Summer is almost over!

  Labor Day weekend generally marks the end of summer. School is back in session, football has started and the temperature begins to change (unless you live in Texas). And if you were like me this weekend, you made sure you got out to the water and got some sun. I got a little too much actually. But I was just making sure I got my Vitamin D! In all seriousness, Vitamin D is essential to your overall health, and there are many people deficient in it. I recommend my patients to supplement with it if they are not getting enough sun year round. If you get enough sun during the summer I recommend supplementing with it seasonally, like I do personally. Think about it, most of us are in an office all day long and never get any sun. Sun is the best source of Vitamin D.
   In a paper published in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Anthony Norman, an international expert on vitamin D, identifies vitamin D's potential for contributions to good health in the adaptive and innate immune systems, the secretion and regulation of insulin by the pancreas, the heart and blood pressure regulation, muscle strength and brain activity. Access to adequate amounts of vitamin D is also believed to be beneficial towards reducing the risk of cancer. Norman also lists 36 organ tissues in the body whose cells respond biologically to vitamin D, including bone marrow, breast, colon, intestine, kidney, lung, prostate, retina, skin, stomach and uterine tissues. According to Norman, deficiency of vitamin D can impact all 36 organs. Already, vitamin D deficiency is associated with muscle strength decrease, high risk for falls, and increased risk for colorectal, prostate and breast and other major cancers. An unrelated study also suggests that low vitamin D is associated with Parkinson’s disease. The majority (55 percent) of Parkinson's disease patients in the study had insufficient levels of vitamin D. Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics has doubled its recommendation for a daily dose of vitamin D in children, in the hopes of preventing rickets and promoting other health benefits.
   So you see why Vitamin D is so important to your overall health. And as Summer is coming to a close, most of us will go back in to hibernation until next year. Supplementing with a good Vitamin D is important. Now I say good, because you have to be careful where you are getting your supplements from. Supplements for one are not even regulated by the FDA, not that they do a good job regulating anyway. But there is a lot of garbage put in to supplements. For example, the number one ingredient in Costco's Kirkland Signature brand Vitamin D3 is soybean oil. Not sure why, but it is, you would think the number one ingredient would be Vitamin D. But Soy is the second most genetically modified crop right behind corn. And it is also estrogenic. So you think you are being healthy by taking this and you are popping GMO's and increasing your estrogen levels. If you are male, typically you wouldnt want to increase this hormone and if your female thing about the top cancers that are killing you. Breast, ovarian, cervical, these all feed off estrogen. That's one reason why we are seeing the link between long term birth control use and higher cancer risk. There are only a few companies that I can vauge for, i get third party testing sent to me and I have been to where they are manufactured. Unfortunately they are only carried by healthcare professionals like myself. 
   One of my favorite new supplements that i carry combines the highest quality fish oil and your daily intake of Vitamin D in to one pill. This has been really popular among my patients. If you would like more information on supplementing or what you could be deficient in contact my office for a free consultation.

---