Vitamin D has outdone itself yet again.
Whenever I find news about Vitamin D, I try to share it with the Everything Birth community, because it is a heavily researched supplement. When I was young, we were taught to be very careful not to take too much Vitamin D. The RDA sets the levels far below what researchers consider an effective dose, but just a little digging shows that researchers have also discovered that the dangerous levels of supplementation are significantly higher than a therapeutic dose. Published cases of toxicity, for which serum levels and dose are known, all involve intake of more 40000 IU per day. In fact, two different cases involved intake of over 2,000,000 IU per day, but both of these men survived.
The consensus among respected doctors, researchers and hippies everywhere is another reason that I love sharing new info on Vitamin D with this community.
So far, we’ve discussed
- How a lack of Vitamin D can cause anxiety and depression.
- How Vitamin D could be used to reduce uterine fibroid tumors.
- How Vitamin D seems to be far more effective at keeping the flu away than the vaccine.
- How Vitamin D supplementation might be able to replace SSRIs during pregnancy.
- How Vitamin D lowers the incidence of RSV
But now, researchers have found out another perk of Vitamin D supplementation, and it is the reason for this post. Researchers reported in the journal Pediarics:
“Supplementing vitamin D intake for children who were deficient halved the number of colds the children contracted.”
Ahhh…. but I know that Everything Birth moms are critical thinkers, so you probably noticed the part that said, ” for children who were deficient.” Certainly that doesn’t apply to our children, right? Our government research show that about 20% of U.S. children under the age of 12 have a vitamin D deficiency. Even crazier, HALF of all African American children are considered deficient. Any level below 20 ng/ml was considered a deficiency.
More and more, it seems one of the easiest ways to ensure your child’s health is to ask for a Vitamin D test.
According to the Vitamin D Council:
“There are two ways to obtain a vitamin D test:
- Ask your doctor for a 25-hydroxyvitamin D, or 25(OH)D, test. One may also refer to it simply as a “vitamin D test.” In the past, doctors have been known to order a 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D test. This is the wrong test as it cannot determine vitamin D deficiency. Make sure your doctor orders the correct test.
- Purchase an in-home test kit and test your levels yourself.
Further Reading about Vitamin D
- Depression: Patient friendly summary
- Vitamin D deficiency is associated with anxiety and depression in fibromyalgia.
- The Need for Vitamin D
- Vitamin D3 enhances mood in healthy subjects during winter.
- Calcium and Vitamin D Intake and Risk of Incident Premenstrual Syndrome
- Vitamin D for Cancer Prevention
- Half the world Vitamin D deficient.