EVERYBODY should have a SERUM VITAMIN D level!

The medical establishment has been slowly acknowledging that the importance of vitamin D is not limited to just calcium absorption and the bones, or to the athletes and elderly.The lower limits of normal has been slowly creeping up, as has the RDA.

But how much vitamin D you have in your body depends upon your diet, supplements, how much sunshine your skin gets, how much sunshine is screened out ( sunscreen, melanin), and other factors. Measuring the vitamin D serum level tells you directly.

My own Vitamin D level was at first in the low 20’s (ng./ml.), and I raised it to the low 50’s when I started taking 4,000 I.U. daily, the lower limit suggested by the NFL.

Serum Vitamin D levels cost almost $100. Why not just take 4-6,000 I.U.? For me, adding to  already nauseating handfuls of pills (to be enumerated later) was unappetizing. I needed a Serum D level to convince me.

But I didn’t need to be convinced of the importance (with hospitalized Covid Patients the VITAL importance) of this amazingly versatile Vitamin. Vitamin D tends to benefit the innate immune system, helping to ameliorate infections when they first hit. It then helps to turn off “the first responder” when the “big gun” adaptive immune system kicks in at 5-10 days. Failure of this shift ( with continuing interleukin production) may contribute to the “cytokines storm” of the seriously ill Covid-19 patient.

Many Doctors, inured to “health food industry” hype, give little attention to Vitamin D.  You might need to expressly ask for a vitamin D test on your next visit. I hope you do!

—Dr. C.

Further reading:

Vitamin D is crucial for immune health