By Perry Holman, Executive Director, Vitamin D Society

Who looks after you? For most people it is up to you to look after yourself. And that’s where things tend to fall apart. We are great at looking after other people in our lives and telling them to make healthy choices but most of us fail to act in the best interest of our own personal health.

November is Vitamin D Awareness month and I want you to pledge to take action to make sure that your personal vitamin D health needs are met. One of the best ways to achieve ideal health and to prevent future disease is through optimal vitamin D levels.

What are “optimal” vitamin D levels? Well an expert group of 48 of the world’s leading vitamin D doctors, researchers and scientists have analyzed this question and came to a consensus to recommend that everyone, all ages, achieve a vitamin D blood level or 25(OH)D level of between 100-150 nmol/L (40-60 ng/ml USA). Here is a chart which shows you the diseases prevented at this level.

The only way you will really know if you meet this level is to get tested. Talk to your health care provider and see about having a 25(OH)D test. There may be a fee involved. Another option is to use a home test kit through a reputable supplier like GrassrootsHealth. Don’t be put off by having to pay a fee. We usually have no problem paying for preventive maintenance for our car for example. It’s time to think of your personal health and vitamin D as a preventative investment to keep you running in the future.

For most adults to reach optimal vitamin D levels, a vitamin D intake from all sources of up to 4,000 IU/day or 100 mcg will be required.  You can get this from sensible sunshine exposure at midday in summer, or through UVB exposure from sunbeds or sun lamps or D3 supplementation in winter.

What benefit would optimal vitamin D levels bring you? How about living a longer life!

"Mortality is the most important clinical outcome. Maintaining optimal vitamin D blood levels of 100-150 nmol/L or 40-60 ng/ml (USA) may increase your life expectancy by 2 years." Dr. William B. Grant

There have been a number of high quality research studies completed which support that lower vitamin D levels are a risk for all-cause mortality. For example:

- A review of 73 cohort studies and 850k people published in 2014 found that adults with lower levels of vitamin D had a 35% increased risk of death from heart disease, 14% greater likelihood of death from cancer and all-cause mortality risk increase of 35% (Chowdhury 2014)

- People with the lowest vitamin D levels had a 90% greater risk of all-cause mortality compared to the highest vitamin D levels (Garland 2014)

- A large Swedish cohort study found the mortality rate amongst avoiders of sun exposure was twofold higher compared to the highest sun exposure group (Lindqvist 2014)

- Participants with vitamin D levels below 30 nmol/L were 2.6 times more likely to die compared to those with levels greater than 125 nmol/L (Dudenkov 2018)

- If all Canadians attained 25(OH)D blood levels >100 nmol/L premature deaths would be reduced by 23,000 per year in Canada  (Grant 2016)

Don’t wait until you have a disease only to discover that you may have prevented it with optimal vitamin D levels. Act now.

Please help STOP vitamin D deficiency. And may you live a long and healthy life!