The Scoop on Vitamin DWe need it, but what is the best way to get it? First things first, it is not a "vitamin", it is a hormone. Let's explore:
• Vitamin: Something the body needs but cannot produce. Must be procured from external sources (ideally food).
• Hormone: Something made by the body in one place that carries instructions needed in another, or several other places.
Fun Facts about Vitamins:
• There are 13 for humans
• 4 are fat-soluble
• 9 are water-soluble
Fun Facts about Hormones:
• There are about 50
• Produced in endocrine glands and tissues
• Some fat soluble, some water-soluble
Science about the D family:
• It’s a fat-soluble*, secosteroid (seco…steroid)
• The biologically active form is called calcitriol:
• 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol
* Means we can’t readily excrete excess
So, if D is a hormone, how is it produced in the body? It starts in the lower layers of the epidermis. When the sun meets our skin, UVB rays convert readily available 7-dehydrocholesterol into Vitamin D3. Then it’s off to the liver and the kidneys for “activating” (turned into 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol)
How much is enough?
Low D, first and foremost, is a sign you are not getting enough sun, not that you need to rush off to the pharmacy.
D is measured in I.U. (international units) when getting it from external sources. It's always good to keep daily intake under 4000 IUs.
Serum blood level tests, 25 (OH)D, (the OH stands for hydroxy), are known to be inaccurate. Different testing companies have different levels of what they call normal.
The minimum target is 20 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter), The happy medium is 30 ng/ml. There is no additional benefit above this.
We can't overdose from sun exposure, although we could burn and that's not good either. Getting 10-20 minutes of sun around noon-ish, twice a week, will do. Darker skin colors require 3 to 10 times more. Sunscreens with harmful chemicals can cause collateral damage. If you are planning to stay in the sun longer, physical blocks are better. Think hats, sunglasses, rash guards, zinc or titanium oxide. And if you are worried about living in the northern climates with no sunshine in the winter, know that the D hormone produced in the body by the sun is stored in the liver and our fat cells. When our body needs it, it calls for it and activates it!
Taking too much of a Vitamin D supplement can cause nausea, vomiting, weakness, insomnia, nervousness, and more. Overdose of Vitamin D supplements can cause kidney damage. It can also increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, prostate cancer in men, and higher LDL cholesterol.
What are the benefits from getting our Vitamin D from the sun? It builds strong bones through managing your calcium levels, helps manage levels of magnesium and phosphate, has a role in cancer prevention, enhances immune system performance, enhances bone absorption of minerals, promotes healthy cellular growth, and reduces inflammation.
Remember, there are NO super foods or super supplements. Your Vitamin D level is low as a result of illness or not enough sunshine. Get your Vitamin D from the Sun, not tanning salons. It also naturally occurs in salmon, mushrooms, sardines and breast milk.
Supplementation should be the last resort. Our bodies are elaborately set up via highly sensitive biological systems to produce the exact right amount of Vitamin D we need at every moment. Fortified foods and pills have a one size fits all system with fixed dosages designed to provide too much or too little. And remember, Vitamin D is not water soluble, so if you ingest too much the body cannot readily correct via excretion the way that B vitamins and Vitamin C get excreted because they are water soluble. Our "cleansing organs" must purge us of something (excess Vitamin D in a synthesized hormone form) that we were never designed to get rid of. That puts undue stress and strain on them.
The vitamin supplement industry is highly monetized and "pharmaceutical-ized". The 2022 market for Vitamin D was $1.34 billion dollars. Marketers have taken advantage of bad diet and lifestyle habits and contributed to making us think that a handful of supplements a day will make us feel better.
Sitting in the sun is not bad. Research shows that women who avoid the sun have shorter lives. Avoiding the sun has similar risk factors as smoking. Sunshine deficiency may also contribute to decrease in insulin's responsiveness, Mutiple Sclerosis, and cardiovascular disease.
So, there you have it. I am sure that a lot of you have been told by your doctor that you NEED to take a supplement. This is not defensible with science, but the decision is always yours, once you know all the facts. The bottom line is to be an informed consumer!
