 Why is just about every single vegan deficient in vitamin D3? It's because vitamin D3 is a hormone and cholesterol is one of the precursors to many of the hormones in our bodies. But vegans have been telling us that we produce enough cholesterol, that we don't have to consume it from animal foods. If that was true, why do all of the vegans we're going to look at today have abysmally low vitamin D3 levels? And why have all of these popular vegan women complained that when they go to a doctor all of their hormone levels are in the dumps? You know, you have Ravana, Royal Alignment who have spoken about this and there are even several women recently who have gone through early menopause in their early 20s. Since cholesterol is a precursor to vitamin D3, it makes sense that their levels are very low. Even if they did supplement vitamin D3, it's arguable that this would be dangerous and compromise other hormones in their body and other things that require cholesterol such as bioproduction. The body's ability to produce vitamin D3 is based primarily on two things. The current vitamin D3 levels in the person and the person's total cholesterol. There doesn't seem to be any variance in the person's skin color and how efficiently they absorb vitamin D3. So if you have a low total cholesterol, it's actually going to inhibit your body's ability to absorb vitamin D3. And for those of you guys saying that just about everyone is vitamin D3 deficient, yes, that is because the RDA, what we've been told by the government for many years, that amount of 400 IU per day is based on a statistical error. It was supposed to be almost 9,000 IU. And before we look at the levels of vitamin D in these vegans, we have to keep in mind what ideal levels are. The vitamin D Council recommends levels at 50 nanograms per milliliter or 125 nanomoles per liter. The nanomoles measurement is usually used outside of the United States and it is 2.5 times the nanograms measurement in numeric value. We will look at the nanogram measurements first and then we'll look at the nanomoles later. But the principle here is that all of these vegans are either deficient in vitamin D3 or their levels would have to be much higher to be optimal. Even though the vitamin D3 Council recommends those numbers, there are a lot of people that advocate for much higher levels such as 65 to 75 nanograms per milliliter and around 200 nanomoles per liter. These were not great and this was really eye-opening for me. The healthy range for vitamin D is a 30 to 100 and mine was a 15.2. So that's very very low. Deficient is less than 10 and insufficient is 10 to 30. So I was not technically deficient. I was insufficient but getting closer to the deficient range. Insufficient just means that you know you really need to focus on it. If you get deficient it can cause like actual health problems. Okay, so now we'll get to the area that is a little more problematic. I got my vitamin D levels tested. Some people do have problems with vitamin D on a vegan diet. It is more prevalent in meat substances such as eggs and other animal flesh. So my collection reading is a 26.6. However, the acceptable reference range is a 30 to 100. So according to this lab, my vitamin D levels are actually a little low. It does give a reference chart of acceptable values and I will say that I am not deficient in vitamin D. I'm only insufficient and I'm also super close to this deficiency range. So when I saw this I was honestly actually a little surprised considering I lived in Florida and I'm actually outside in the sun a lot. I ride my bike to class and I do like to spend time outdoors. However, my vitamin D levels are a little lower, but I am not freaking out. The doctor told me to take an over-the-counter vitamin D supplement. So I'm going to be doing that and I booked an appointment with him to talk to him in three months and get my blood tested again. So honestly, I am not concerned and if you guys would like an update video in three months when I do get my blood tested again, I'd be more than happy to film that. However, not everything was off the chart sky high. This year my vitamin D levels were flagged as being below the reference interval cutoff, which was 30.0. Mine were at 28.8 and there's some dispute as what's considered low vitamin D. This article on WebMD says levels above 20 are fine. Other articles will say 30 is a cutoff, but the bottom line is I'm really close. I'm not too concerned, neither is my doctor. And then vitamin D. I was a tad bit deficient on vitamin D. Let me just find that again. I guess the normal vitamin D is between 30 and 100. And my vitamin D was 27.2. He said most people up here in central New York and the Eastern, northeastern hemisphere do have a vitamin D deficiency and that was because I guess he explained that the direct sunlight only had about 2800 hours here in the Syracuse area whereas some place like Arizona would have 4800 hours. He explained that it's the conversion. So I'm eating the right foods. It's about the sun photons converting it to the right vitamin D amounts in my blood. So he just recommended I take a vitamin D over the counter vitamin. Let's see if I can boost that for the next time I go in. Overall, he said I'm completely healthy. He said I could just tweak that little cholesterol thing there by just doing a little more cardio and that vitamin D. Everything else is great. Okay, last one on here is my vitamin D. I just did recently a video talking about vitamin D and how pretty much almost everybody that I know is low on vitamin D. So technically in the reference range it says 30 to 100. I'm at a 34. I do not like that. They say, you know, deficient is under 20 and then insufficiency is 20 to 29. Basically, you know, it says 30 and above right there, but I do not agree with that. I think that I'd like to have mine up at like 60. So I would like to get this up a little bit and increase my D3, basically my vitamin D3, vegan D3, and then just get a little bit more sun. But depending on where you live and if it's winter or summer, the sunshine thing is, you know, kind of difficult sometimes. And then at the 25 Hydraxy D3, which is the one that you really want to pay attention to, that is 31. And the reference range down at the bottom there says that D2 plus D3 optimum levels in healthy populations are 20 to 50. So 31 is almost right there in the middle. So things are looking pretty good as far as vitamin D goes. And, you know, that is something that a lot of people worry about when they are not eating supplemented foods. All right, moving on, the only thing that my doctor told me when we went over this is that my vitamin D is slightly low. Vitamin D is found in a lot of animal products like eggs, I believe, but it also comes from the sun. You can get it from sun exposure. I've been in Berkeley, it's been cold, it's been overcast. It kind of makes sense that my vitamin D would be a little bit low. It's at 24.7 and on my doctor's reference range it says 30 to 60. I did a little bit of my own research. I went on to WebMD and they claimed that 20 to 50 was the normal range. So according to some sources I found online, I am in the normal range. What do you think? If you have any experience in the medical world, based on what I've researched, I don't need to start supplementing with vitamin D at a level of 24. But it also probably couldn't hurt. I'm also going to Hawaii in like a couple hours, so I'm going to get, I bet my vitamin D after a week and a half in Hawaii will be a lot higher. But it's definitely not something I am worried about. I don't think I would start supplementing with vitamin D unless my levels were below 20. So again, what do you think? I'm curious. My last video on blood work was about my low vitamin D levels and the issues that I was having by not supplementing with vitamin B12. My vitamin D levels were extremely low. And when I had them tested, the average range was between 32 and 100. NGML. And I was at a 10. And that's really scary low. Vitamin D. I've got adequate vitamin D status. The D3 level is 70.8. The D2 level is 8.2, making a combined D2 and D3 level of 79 nanomoles per litre. The ideal range is 50 to 220. Again, that's fine. Vitamin D, despite living in the UK where we get absolutely no sunshine for half the year, it is OK levels of vitamin D. So that's, I was surprised about that. Then they gave you some little things. Like if I'm vegan, which I am because I like you put in your vegan. I had my fire boy checked as well. That's the first time I've done that. That was fine. I had my vitamin D levels checked and that was fine as well. I amped up my vitamin D intake because I followed Michael Craig's recommendation of 2,000 international units per day. But I'm a heavy guy. I weigh almost 90 kilograms, either because of muscular or chubby, do you tell me? And you should get 40 to 60 international units per kilogram. Thus I will am up my vitamin D intake now from 2,000 international units to 4,000 international units. But I'm still far away from a deficiency. A deficiency would be less than 50 and I'm still at 83.3. So that is good. But as I said, only lower end. So I will am up my vitamin D intake. And so yeah, finally my vitamin D, which as you can see, it's just slightly on the borderline there. So it's just not... It just says your vitamin D levels may not be adequate for optimal health and some people say you may wish to consider taking a supplement. But it is. It's 47.7 and the normal range starts at 50. So I mean there's very minimal difference in it really. So yeah, I'm really pleased about that. I wasn't sure what my results were going to be. Thank you guys for joining me today. If you could please like the video, subscribe and hit that bell icon. