advise all my readers to get and keep their vitamin D levels up. This is simply because the economic benefits of doing so are so profound. Major illnesses have long been the biggest cause of financial crisis, a fact that proponents of nationalized health care have exploited well.
In truth, however, sensible sun exposure and vitamin D3 supplementation would do far more for our national health than the current health care bill. Even better, the benefits to society could be achieved without spending hundreds of billions of dollars. If an 'Army of Davids' took it upon itself to spread the word, they could achieve what government is apparently incapable of achieving.
A bit more (this is a longish four page article and well worth reading in its entirety):
In the 1890s, the crippling bone-softening children's disease rickets was still widespread in northern states, which has more pollution and a thicker ozone layer than the northwest. Ozone blocks the invisible component of sunshine, ultraviolet B, which produces vitamin D in the skin.
In the early 1900s, it was demonstrated that summer midday sunshine prevented rickets. As a result, there was an effort to educate the public and nearly everybody learned that a little sunshine was good for you. If you're of baby boom age, your mother undoubtedly told you to 'go outside and get some sun.' That's why.
Ironically, the beginning of the end of this attitude came in 1923 when a means of producing dietary D was found. UW-Madison biochemistry professor Harry Steenbock discovered that the vitamin D content of milk and other organic substances could be increased with ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. This led to the widespread enrichment of milk and the near elimination of rickets. Slowly, the perception of sunshine as healthy began to fade.
For the most part, scientists lost interest in the biological role of sunshine for higher animals. Dr. Michael Holick was the notable exception. For the last thirty years, Holick has been gathering data, doing research, and studying the role of sunshine and vitamin D.
As a graduate student, Holick first identified the major circulating form of vitamin D in human blood as 25-hydroxyvitamin D. He then isolated and identified the active form of vitamin D as 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. He determined the mechanism for how vitamin D is synthesized in the skin, and demonstrated the effects of aging, obesity, latitude, seasonal change, sunscreen use, skin pigmentation, and clothing on this vital cutaneous process. Too often, however, he was treated like a climate change skeptic at an Al Gore fundraiser.
Thanks to his work, we now know that D is not actually a vitamin. It is prohormone, meaning that it is a precursor form of a steroid hormone created by conversion in various organs. This active hormone acts to regulate multiple important biological functions. Every single cell in the body has a D receptor, even stem cells.
Read the whole thing and consider adding a couple K units of D to your daily diet. Costs about a dime/day and just from my well-being and skin alone, it is well worth it.
You might also look into the Paleo diet -- some interesting ideas and the results are tangible.
