Hello Everyone! Welcome back to another Friday blog. Today I want to take a close look at vitamin D3 - which was misnamed and is really a hormone. It has no "vital amine" (NH2) groups and is a pure hydrocarbon which allows it to do all of its important jobs. Vitamin A is another example, as it also was misnamed and has no amine groups. Where do we get it - what does it do - why is it so important - what happens when we don't get enough? Let's delve in.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble hormone that we make in our skin with exposure to UVB sunlight - specifically 290-320nm light. A photon from the sun hits the shortwave sensitive opsin 1 (OPN1SW) UV photoreceptor on our bare skin and opens the benzine ring converting 7-dehydrocholesterol cholesterol to vitamin D. OPN1SW detects the presence of UVB light and alters/upregulates the enzyme 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase to optimize conversion. Vitamin D now is a prohormone that must get transported to the liver and kidneys for activation. Once activated it can go to work or be stored for later use. Since it is fat-soluble, it is stored in our fat. Why would our body be designed this way? I believe we are designed to harvest the UV sunlight when it is strongest in summer to build our vitamin D stores and allow us to stay healthy through the winter when there is much less UV light. I also believe it is why our fruits are ready at the end of summer to fatten us up to store more vitamin D.

Vitamin D functions like a steroid hormone - upon binding with its nuclear receptor, it significantly influences and modulates expression of >1,000 genes! These are the genes that do not code for proteins. The genes involved in epigenetics - control of expression - like oncogenes (cancer genes). It is found in most if not all cells in the body. Understanding this gives us a hint at its importance. It's involved in the function of the immune system, regulation of sleep, muscle and bone health, digestive system, hormones, metabolism, brain function, and so much more.

Some people have a very hard time raising their vitamin D levels even if they are getting plenty of sunshine on the skin. Why? Several things contribute to your ability to harvest UVB light. Let's take a close look: 

• The darker your skin, the more sunlight you require. Melanin is a natural sunscreen and prevents absorption, which protects us at the equator where sunlight is most intense.
• The lighter your skin, the less sunlight is required for absorption, which helps us when we live far north to survive.
• The older we are the more sunlight is required to achieve the same level due to skin function.
• Synthesis requires bare skin exposure between 10am-2pm in warmer climates - a time when most of us are working indoors under damaging blue light.
• The further north you are, the less UVB light is available so exposure must be longer.
• The more obese you are, the more is locked up in fat cells and the more you need to run your larger body.
• The opposite is also true. The thinner and frailer you are, the less you can store and the more you need.
• Low cholesterol - you must have the substrate to make vitamin D. So, statin drugs inhibit this by stopping the body's ability to make cholesterol.
• Diet - consuming fatty fish, eggs, liver and cod liver oil - most of us are not eating enough of these foods to get vitamin D through the diet.
• Requires adequate levels of minerals - like magnesium and zinc. Most of us are deficient in these as well - as evidenced by how many of us are metabolically unwell ~ 93.2% of Americans. If you are diabetic, obese, have a fatty liver, have CKD, hormone imbalance, insulin-resistance, dementia, depression, osteoporosis or cancer, you likely have been deficient for a very long time.
• Isolated blue light from technology devices, screens, TVs, indoor artificial lighting, 3G-6G destroy vitamin A. 
• When vitamin A is liberated, it destroys all photoreceptors - both visual and non-visual. Retinoids are trapped and accumulate into a "bleached" non-functional state.
• This means it also destroys OPN1SW involved in the vitamin D production process!
• It destroys all other crucial opsins such as neuropsin and melanopsin - involved in production of melanin and multiple other jobs such as local time-keeping and body temperature regulation. Low neuropsin activation is linked to myopia (near-sighted) due to elongation of the eye from isolated blue light exposure. Red light restores number and function of opsins - se we need early morning sunlight.
• Vitamin D activation relies on G-protein signaling. This is disrupted by glyphosate. 

