Transcription
This is the number one vitamin that your body needs. And unfortunately, 42% of you are actually deficient in it. This vitamin, of course, is vitamin D. And in this video, I'm going to uncover how much you actually need. And as you're about to find out, which is super interesting, is that nobody can agree on this. So, let's go ahead and dive in. But before we do, I'm Dr. Nick Sarowski, and as always, it's a pleasure hanging out with you in today's video.
Now, vitamin D is so important that your body is actually capable of making it from scratch. When you combine sunlight and cholesterol, your body is able to make vitamin D. Now, as I mentioned, vitamin D, unfortunately, is something that most of you are deficient in. It's estimated that 42% of you are walking around with a deficiency right now. And vitamin D plays a critical role in your body cuz every cell in your body has a receptor for vitamin D. And it plays a role in things such as immune strength, hormone balance, brain health, bone metabolism, cancer prevention, mood stabilization, autoimmune control, and so much more. And with 42% of you being deficient in it, you can see how this is a huge issue. And it's estimated that you have a higher likelihood of being deficient in vitamin D if you're overweight, you have gut issues, or you spend most of the time indoors like many of us do.
Now, back to the million-dollar question. How much vitamin D do we actually need? Well, let's go ahead and look at what the experts have to say. When we look at the National Institute of Health and the Institute of Medicine, essentially, they say that you need 600 IUs per day of vitamin D, and that's plenty enough. But when the Society of Endocrinology reviewed this number, they said 600 IUs is designed to protect your bones. But what's interesting is that this isn't going to do anything for your organ systems. So, we understand that 600 IUs is going to protect our bones, but what about the rest of our body? And the truth is is that this recommendation is 100% based on bone health. It's not based on whole body health, but as I mentioned before, if every cell in the body has a receptor for vitamin D, we have to concern ourselves with more than just bone health, but entire bodily well-being.
So the next obvious answer to this would be well then just take more vitamin D. But whenever you hear about taking higher amounts of vitamin D the first thing you are told is be careful because vitamin D is fat soluble and it can be toxic. Well all of this is true. Fats soluble vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, and vitamin K are fat soluble and they can build up in your body. However, most people are not taking near enough of these vitamins to ever have an issue with toxicity. And even people, as you'll discover in just a second, who took large amounts of vitamin D still did not suffer from an issue of toxicity. So, you'd have to be taking tremendous amounts, which nobody's ever taking to actually ever have to have a concern about vitamin D toxicity.
Now, this brings us back to the major question. How much vitamin D do we need? what is adequate and what is optimal for our bodies? Well, when we look at western medicine, they focus highly on what is adequate for our bodies just to survive with vitamin D. But a functional practitioner like myself focuses on how much vitamin D do we actually need to thrive. Now, on a blood test, it's going to measure your vitamin D levels, basically between 0 and 100 nanogs per milliliter. And the way I like to actually think of it is think of it as a test score. If you were in college and you were doing your work and you got a 10% on your test, that would be an awful score. And if you got a 100%, we would assume that would be a really good score. So think of your vitamin D levels about like that. Western medicine today says that as long as you have 30 nanogs per milliliter, then you have an adequate amount and you're going to be just fine. I can't tell you how many patients come into my office and they say, "Yeah, my vitamin D is at like a 32." And I go, "A 32? and you're good with that? They're like, "Yeah, my doctor said everything's fine and I don't need to worry about it." I said, "If you went and you did a test and you got a 32% on that test, would you be happy with it?" And of course, the answer is no. And so, if a 32 is adequate, we don't want to be happy with that because we want to be in the optimal range. We're not just trying to survive, we're trying to thrive. And most people that I test will fall between 10 and 35 nanogs per milliliter, which is shockingly low.
