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So Tyler, if someone's vitamin D levels were low, let's say maybe they are this weekend
warrior, what can they do to boost their vitamin D levels?
That's a great question and there's a lot of different factors that go into somebody's
vitamin D levels, such as the environment, pollution, genetics, where they live in regards
to latitude, their diet and supplementation. Now, some of the data that is coming out is
really suggesting that even if you have a really good diet it's nearly impossible to
get enough vitamin D through diet. So the two other major sources are: 1, the sun or
2, through supplementation. Now the sun, as I'm sure you're well aware is a catch 22.
Yeah, you need to go outside, you're body's going to produce sun, or produce vitamin D
from being in the sun, but at the same time you're at the risk of skin cancer. So a lot
of professionals in the field, physicians and clinical researchers will recommend going
out for 10, 15 minutes in the sun without any sunscreen, but then immediately after
that hurry and put some sunscreen on. So that's one way.
The second way is through supplementation. And it's probably one of the most common and
probably to be honest, one of the safest ways. Both the sun and supplementation you're not
going to reach toxic levels. In order to get toxic levels by supplementation you'd have
to be taking hundreds of thousands of IUs on a consistent basis for an extended period
of time. An interesting fact that kind of goes unrecognized is back during, you know,
the hunting and gathering days the amount of vitamin D we used to get from the sun is
equivalent to about 8,000 to 12,000 IUs per day. And you look at the common amount that
everybody's getting, whether it's through sun exposure or through supplementation or
diet, we're significantly below that. We're all inside, we're inside right now. We probably
should have done this interview outside.
But we should talk about that maybe just a little bit. As you know we just submitted
another publication in a collaborative study between USANA and The Orthopedic Specialty
Hospital where by we were comparing the summer contribution versus the winter contribution
and I think we were both surprised by those results that actually the summer yielded almost
no increase in vitamin D levels. No significant vitamin D levels from the sun, probably exactly
what you were talking about, because we're putting sunscreen on or we're going out covered.
Or because of our office jobs we're inside during those peak vitamin D producing hours.
So it is a little bit of a myth that vitamin D is that sunshine vitamin so maybe you should
look to these alternative forms if you want to boost your vitamin D levels.
Yeah, that's an excellent, an excellent point. And in this recent manuscript that's one of
the conclusions is looking at alternative means of increasing vitamin D, whether it's
sun, supplementation.