Vitamin D deficiency affects ~ 1 billion people globally and > 70% of Americans have inadequate levels. It has innumerable functions in the body - affecting nearly every aspect of our physiology. When we realize D3 has receptors on practically every cell - and there are ~ 30 trillion cells - we begin to see how things can go wrong if we are deficient. It has been estimated that there are 37 billion trillion reactions per second taking place in our body. 😳 If we are deficient in the nutrients and substrate that we build our tissues from as well as run and regulate our biology - things don't work correctly and we become unwell. We end up experiencing long-latency deficiency diseases - like cancer, cardiovascular disease, central nervous system degeneration, sleep disorders, osteoporosis and chronic kidney disease (CKD). “Alterations in bone and mineral metabolism occur early in the course of chronic kidney disease and are mainly manifested biochemically by progressive increases in the levels of parathyroid hormone, which leads to skeletal disease and contributes to vascular calcification.” These long-latency deficiency diseases require even more to fill up the proverbial tank and get back to baseline - or homeostasis. Every chronic condition involves an inflammatory state - and vitamin D is a powerful anti-inflammatory.

One can see that optimizing vitamin D could help prevent and even reverse many chronic conditions by reducing body-wide inflammation. We can get some vitamin D through the diet in fatty fish such as sardines. However, most of our vitamin D comes from sunlight. Your body can never make too much vitamin D - the majority of us can't make enough. If you’re a lifeguard, windsurfer/surfer - and live in Hawaii or close to the equator - you’re likely getting adequate D3 levels - FYI many of these individuals have blood levels upwards of 200! However, most of us are working indoors all day and are not getting enough sunshine. How can we know if we are getting enough for optimal health? We must test. Ask your MD to include vitamin D3 in your bloodwork. You also can order this test through an independent lab online if they are not willing and find out for yourself! It's cheap - and if your MD is not willing to order it for you, consider changing physicians. Part of the problem is that MDs are not taught anything about nutrition and natural healing in the body and most have no idea what ideal levels should be. We need to ASK for this test. 

If it’s winter, we tend to cover our skin with clothing and in summer we are told to use sunblock when we are outside. Have you ever asked the dermatologist or ophthalmologist WHY they tell us to cover our skin with sunblock or clothing and wear sunglasses when we are literally COATED with a solar panel of UV light detectors on our eyes and skin if we were not intended to get UV light? It is the ONLY way we can make vitamin D. They may try to claim that sunlight causes skin cancer, but that is not accurate. In fact, a study was done on cancer in women in Europe that revealed lack of sunlight was the equivalent of smoking. UV light is how we turn on the POMC gene that participates in metabolism, melanin, immune function, hormone regulation, even production of endorphins for natural pain control - to name a few reasons to not listen to that TERRIBLE advice. 

So, what is the optimal level of vitamin D3? After scouring the research, it is evident that levels need to be at least >50ng/mL for immune function. This is the level at which one can achieve a near-zero risk of death from Covid-19, according to a Meta-Analysis in 2021. But is this optimal - or do we need higher levels like surfers in the 200 range? What if you have osteoporosis? “In vitamin D deficiency, calcium absorption cannot be increased enough to satisfy the body’s calcium needs. Consequently, parathyroid hormone (PTH) production by the parathyroid glands is increased and calcium is mobilized from bone to maintain normal serum calcium levels.” If you have osteoporosis, you’ve had way below optimal levels for a long time - levels need to be 80-100ng/mL - “preferably greater than 75 nmol/L in all patients.” We are all chronically low due to spending 97% of our time indoors.

Many of us have levels as low as ~ 30ng/mL. Remember the "normal range" on bloodwork is based on a sick population, not optimal for health. According to their range 30 is normal. It is dangerously low!! Calcium absorption drops by ~50% negatively affecting bone causing osteomalacia (soft, painful bones). You can test by pressing on the shin. If it is tender, vitamin D is low. Vitamin D regulates calcium - low levels are associated with calcification of the pineal gland and subsequent loss of melanin production. In the Journal Nutrients in 2022, researchers report individuals with D3 levels <20ng/mL significantly increased the odds of unhealthy sleep. "In the short run, inadequate sleep may result in cognitive and motor performance impairments, which can lead to decreased quality of life and reduced productivity. In the longer term, cumulative sleep deprivation can serve as a factor in the development and exacerbation of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, cancer, diabetes mellitus, gastrointestinal disorders, and mental illnesses."  Hmm...no wonder we have so many issues. 