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
The objective of Nurture Your Health is to learn how to remain or become a healthy person, rather than to remain or become a sick patient. Most people do not pay attention to their health until they are sick. It is important to prioritize learning about health and investing time and resources in adopting the right diet, engaging in the right exercise, and paying attention to other factors that lead to optimal health. Make learning about health interesting and fun. Use this information to take control of your health and make better and informed decisions about what you eat, which lifestyle choices you make, and the medical care you receive.
This information is not a substitute for medical advice.
I talk often about forming and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits. This topic seems to cause anxiety because we find it difficult to find a place to start. These anxious thoughts make us feel out of control. We want the quick solution, but we know that there aren't any shortcuts.
We want solutions, but what we really need are attitudes. You don't need an easier life, but rather an attitude of perseverance. 1
Attitude precedes outcome. And attitude equals mindset.
I read recently that everything you do in life either lifts you up or tears you down. There are always things to be torn down and discarded, but your life is a treasure to be valued and protected.2 Yes, we have busy lives, which makes it all the more important to schedule in rest. I am not referring to falling into bed at night and passing out, exhausted. And it certainly is not laying on the sofa with the TV on and scrolling Facebook or Instagram.
I attended a sweet time of prayer this week and heard that rest is not inactive-it is a deep sweet restfulness of the soul. Depending on your family obligations, it can be anywhere from 3 hours a week, a day a week, two days a month, even a day a month. The important thing is to schedule it for yourself, just like you do your hair appointment. Persevere and protect this time for yourself until it becomes a habit.
Forming a healthy habit requires motivation for the outcome and motivation for the effort to achieve the outcome. Focus on the payoff. For example, getting up every day to go to work is a habit. The payoff is that you become known as a dependable person, you earn recognition, and you collect a paycheck. This is a good habit! And even when you don't have the motivation on a particular day to go to work, the habit is a default decision that serves you well.
Manipulate your environment to serve your habit. Schedule it into your planner so that eventually everyone knows that the 2nd Saturday of the month is mom's/dad's time to go for a long hike, read a book in a park, sit somewhere to journal, sit in a church to pray, or all of the above! Remember that good habits are formed the same way that bad habits are formed: repetition! Having scheduled, healthy, repetitions in your life is a good way to relieve the anxieties of day-to-day life. Having this healthy flow of the day-to-day helps equip you when life throws you a curveball because you will be more resilient. You will have the ability to bounce back because you remember how your healthy habits made you feel better. This applies not only to rest days but also to eating and exercise.
Teaching the Forming Healthy Habits class helps me stay on track as well. It's a daily practice!
Click on the below link if you need inspiration on dealing with anxiety.
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
1. James Clear
2. Marsha Burns
How do you want to live?Hunter S Thompson said on designing your life "Beware of looking for goals; look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life."
When you think about changing your lifestyle to include healthier habits and an optimal way of eating, you might be thinking of the obstacles that come with it.
There are several impediments to changing routines, particularly when adding new tasks and activities, such as food preparation and exercise. One reason is that people usually do not have large blocks of unoccupied time.
People usually say, “I understand what you are telling me to do and why it is a good idea but I’m so busy now I don’t know how I’ll find time to shop, cook, and exercise.”
Since you don’t have free time now and you can’t manufacture more – we all have to work within a 24-hour day – changing the way you plan and schedule in order to do more with the time you have are the keys to success.
Creating a time management system for yourself can help you fit in your healthy habit changes. It is simple, but requires commitment and the willingness to set and stick with schedules. Remember that it is only by repeating the right behaviors in a stable context over a long period of time that you will form and maintain good habits. I am going to share what has worked for me.
The first thing you will need is a paper planner (yes, paper, not your phone calendar) that allows you to see an entire week at a time with weekend days grouped together. Your planner should also have times to write in your activities from 8AM to 9PM on weekdays, and space for each day to write lists of things to do, reminders, birthdays and other things to remember.
