If You Only Take One Supplement, It Should Be Vitamin D—Here’s Why

“Sunshine is the best medicine.”

—Anonymous

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how deep my love for Vitamin D is. However, I briefly stopped talking about this supernutrient  because I felt that I had mentioned it enough. It seemed like it was all I was talking about for a while and I didn’t want to overdo it.

(If you are new, hi! So happy you found me. If you are interested in reading previous articles about Vitamin, check out this article on creating Vitamin D in the skin and sun exposure or explore our Instagram page for more Vitamin D posts.)

Well, I’m bringing Vitamin D as a supplement back into the conversation because I want to let everyone know that the findings of an important trial on Vitamin D and COVID will be coming out soon! I’ll definitely have more info on that study to come.  In preparation, I wanted to mention this article that was written by the author on that upcoming trial, Dr. Anastassios G. Pittas, MD, MS of Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Vitamin D: Our Hero Supplement!

The research summarized in the article titled “Can Vitamin D Lower Diabetes Risk and Reduce Cancer Progression, Mortality?” says it seems like vitamin D is pretty much good for everything under the sun (pun intended!).

According to Dr. Pittas, taking Vitamin D supplements has numerous health benefits, including:

• Lowering the risk developing type 2 diabetes (10% of all Americans, 13% of adults and 26% of those over 65 years old have diabetes)
• Preventing cancers and cardiovascular disease (#1 and #2 cause of death in the U.S.)
• Has generalized anti-cancer properties

Other research even shows a direct correlation with vitamin D levels and how long you will live. How can this simple supplement not be THE Supernutrient?

The Sunshine Vitamin That’s a Simple Solution

If you’re wondering how to test vitamin D levels, you’ll be pleased to hear it’s extremely easy. Vitamin D deficiency is simple to test for—any practitioner’s office can draw the blood test.

It appears that optimal Vitamin D levels are between 60-80 ng/ml—and for many Americans this can be achieved with a 4000 IU daily supplement dosing. In Canada it is recommended for kids to get 1000 IU daily. (I mention Canadian dosing only because here in America we are still struggling with the importance of Vitamin D, so data for recommendations for screening and supplementation are severely lagging).

Bottom line?  If you are looking to make sure you take a single supernutrient supplement that helps prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes and improves longevity, you’ve got it—you need Vitamin D!

For more nutritional information, check out the nutrition tab at the bottom of our website landing page. And more on Vitamin D and COVID coming soon!