Women whose blood levels were >60ng/mL had a decreased risk of breast cancer by >80%!  Sub-optimal levels result in a myriad of symptoms including anxiety and depression, high blood pressure and heart disease, cancer, autoimmune, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, bone loss, weight-gain and obesity, getting frequent infections - catching everything that comes along - like Covid and flu - adequate vitamin D levels decrease your risk of getting the flu by 75%! What?!!😲So, should we supplement if we are low? There are some problems with supplementing such as high deuterium load in supplements. Supplementing vitamin D takes it through the gastrointestinal system. The absorption depends on the health of the GI tract and microbiome. Supplementing behaves differently than when we create it in the skin.

The skin, liver, and kidneys work together to synthesize vitamin D to its active form. Keratinocytes in the skin respond to UVB sunlight through activation of their hydroxylation enzymes. These enzymes are able to locally convert vitamin D to its active form that regulates epidermal proliferation and differentiation of skin cells. Do you think it may be involved in skin issues like psoriasis if you're deficient? It definitely is. Once activated, D3 enters the nucleus of keratinocytes where it binds to the vitamin D receptor (VDR). Here it merges with another receptor - that is part of the "steroid/thyroid hormone superfamily of nuclear receptors" - retinoic acid x receptor (a form of vitamin A receptor) to form a complex that binds with small sequences of DNA - setting off a cascade of molecular interactions that modulate transcription or expression of certain genes. 

Some of the inactive vitamin D gets transported through the blood to the liver where liver enzymes perform an initial hydroxylation step - then it is sent to the kidneys for a final hydroxylation step to convert D into the most potent form of vitamin D3. If you have a fatty liver (NAFLD) or chronic kidney disease (CKD) it can impair the ability to convert vitamin D to its most potent form. To make matters worse, the enzymes responsible for hydroxylation in the liver belong to a family of CYP enzymes that are significantly dysregulated by glyphosate. CYP enzymes are also involved in phase 1 detoxification of fat-soluble environmental chemicals and heavy metals. These enzymes work to make harmful chemicals less toxic - meaning more water-soluble for excretion. The inactivation of these enzymes by glyphosate prevents the body from getting rid of toxins - literally making them more toxic and more damaging. The liver and kidneys are responsible for detoxification of heavy metals, a host of environmental toxins, sex hormones and even vitamin D. When this process is disrupted, we resorb these back into the body. Just looking at estrogen, for example, explains how breast cancer and prostate cancer is on the rise. 

Further, understanding that D3 is fat-soluble tells us we need to consume it with fat to absorb it! Eating a low-fat diet is a BAD IDEA!!! We need healthy fat to absorb all the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K. It appears D3 works with - either directly or indirectly - the other fat-soluble vitamins. Both D and E increase T-reg cells - the generals of the immune system - responsible for regulating the function of immune cells. We know it works with vitamin A as we've already discussed - but it also works with vitamin K2 to put calcium into bone. Adequate levels of vitamin D3 allow for intestinal absorption of calcium and phosphate - Then K2 helps to put it in bone and teeth. 

Okay, let's look at some strategies to get our levels up and prevent all the problems that arise with insufficient vitamin D3:

