 Are you one of the types of people who need more vitamin D? Well, first of all, it's important for you to know that vitamin D is one if not the most essential vitamins for good health. In fact, vitamin D is actually not a vitamin at all. It's a hormone that has effects on almost everything that happens in you and to you. Interestingly enough, we know that people who have the highest levels of vitamin D in their bloodstream have the longest telomeres, those little end caps on chromosomes. And if you like the telomere theory of longevity, then long telomeres are much better for you than short telomeres. And vitamin D level correlates with telomere length. Interestingly enough, all five of the blue zones are in high sun exposure areas, including my blue zone loma Linda, where I spent half my career as a professor. The other thing that's fascinating is that vitamin D is essential to activate the differentiation of stem cells in your gut to provide gut cell lining. And without vitamin D, the stem cells that repopulate your gut lining, which is damaged every day by all the things you eat, by all the things we do, by all the toxins in our food and by glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, we are very deficient in replacing the wall of our gut. And early on in my career in leaky gut, I noticed that most of my patients with autoimmune diseases and leaky gut had extremely low levels of vitamin D. And it wasn't until we got their vitamin D levels higher and higher and higher that they began to repair their leaky gut and their autoimmune diseases began to dissipate. Now, unfortunately, vitamin D deficiency is a common global issue. And it's safe to say that pretty much everyone can benefit from more vitamin D. Now, that's not just me talking. I'd love to tell you about the story of Professor Hollick from Boston University, who was a professor of dermatology who came out with the bold statement that most of us should not use sunscreen and that we should expose ourselves to the sun. Now, for a dermatologist, a tenured professor of dermatology, that's heresy. And in fact, poor Professor Hollick was fired from his job, which you can't do to a tenured professor, and it spent him years in the courts to get his job back. Why was he fired? Because telling people to avoid sunscreen and to get more sun, if you're a dermatologist doesn't seem like a very good idea. But Dr. Hollick's research substantiated the fact that vitamin D and sun exposure is critical to our functioning as a human being. Now, his research has subsequently been confirmed by the University of California, San Diego, which has one of the biggest research units in vitamin D. And they've published papers showing that the average American should be getting 9,600 international units of vitamin D3 per day to have a safe level of vitamin D, not only for health, but in their studies to diminish the chance of cancer. Yes, you heard that right, diminish the chance of cancer. In fact, the same study, the same center, has shown that they have not seen a case of vitamin D toxicity up to 40,000 international units a day. Now, you heard that right. They've seen patients taking 40,000 international units a day of vitamin D3 and not experiencing any vitamin D toxicity. I've now been measuring vitamin D levels every three to six months in all of my patients for 25 years, and I've yet to see vitamin D toxicity. And you would think that I would see it, because as many of you know, we use a lot of vitamin D, particularly in our patients with cancer and with any autoimmune disease. Now, interestingly enough, as you might imagine, studies have shown that people with darker skin pigmentation are at greater risk for vitamin D deficiency. In fact, a few years ago, it was found that over 80% of black people have profoundly low levels of vitamin D. Now, it should be obvious that melanin in our skin blocks UV light from forming vitamin D in us. So that's how we convert the sun's rays into vitamin D. So if you have dark pigmentation and more melanin, it would seem obvious that you would have less vitamin D. And yet knowing that, we have not gotten out the word to anyone with dark skin, brown skin, that they are probably from the start vitamin D deficient, even if they work outside. In fact, early on in my career, I found that 80% of Southern Californians are vitamin D deficient. And you go, well, wait a minute, how in the world could that be? Because, sadly, most Southern Californians are putting sunscreen on themselves or are covering up to protect ourselves from sun. And that's hurt us because of what we now know about how important vitamin D. Well, so what can you do? Certainly sun exposure is a reasonable thing to do. And I've recommended to my patients that early day and late day sun exposure for about 20 minutes at a time is certainly a good place to start. Now, obviously, you don't want to go out in midday sun and spend hours in the sun. That's not what I'm saying. You want to play safe with the sun. I haven't used sunscreen in over 20 