So, what the research shows us about vitamin D is you actually need a significant amount more. When we look at the Council for Responsible Nutrition, what they found is that many people need around 10,000 IUs of vitamin D per day in order to reach optimal levels. And so, if you're trying to build your levels of vitamin D, a minimum of 10,000 is what you're going to need. And here's where things get really surprising and interesting. Doctors using vitamin D therapeutically for chronic disease often prescribes upwards of 20,000 to 60,000 IUs per day, month after month, year after year, under supervision. And what they found is that vitamin D plays a significant role in reversing chronic disease. Now, mind you, from the onset of this video, we talked about how the recommendations by some of these organizations were just 600 IUs per day, and now we're talking 20,000 to 60,000 IUs per day. That's a big change. But when they were doing these large therapeutic doses of vitamin D, they found out something interesting is that highdose vitamin D actually will suppress cancer cell growth. They found that women with optimal levels of vitamin D were 65% less likely to develop cancer. They found that as it pertains to brain health, low levels of vitamin D is linked to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism, dementia, depression, and anxiety. And increasing your vitamin D levels will actually show improvements across the board with all of these different conditions. Also, as it pertains to autoimmune disease, highdosese vitamin D therapy actually was able to reverse autoimmune conditions, hypertension, allergies, infections, and even diabetes.
So, back to our million-doll question. How much vitamin D do you need? Well, honestly, this is really a personal matter. So, for instance, every single person will have different situations in their life which will affect their vitamin D levels. So, we have to look at your lifestyle. if you have high amounts of stress, high amounts of inflammation, if you have gut problems, if you're overweight, if you don't get a lot of sun exposure, or if you have some different genetic variance, all of these are going to change the way that you're going to absorb vitamin D. So ultimately, the best thing that you can do is test. And when you test, you'll be able to determine exactly what your levels are. And then based off the information from this video, understand how to actually increase your vitamin D levels. And then it'll be very important to make sure you're taking a high quality vitamin D with vitamin K2 in it in order to actually get yourself good healthy levels of vitamin D. I'll put links in the description below to a vitamin D that has 5,000 IUs and a vitamin D that has 10,000 IUs. What I do personally is I take 5,000 IUs a day in order to maintain and 10,000 IUs in order to actually build. And of course, having a quality vitamin D that is absorbable in the form of vitamin D3 with K2 is going to be the best way to actually build those numbers. And once again, I'll put a links in the description below so that you can get access to quality vitamin D like we use clinically.
Now, let's go back to your lab test. Let's say that you get a lab test done and the the the numbers come back. If you are around 30 nanogs per milliliter, this is considered adequate. Anything below that is deficient. 30 and above that is now adequate. Now, if you are between 60 and 100, this is more of an optimal range. And as I said from the beginning of this video, look at it as a score on a test. If you got a 60%, are you happy with that? If you got an 80%, are you happy with that? So, for me, an optimal level of vitamin D truly is 100 nanogs per milliliter. Now, when we look back at some of the research and clinical reports, many of these doctors were bringing their patients up to 150. Now, as I said before, I recommend optimal to be around 100, but they were bringing their patients up to 150. And they were even bringing some of their patients up to 200 and above. And they were doing this under supervision. And what they found is that the individuals were actually thriving and reversing many of the health conditions that they were suffering from. And these people became healthier and healthier as they increased their levels of vitamin D. So realistically, if you're under 30, then you want to make sure that you're taking vitamin D every day in order to reach optimal levels because your body is struggling if you're not. And if I was to take a vitamin D test personally and my levels were low, I'd be taking 10,000 IUs. If my levels were good and where I was happy with them, then I would take 5,000 IUs. And as I mentioned, I'll put a link in the description so that you get the right stuff because you need the D3 and you need it with the K2. The K2 is very important in the optimized amounts so that you don't build calcium in your arteries and your heart and other organ systems where you don't want calcium. The K2 is going to help keep the calcium in the bones where you want it. The D3 makes it more absorbable. The K2 puts the calcium in the right place. And then from there, I would take this dose for 3 to 6 months, and I would retest then and figure out where my vitamin D levels are. And I would continue to work on them until I optimize them, getting it to 100 nanogs per milliliter, get that test score at 100%, so to speak, and then from there, your body is going to thrive.
I'm Dr. Nick Sarowski. If you enjoyed this video, I think you'll really like this video next.