Start by writing in all of the recurring activities you do each year, and the events you have already scheduled. Examples of recurring things would be your monthly book club meeting, piano lessons on Wednesday night at 7PM, and the annual meeting for a charity you support that takes place on the first Tuesday in June. Examples of things you have already scheduled would include things like the Alaskan cruise you are taking in July. Then write in birthdays, anniversaries, the dates you need to file your sales tax returns and all of the other happenings you don’t want to forget. Write in your workday hours, if applicable.
The times not already blocked out are what you have left for everything else, and you should write in the days and times each week you will be doing everything needed to maintain your life. These things include buying a birthday present for the party you are attending next week, taking your car in for an oil change, and of course, shopping for food, batch cooking, and exercise. The key is consistency, both in writing everything in your planner, and keeping the appointments you make with yourself to do the things you have decided are important to you. This system works if you make your mind up to do it.
Sometimes I just don’t feel like doing the things I’ve committed to, like shopping, at a specific time. Most people have to do things regularly that they may not feel like doing in the moment, like filing a tax return, taking care of children, and going to work. At some point you have to make the decision that not feeling like doing it is not a valid reason to not practice good habits. You don’t tell the IRS that you just didn’t feel like filing your tax return, or your employer that you’re just not in the mood to come in today. You have lots of experience in rallying to do things when they need to be done. Toughen up, put on your big girl or big boy pants, and do the right thing!
Doing the same thing over and over is how you develop a routine that can lead to better habits. We all can come up with excuses to justify our bad behavior.
For things to change, you’ve got to change. For things to get better, you’ve got to get better.
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
Your Wellness Lifestyle Starts HereTurmeric is a plant that grows mainly in India, Asia and Central America, and is related to the ginger family. The ground root of the plant is used as a spice, and turmeric is an ingredient in curry powder. Its main ingredients, curcuminoids, are yellow and are often used to color foods and products like cosmetics.
Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric and is used widely in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for many health conditions, including breathing problems, skin diseases, wounds, gastrointestinal distress, liver disease, inflammation, and pain. Other bioactive components include demethoxycurcumin, bis-demethoxycurcumin, and turmeric essential oils. The typical turmeric product used for treatment is an extract that is standardized to between 80% and 95% curcuminoids, most of it is curcumin.
Curcumin is a safe and effective natural compound for treating pain related to common musculoskeletal disorders. Turmeric and curcumin do not modulate COX-1 activity, but instead modify the action of COX-2 enzymes, affect NF-κB signaling, and reduce production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin and phospholipase A2.
Many studies have documented the efficacy of curcumin for pain relief and lowering inflammation. For example:
A study including 107 patients with knee osteoarthritis randomized to take 800 mg ibuprofen or 2 g curcumin daily for 6 weeks showed that curcumin was as effective as ibuprofen for reducing pain.
Three months of treatment with curcumin resulted in improvement in pain and mobility, and reduction in treatment costs for patients with osteoarthritis.
A study in which patients with knee osteoarthritis were randomized to take 500 mg curcuminoids 3 times per day or matched placebo showed that those taking curcumin had significantly greater reductions in pain and improvements in physical function as compared to those taking placebo.
A double-blind crossover study in which rheumatoid arthritis patients were randomized to take 1.2 g of curcumin per day or phenylbutazone (NSAID) for 2 weeks showed that curcumin was just as effective as phenylbutazone for reducing joint swelling and morning stiffness and improving walking time. There were no adverse side effects reported.
A meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies concluded that 8-12 weeks of treatment with 1000 mg/day of curcumin can reduce pain and inflammation for patients with arthritis, especially osteoarthritis, with improvement similar to the results of treatment with ibuprofen and diclofenac sodium.
Curcuminoids are considered by the FDA as GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) and clinical trials confirm that it is safe, even at high doses of up to 12,000 mg.
The most common drug treatments for joint and musculoskeletal pain are analgesics and NSAIDS, but these drugs have serious gastrointestinal and cardiovascular side effects. Curcumin is a viable alternative that is at least as effective without these side effects.
It is important to remember that a limitation of both drugs and supplements is that they do not resolve the cause of pain. Thus, in most cases, they should be temporary measures to provide relief while physical therapy, exercise and other modalities are used to permanently resolve pain.
The objective of Nurture Your Health is to learn how to remain or become a healthy person, rather than to remain or become a sick patient. Most people do not pay attention to their health until they are sick. It is important to prioritize learning about health and investing time and resources in adopting the right diet, engaging in the right exercise, and paying attention to other factors that lead to optimal health. Make learning about health interesting and fun. Use this information to take control of your health and make better and informed decisions about what you eat, which lifestyle choices you make, and the medical care you receive.
This information is not a substitute for medical advice.
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
Peddaka KV, Peddaka KV, Shukla SK, Mishra A, Verma V. “Role of Curcumin in Common Musculoskeletal Disorders: a Review of Current a, Translational, and Clinical Data.” Orthop Surg 2015 Aug;7(3):222-231
Appelboom, T, Maes N, Albert A. “A new curcuma extract (flexofytol) in osteoarthritis: results from a belgian real-life experience.” Open Rheumatol J 2014 Oct;8:77-81
Prasad S, Gupta SC, Tyagi AK, Aggarwal BB. “Curcumin, a component of golden spice: from bedside to bench and back.” Biotechnol Adv 2014 Nov;32(6):1053-1064
Kuptnirasaikul V, thanakhumtorn S, Chinswangwatanakul P, Wattanamongkonsil L, Thamlikitkul V. “Efficacy and safety ot Curcuma domestica extracts I patients with knee osteoarthritis.” J Altern Complement Med 2009 Aug;15(8):891-897
registry of Merivac, a curcumin-phosphatidylcholine complex, for the complementary management of osteoarthritis.” Panminerva Med 2010 Jun;52(2 Supple 1):55-62
Pnahi Y, Rahimnia AR, Sharafi M, Alishiri G, Saburi A, Sahebkar A. “Curcuminoid treatment for knee osteoarthritis: a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.” Phytother Res 2014 Nov;28(11):1625-1631
Deodhar SD, Sethi R, Srimal RC. “Preliminary study on antirheumatic activity of curcumin (diferuloyl methane)” Indian J Med Res. 1980 Apr;71:632–634.
Daily JW, Yang M, Park S. “Efficacy of Turmeric Extracts and Curcumin for Alleviating the Symptoms of Joint Arthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Clinical Trials.” J Med Food 2016 Aug;19(8):717-729
https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fdcc/index.cfm?set=GrASNotices&sort=Date_of_closure&order=ASC&showAll=true&type=basic&search=
Lao CD, Ruffin Mt 4th, Normelle D et al. “Dose escalation of a curcuminoid formulation.” BMC Complement Altern Med 2006 Mar;6:10
Schnitzer TJ. “Update on guidelines for the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain.” Clin Rheumatol 2006;25 Suppl 1:S22-229
Your Wellness Lifestyle Starts HereYou may have heard of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. It states that for many events, roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes.
The Pareto Principle can be applied to a variety of situations. Here are a few examples of how to apply this principle to help you form healthy habits.
The Pareto Principle can be applied to a variety of situations. Here are a few examples of how to apply this principle to help you form healthy habits.
- Relationships. Who are the few people that have the most positive impact on my life? Spend more time with them.
- Priorities. What are the few actions that have the most positive impact on my day? Prioritize them.
- Learning. What are the few information sources I learn from most? Focus on them.
- Stress. What are the few sources that cause most of the stress and friction in my life. Eliminate them.
Journal.: What are the current habits that are hindering your future progress?
Forming healthy lifestyle habits, including diet and exercise, requires deliberate effort on your part in crafting a health and wellness vision. In order to be successful, the habits must be accessible, sustainable, and defensible with science.
Wellness Forum Health has developed a process of educating others to make Informed decisions and I love helping others regain their health through better habits.
We should never need to explain our reasons for any of our choices, including our food choices. However, we should be able to - if asked - explain why we have decided to stop eating particular foods. Most important is the ability to do this, which represents an understanding of the reasons a choice has been made. Diet and lifestyle choices and more independent thinking about healthcare are more likely to "stick" if people know what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Liz Fattore
Nurture Your Health
Licensed Food Over Medicine Professional
