Vitamin D: Is It The Fountain of Youth?

We hear a lot about Vitamin D these days and it makes you wonder how much of it is hype. Paul Stitt has done a pretty good job explaining this somewhat complex topic in a concise, easy-to-read format. Having done many hundreds of hours of research on vitamin D myself, it is abundantly clear Mr. Stitt has done his homework and hits the nail on the head every time. He states several times that life-threatening medical conditions cannot rightly be called diseases; they are manifestations of nutritional and lifestyle deficiencies. Yes!! When he makes a recommendation on how much vitamin D to take, he is right on the money. When he recommends blood levels of 25(OH)D, he is spot on. These values are not generally agreed upon, and it is easy to see why there is general confusion in the medical community. Any reader of this book will be privy to sound information based on up-to-date research. If I have a complaint it is that he tends to reduce hugely complex, authoritative studies into a single bland sentence, such as this one: "Dr. Holick says that fibromyalgia is just another word for vitamin D deficiency. Same for MS." This is big, important stuff based on multiple studies from highly credible sources. I wish the author would convince the reader with supporting evidence so compelling it amounts to irrefutable proof. Instead he asks you to take it on faith based on superficial claims. At the very least, it would be nice to see references, those little numbers leading to the published studies where the curious could validate each claim, but there are none. But overall these flaws are forgivable since it keeps the book brief and easy to read. My favorite anecdote illustrates that even massive overdoses of vitamin D, while not recommended, are not that dangerous. A Canadian woman wanted to kill her husband and father-in-law by mixing what she believed to be a lethal dose of pure vitamin D into the family sugar bowl. Seven months later the two men suffered gastrointestinal distress and came to the attention of Dr. Reinhold Vieth, the leading expert on vitamin D overdose. An investigation revealed they consumed 1.7 million IU per day and had blood levels of 622 and 1480 ng/mL, multiples more than the known toxic level. The treatment was simple, there were no lasting effects, and the only complication was how to deal with the would-be murderer. Dr. Veith published his finding in Lancet in 2002. This anecdote provides an essential puzzle piece in evaluating the risk of avoiding vitamin D supplementation versus the risk of a possible overdose. (In case you missed the point, at least tens and probably hundreds of thousands of deaths result from vitamin D deficiency and there are NO DEATHS from a vitamin D overdose.) The epilogue makes a case for the societal benefit of fortifying food plus a public awareness program so that nationally everyone receives a healthy amount of vitamin D. The monetary savings to society would be enormous - in the hund

Everything I hoped it would be. Very good information and lets one know the importance of vitamin D3 in our diet. Recommended reading.