• Sunshine - Get adequate sunshine - early am sunrise x 20-30 min to set your circadian clock for enhanced sleep - and midday sunshine - minimum 30 min - 1hr on bare skin. In summer, every 20 min your body can make ~ 10,000IUs of D3. If you spend an hour in the sun, that's 30,000IUs. When you look at a supplement, and what the government "recommends" you'll find they only recommend 5,000IUs. WHAT??? This is bad advice. We need MUCH more.
• Vitamin D-rich foods - Consume foods with vitamin D - pastured egg yolks, grass-fed beef liver, grassfed butter, cheese, wild-caught fatty fish (SMASH) salmon, mackerel, anchovy, sardines, herring - and mushrooms - particularly wild shiitake.
• Sun your mushrooms before consuming. Mushrooms can synthesize vitamin D. Place them upside down with gills up in midday sun for 20-30 minutes. You can even refrigerate the ones you don't eat that day and they'll maintain their levels. Wild mushrooms will contain more vitamin D.
• Other fat-soluble vitamins - Get adequate levels of all the other fat-soluble vitamins: A, E, K - The active forms are found in animal products - such as retinol (active vitamin A)- plant versions are in the form of beta-carotene and require conversion in the body - if you have a fatty liver, genetically a poor converter, or have any of the chronic disease processes - you may not be converting efficiently. 
• Test!! Know your level of D3! - Many foods are "fortified with vitamin D" - you don't want to be eating this food anyway, but generally, they are using D2 - WAY LESS bioavailable than D3. I personally shoot for 70-100 and very rarely ever get sick. If you are low, you must spend much more time in the sun.
• Improve your microbiome - vitamin D feeds your microbes and increases their production of B vitamins - and increases Akkermancia (mucus-loving) to help produce the protective mucus layer to prevent leaky gut.
• Consume raw fermented sauerkraut, kefirs and other fermented foods - not just for the natural probiotics, but the postbiotics as well. Another huge benefit is some acetobacters are able to metabolize glyphosate and aid in its removal/excretion from the body - so helps with detoxification! Drink the sauerkraut juice to get the postbiotics!
• Go organic - omit GMO foods and glyphosate exposure. Avoid foods that tend to be high in glyphosate - sugar, grains like oats, wheat and corn...
• Stop taking calcium supplements for osteoporosis! Calcium is the body's band aid and will go where there is inflammation - like your arteries causing calcification!!! Vitamin D increases intestinal absorption - then works with K2 to put calcium into bone and teeth. Get your calcium from your food.
• HP-EVOO - (high polyphenol extra virgin olive oil) - EVOO improves absorption of vitamin D - over that of other oils - enhancing transport and protection from oxidation. There are >30 polyphenols that work to decrease inflammation, protect DNA, feed and uncouple mitochondria, feed the microbiome, heal the gut lining, protect muscle, protect and heal the BBB (blood brain barrier), provides ketones as fuel for the brain and restores cell membrane function. It also contains vitamins E and K, beta-carotene, astaxanthin, pigments, squalene, melatonin, flavonoids and more. Polyphenols such as oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol and oleocanthal kill cancer cells in both prostate and breast - reducing breast cancer by 62%! "The oleocanthal content in EVOOs is a major determinant for EVOO’s cancer-protective properties." Strikingly, oleocanthal acts as a natural anti-inflammatory MORE potent than ibuprofen! So, the higher the polyphenol content and the more we consume in raw form, the better protection we have. Oleuropein, another polyphenol in EVOO, also outperforms ibuprofen - without the negative effects. 

So, until next time my friends…Drink, Drizzle, Digest HP-EVOO at least 4T raw daily, - use more for cooking and drizzling onto your food - eat the rainbow of local organic or wild-sourced veggies and fruits - eat according to what is growing at your latitude and location in season - eat wild-caught, pasture-raised, grass-fed - get early morning sunrise light, plenty of sunshine during the day, sleep in the dark, supplement magnesium, zinc, vitamin D3 + K2 - get your trace minerals and electrolytes with good sea salt - Celtic is hand-harvested and Himalayan was formed before plastics - eat foods high in lutein - drink plenty of filtered water. consume digestible and indigestible fiber for your gut microbes - adaptogens (such as mushrooms) and methylation donors (kale, beets, spinach, cruciferous, lion’s mane…), marjoram, rosemary, oregano, parsley and other herbs to detox, enhance overall health and reverse aging and disease - exercise your body and mind - ground barefoot to gain as many electrons as possible, add a few minutes of mindful meditation and breathing exercises to your day to combat stress - take a hot Epsom salt bath and follow with a cold shower/ice plunge - remove EMF (electromagnetic frequency) devices and blue light - use IR (infrared) from incandescent lighting, non-toxic candle or light a fire to enhance sleep and...turn off the light!!   #HP-EVOO 

This blog is intended for informational purposes only. Discuss strategies with your Healthcare Practitioner.