I love vitamin D3! I've posted about it before at an old blog that is now, for the most part, abandoned. So let me say it all again...

Back in 2006, I was working on losing weight and getting healthy. Between July 2005 and March 2006, I lost almost 100 pounds (getting down to around 215). In the summer of 2006, I decided to join the Y to start lifting and doing some cardio. Everything was going well until November 2006... I got a respiratory infection that knocked me on my ass and made it hard to get back in the groove of working out. In fact, it took me nearly four months to fully recover. I wanted to get back in the gym, but I just felt so exhausted all the time and could not get up early to go workout and I was too tired at the end of the day to go. It took another three months to get back in the gym sometime in the middle of the summer of 2007. 

Again, all was going well until around November when bam! Another respiratory infection. Another trip to the doctor, another z-pack, another seven months before I could find the strength, energy, and motivation to go back to the gym in the summer of 2008.

Know what happens next? Yup! Another infection in November 2008. I was treated for it then, but asked to come back after it all cleared up. So I went to the doctor in January of 2009 for a full panel of blood tests. There were a number of issues, but one was that my 25(OH)D level was 8.3ng/ml... That's "seriously deficient." At the time, it didn't seem to be a big deal. It was something to correct, but no real sense of concern. The nurse practitioner prescribed some massive doses of D2 to bring my level up, but no talk of supplementing beyond that or anything about what the low 25(OH)D meant for my health.

Anywho, I took 100,000IU of D2 per week for eight weeks. At a followup blood test in May of 2009, my level had come up to 35.3ng/ml. Above the minimum level of 32ng/ml, so that was that.

At another blood test in September 2009--by the way, all of these blood tests were watching another marker and not because of the 25(OH)D level--my level had dipped back down to 24.4ng/ml. Ugh!

So, at this point, I started supplementing with 10,000IU of D3 that I bought on Amazon (link, currently $12.20 for a 6 month supply, no brainer!!!). At my next blood test in January of 2010, my 25(OH)D was up to 115ng/ml.

But, wait a minute! November had passed without a respiratory infection! Ok, a fluke, I'll keep working out and see how it goes next year...

November 2010... All clear. November 2011... Nope, no infection. In fact, aside from a couple of relatively minor illnesses, I can't remember the last time I've been so healthy! My diet has been great and it has been terrible, so not healthy because of diet. My workout regime has been great and it has been terrible, so not healthy because of physical activity. I'm sure that there are a few factors at play, but, based on information I've found over the years, I sincerely believe that my D3 supplementation has had the greatest impact to my improving health.

As of May 4th, 2012, my 25(OH)D level has fallen to 63ng/ml. Not as high as it was, but I'm still happy with it. Also, I had BulletProofJenn have her levels checked also. She supplements at the same 10,000IU level I do, but weighs almost half what I weigh. That said, her level as of May 6th, 2012 was 76ng/ml. FYI, I ordered our test kits from ZRT labs. Dropped them at UPS (pre-paid shipping) on May 7th and had the results today, May 16th.

Resources (as of January 18, 2010... Guess I need to find some new resources...)

A Compendium of Vitamin D Information There is a ton of useful information on this page. It certainly earns the “compendium” part of the title. Some of my favorite sections of the page are:

Chronic Pain “Epidemiological studies indicate that 93% of people with chronic muscoskeletal pain are deficient in Vitamin D“

Depression This really explains the seasonal blues for me. I had just assumed it was “cabin fever” or something mental. To know that it could be vitamin deficiency really gives me hope for future winters… bring it on!

Vitamin D and Cancer This section really hits close to home… as a man, anything that “reduces the risk of prostate cancer” is high on my list of to-dos. And, having lost my grandmother to pancreatic cancer, knowing that “just 400 IU of Vitamin D per day reduced the risk of pancreatic cancer by 43%” gives me hope for myself and my kids.

Vitamin D and the Immune System A couple of sentences in this section are what prompted me to write this post. “Increased incidence of respiratory infection is linked to Vitamin D deficiency. Epidemiological studies indicate that people with low levels of Vitamin D are 40% more likely to have a respiratory infection.” Alrighty then! That explains my last three years!!!

H1N1, Vitamin D3 and Innate Immunity is another post from Dr Harris over at PaNu. This post is part of the reason I double my supplementation when there is illness in the house. In short, “[i]t appears vitamin D is incredibly protective against H1N1.” This part is amazing to me: “0.73% of residents were affected, as compared to 7.5% of staff. This 10-fold difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). That is, the chance that this was a chance occurrence is one less than one in a thousand.” If you don’t want to read the post, know that residents of the long-term care facility receive daily supplementation of vitamin D based upon individual 25(OH)D levels.

Vitamin D supplements show anti-diabetes potential Dr Michael Eades posted a link to this article this morning on his twitter account DrEades. I promptly posted it to my Facebook page before I decided to write this post. In short, the article reports that a randomized, controlled trial has shown that vitamin D improves both insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance, two common risk factors for diabetes. Awesome!

Vitamin D Is DINOMIT Against Cancer is a post from Tom Naughton that links to a video from the UCSD School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center titled “How Vitamin D Reduces Incidence of Cancer: DINOMIT Model.” I would link directly to the video, but you really need to start reading Tom’s stuff anyway so go… after you finish here! Also, you need to watch Tom’s documentary film Fat Head.