years. And yet I spend a great deal of time out in the sun. How do I accomplish that? Well, before the days of sunscreen, my parents were pretty smart and allowed us to gradually increase our time in the sun. And we would get 15, 20 minutes in the sun and work our way up. We would build a what was called a sun callus. We would tan. And as that tanning increased, we would spend more time out in the sun. And that's still a reasonable way to do it. But we're much too eager to get into the sun. So one of the things I do is eat my sunscreen. I take time to release vitamin C. So they constantly have vitamin C in my skin. I take polyphenols, which have been shown and I eat polyphenols like olive oil. Polyphenols increase the repair and blockage of UV light. There are even products that are made from ferns that have been effectively shown to block UV light absorption in the skin. Now, why shouldn't you use sunscreen? Well, besides the obvious effect that we need sunlight, most of these sunscreens contain hormone-disrupting compounds that have now been shown to be absorbed directly through our skin that produce some really bad estrogen-like effects in boys and girls and adults. If you've got to use sunscreen, please use a zinc or titanium-based sunscreen that doesn't have all these other ingredients. Now, doesn't the sun cause wrinkles? Well, interestingly enough, sunlight can damage collagen. And collagen can break. But collagen can be re-knit together with vitamin C. One of the interesting things about smokers, and smokers, as most of us know, have a lot of wrinkles. Smokers, the oxidative stress of tobacco smoke uses up all the vitamin C in smokers. And so there's no vitamin C left to re-knit the collagen breaks that occur from sun exposure. And interestingly enough, as I've written in my books, one of the reasons smokers get a typical type of blockages in their coronary arteries is that it's caused by the collagen breaking in flexible areas in coronaries that doesn't get repaired with vitamin C. So, eating your vitamin C in the form of time-release vitamin C is one of the smartest ways to protect yourself from sun damage. And let's take a tip from Sophia Loren, who always attributed her great skin to consuming huge amounts of olive oil and using olive oil on her skin. The benefits of olive oil on your skin when you're out in the sun or after your sun will really go a long way at making you tolerate sun. Okay, so how do you get vitamin D? Vitamin D is easy to purchase. Vitamin D in general comes in 1,000 international units, 2,000 international units, 5,000 international units, there are now 10,000 international units, and there's even 50,000 international units. Right now, the University of California of San Diego says the average American should take 9,600 international units a day. I certainly find that's true in my practice. I take 10,000 international units a day. I have for the last few years for obvious reasons as a defense against viral illnesses. Mushrooms contain a good amount of vitamin D. Now, I personally believe that most people taking vitamin D should also supplement with vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 is very different than vitamin K1. Vitamin K1 is prompt clotting factor formation in us. Vitamin K2, on the other hand, takes the calcium that we eat and the calcium that could potentially deposit in our coronary arteries and deposits it into bones. And in my patients with osteopenia, osteoporosis, vitamin K2 is a major part of our regimen. Now, the good news is you don't need much vitamin K2. 100 micrograms will usually do it. If you want to take more, it's not harmful. But the combination of higher vitamin D and vitamin K2 is a win-win. Now, can vitamin D bother you? I have some women who swear that vitamin D makes their stomach queasy and even gives them diarrhea. If you are one of those rare people and I have you as my patients, I like you to try a sublingual form of vitamin D, vitamin D drops. Interestingly enough, I don't find the drops as effective in elevating vitamin D levels, but it does seem to ward off those few instances where vitamin D seems to give you queasy stomach. Lastly, I've seen a couple of women, not men, who they swear that vitamin D gives them palpitations, skipped heartbeats. And we've done the experiment where we've lowered their vitamin D and their palpitations got better. Is that a placebo effect? I don't know, but their vitamin D levels in their blood really didn't change very much. So, if you're one of those rare people who notice either the queasy stomach or palpitations, skipped heartbeats, then consider lowering your vitamin D dose or trying it under your tongue. But in general, most of us should be taking somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 international units of vitamin D3 and you'll be in great shape going forward. I think you're going to love this one. In fact, studies after studies show that people who donate blood on a regular basis live seven years longer than people who don't donate blood.