All you need to know about Vitamin D

Vitamin D could be the most important molecule for your body. And most people are deficient. Vitamin D plays a key role in regulating hormones, mood, immune system response, and metabolism. There’s also research that shows it plays a role in reducing risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and neurodegenerative disease. 

Vitamin D content in various foods. Recommended dose 5,000-10,000 IUs, good luck!

Vitamin D sources

There are two types of vitamin D, D2 and D3. D2 is the most common in supplementation and fortified foods. D3 is the form your body produces naturally from sunlight. D3 is likely more effective at raising and keeping sufficient vitamin D levels.

Figure 2

You can find supplements these days that use vitamin D3, however quality varies (check out Thorne. No affiliation with us). There is some disagreement in research with how supplemented vitamin D3 is broken down compared to D3 from sunlight. 

However, above and below latitudes 37*N and S, vitamin D3 cannot be produced via sun exposure during the winter. For those people, supplementation is vital during the winter months. The graph below shows the vitamin D availability in 3 cities located above 37*N, Boston (42N), Edmonton Canada (53N), and Bergen Norway (60N)

Healthy Vitamin D Levels

Ideally, you should aim for at least 40ng/mL vitamin D (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, if you wanna get technical). You can get at home test kits if you want to know for sure where you stand. I use an app developed by world renowned researcher Dr. Michael Holick called “dminder” that helps you track how much vitamin D you are producing via sun exposure. That gives you a pretty accurate picture of your vitamin D levels. Highly recommend checking it out.

All data and claims in this blog, unless otherwise linked and including Figures 2 and 3, are found in this paper by Dr. Michael Holick: