Transcription
Magnesium activates vitamin D. Why is it so important to take magnesium along with vitamin D? How much magnesium should you take? What form of magnesium? And what are some of the factors that will impact the absorption of vitamin D? So, let's get right into the video.
Magnesium activates vitamin D. Magnesium is required for vitamin D activation and function.
Number one, liver activation. When you get vitamin D from sunlight or from food or even a supplement, it has to be converted via an enzyme called 25 hydroxilase. And it converts to a storage vitamin D called 25 hydroxy vitamin D. This is the marker they check in the blood when they do the blood test for vitamin D. Magnesium is needed for this enzyme to be activated. So it's an important step to create storage vitamin D.
Then that storage vitamin D goes to the kidneys and the activation occurs in the kidneys where you take the storage 25 hydroxy vitamin D. We would call it inactive. And then you want to make it into the active form which is 125 dihydroxy vitamin D which is the active form. Okay. So 25 hydroxy vitamin D magnesium dependent enzyme is here converting it to an active form binding and transport. Magnesium is needed for vitamin D binding protein and magnesium is needed for receptors for vitamin D so it can transport it into the cells.
Lastly, it prevents calcium side effects. Vitamin D basically raises calcium absorption. Right? When that happens, when you don't have enough magnesium, you can't balance calcium. Okay? If you can't balance calcium, what's going to happen is you're going to have muscle twitching, headaches, kidney stones, and even heart palpitations.
So, here's a clinical pearl. If you have intolerance to taking vitamin D, consider taking magnesium for 2 weeks and load yourself between anywhere from 4 to 500 milligrams every single day. And then try taking vitamin D again along with magnesium.
Okay. So, how much should you take? For every international units of vitamin D3, you should take or aim for approximately 100 mg of magnesium. Okay? So, if you're taking 5,000 international units of vitamin D, vitamin D3, you want to take between 4 to 600 milligrams of magnesium in every single day.
RDA, recommended daily allowance of magnesium, is typically 310 to 420 via dietary intake. However, that's usually pretty inadequate and some people don't even get this amount every single day in their diet. So, many people are going to be magnesium deficient. You definitely want to supplement magnesium glycinate between two and 500 mg per day, depending on how much magnesium you think you're taking in on a daily basis through your diet.
So, here's the regimen. 5,000 international units of vitamin D3. Take it after or with a fatty meal. You want to use 90 to 100 micrograms of vitamin K or MK7, 2 to 400 mg of magnesium glycinate, even up to 500 milligrams of magnesium glycinate. You want to use a little fish oil, EPA, DHA. You can use it from algae oil too, but you want a high quality fat. Vitamin B6, although not directly correlated, it will impact vitamin D levels. So, vitamin B6 in the form of P5P 20 to 40 milligrams a day. Boron 7.5 to 15 milligrams and zinc 2 to four milligrams. This is a comprehensive package of how you should take your vitamin D with all the different co-actors.
Obviously, calcium is in here somewhere, but you don't really need to take a lot of calcium. Often times, if you have a calcium-rich diet, if you're eating sardines and those types of things, you can get enough calcium in there. Okay.
So again, I always stress the importance of checking your blood levels for vitamin D level. Ideally for me it's 60 to 80 nanogs per milliliter. If you look in European numbers it's 150 nanomles per liter up to 200 nanomles per liter. So that would be the equivalent. Basically, you're taking 60 and multiplying it by 2.5 to get that number. Same thing here. 80 by 2.5 will get you that. Okay. So, those are the blood levels that you want to check when you do it and you the ideal levels you want to get to.
Why is it important to check your blood levels? Because there are many factors that will impact vitamin D absorption. Things like low stomach acid. As we age, we produce less stomach acid. Or you may have a condition like H. pylori, which lowers stomach acid. Or you're taking a bunch of antacids because you have reflux disease. That will certainly impact the absorption of vitamin D.
Gallbladder removal. If you've had your gallbladder removed, guess what? You're not going to digest your fats as well. So you'll need gallbladder support. That could be bile salts. It could be milk thistle, dandelion root, it can be tuck. It can be a lot of different things. Some people have low bile production overall.
Low digestive enzymes. You just can't digest your fats and proteins and carbohydrates appropriately. So you might need some pancreatic enzyme support. You have GI issues, things like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. All these malabsorption issues can occur in the GI tract preventing absorption of vitamin D.
Obviously, skin color can also make a difference in terms of how you're going to absorb vitamin D. Liver and kidney disease can also impact the conversion of vitamin D and utilization of vitamin D. As I mentioned before, there's activation in the liver as well as the kidney. All right?
So, if you want, what you want to do is you do a comprehensive package. Now, I have an online store and some people go, "Oh, Dr. Sun is trying to profit from selling supplements." The online store that I have is not my formulation. It's a conglomerate of maybe 300 companies that have been vetted for their quality. So a lot of physicians use the company so they can get access to multiple companies of high quality. Most of these supplement companies in there have been third-party tested as well as tested through Fullscript. So they have multiple testing rounds to ensure that the quality is there and checking for heavy metals and oxidation all the things that you need to do.
Often times you go to Amazon or you go to some box store and it just states these products. You don't know if it's third party tested. And often times it's cheaper because they use poor quality supplements in there, right? Like calcium carbonate, basically junk, right? You can't use calcium carbonate for calcium, right? So, there's a lot of different factors that play into where you buy your supplements, how much it might cost, and the quality of the supplements. But, it's very important that you have high quality supplements that have been third-party tested so you can figure out what's going to work for you and what's best for you. If you're going to take a one a day multi from some, you know, cheap vitamin company, basically, it's going to waste. So, might as well add a few dollars and get a high quality supplement that you can actually benefit from.
Okay, my name is Dr. Jen Sun. We're clinical excellence meets excellent results and we'll see you guys next week on the healthy side. Have an awesome day.