Skip to main content

Vitamin D Dose and Japanese Inspired Soup


Readers know I'm on a mission to heal my cavities without the help of a drill. As part of that goal, I took a vitamin D test. The results are in:

Vitamin D3 is within the range which many experts consider normal (>32 ng/ml), but not optimal for health (50-80 ng/ml). Vitamin D deficiency has been closely associated with a wide range of conditions and diseases, which include cardiovascular disease, stroke, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, cancer, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple schlerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes (types 1 and 2) (for review see: Holick MF, NEJM 357: 266-281, 2007).

Research by Weston A. Price and the Drs. Mellanby showed that a diet high in vitamin D (among other nutrients) and low in cereals healed cavities in children and dogs. The next step: determine a dose. The official recommended daily intake is 400 IU, but Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist, has often pointed out the folly of recommending one dose for everyone.

The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine has been struggling with this question, also. They have an impossible job: Draft broad pronouncements on requirements for various nutrients by recommending Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) for all Americans. The Food and Nutrition Board has tried to factor in individual variation by breaking vitamin D requirements down by age and sex, but what amounts to a one-size-fits-nearly-all approach.

Much of the uncertainty over dosing stems from the fact that vitamin D should not be called a “vitamin.” Vitamins are nutrients obtained from foods. But, outside of oily fish, you'll find very little naturally-occurring vitamin D in food. (Even in fish, there is generally no more than 400 units per 4 oz. serving.) Sure, there’s 20 units in an egg yolk and you can activate the vitamin D in a shiitake mushroom by exposing it to ultraviolet radiation. Dairy products like milk (usually) contain vitamin D because the USDA mandates it. But food sources hardly help at all unless you’re an infant or small child.

It all makes sense when vitamin D is viewed as a hormone, a steroid hormone, not a vitamin. Vitamin─no, steroid hormone─D exerts potent effects in tiny quantities with hormone-like action in cells, including activation of nuclear receptors.

It is the only hormone that is meant to be activated by sun exposure of the skin, not obtained through diet. But the ability to activate D is lost by the majority of us by age 40 and even a dark tan is no assurance that sufficient skin prohormone D activation has taken place.

As with any other hormone, such as thyroid, parathyroid, or growth hormones, dose needs to be individualized.

Imagine you developed a severely low thyroid condition that resulted in 30 lbs of weight gain, lose your hair, legs swell, and heart disease explodes. Would you accept that you should take the same dose of thyroid hormone as every other man or woman your age, regardless of your body size, proportion of body fat, metabolism, genetics, race, dietary habits, and other factors that influence thyroid hormone levels? Of course you wouldn’t.

....


Vitamin D dose needs to be individualized. Factors that influence vitamin D need include body size and percent body fat (both of which increase need substantially); sex (males require, on average, 1000 units per day more than females); age (older need more); skin color (darker-skinned races require more, fairer-skinned races less); and other factors that remain ill-defined.

But these are “rules” often broken. My office experience with vitamin D now numbers nearly 1000 patients. The average female dose is 4000-5000 units per day, average male dose 6000 units per day to achieve a blood level of 60-70 ng/ml, though there are frequent exceptions. I’ve had 98 lb women who require 12,000 units, 300 lb men who require 1000 units, 21-year olds who require 10,000 units. (Of course, this is a Wisconsin experience. However, regional differences in dosing needs diminish as we age, since less and less vitamin D activation occurs.)

Let me reiterate: Steroid hormone-vitamin D dose needs to be individualized.

There’s only one way to individualize your need for vitamin D and thereby determine your dose: Measure a blood level.

The factors I've put in bold, along with the facts that I'm only mildly deficient and live in sunny Colorado, should put me at the low end of the requirement. I'll take 3,000 IU per day of Vitamin D3 and take another test in August.



Meantime, I'm continuing my high-nutrient diet. Tonight's soup was a winner. I started with the recipe for fish stew in The Primal Blueprint Cookbook and started improvising. I've kept reading lately that the Japanese diet is not as high in carbohydrate as most of us seem to think--that they actually eat a lot of pork, fish and seaweed. (A dance partner whose parents are Japanese confirmed that they eat fish and seaweed at almost every meal.) In that spirit, I threw the following in a pot and let it simmer for 15 minutes.

2 quarts beef stock
4 marrow bones
15 oz canned salmon (skin, bones and juice included)
3 stalks celery, chopped
juice of one lemon
5.5 oz (small can) coconut milk
6 leaves of kelp (kombu)

For my dog, I substituted some arame seaweed since I didn't think she could chew the big kelp leaves. And I put one of the bones in her dish. For my bowl, I added a pat of butter and a spoonful of spicy kimchi. We both loved it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...

15% Off Starter Culture

Starter culture for the wonderful cream cheese I made is 15% off for the next two weeks (through June 18, 2025). The shop (BacillusBulgaricus.com) also offers rennet and starter for other cheeses, yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sour cream, fermented vegetables, and more. They ship to 118 countries across six continents. The coupon code is LORI_sekd3tkb at bacillusbulgaricus.com .  Photo from Pexels .

Getting Over Palpitations

Note to new readers: please note I'm not a health care provider and have no medical training. If you have heart palpitations, I have no idea whether the following will work for you. Over the past several days, I've had a rough time with heart palpitations and feeling physically jittery. I was wondering if I was going to turn into one of those people who can't sit still. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be a major lifestyle change. Kidding aside, something wasn't right and I really needed to get back to normal. I tried popping potassium pills like candy. I ate more. I doubled up on my iron dose. I went to yoga and even got on the treadmill at 6 AM yesterday. I tried the nuclear option of eating more carbs to stop peeing away minerals. Most of these things helped, but the problem kept coming back. A comment from Galina made me look up epinephrine, one of the drugs my surgeon used to anesthetize me Friday. First, the assistant at the surge...

Carrageenan: A Sickening Thickener. Is it a Migraine Menace?

Let me tell you about my ride in an ambulance last night. I woke up at six o'clock from a nap with a mild headache. I ate dinner and took my vitamins, along with a couple of extra magnesium pills. Since magnesium helps my TMJ flare-ups, I thought it might help my headache. Then I went to see my mother. A few hours later, I had a severe headache, sinus pain and nausea. During a brief respite from the pain, I left for home, but less than a mile later, I got out of my car and threw up. A cop, Officer Fisher, pulled up behind me and asked if I was okay. He believed me when he said I hadn't been drinking, but he said I seemed lethargic and he wanted the paramedics to see me. (Later he mentioned that a man he'd recently stopped was having a stroke.) Thinking I had a migraine headache, the paramedics wanted to take me to the hospital. But since I knew that doctors don't know what causes migraine headaches, and I didn't know what effect their medicine would have on m...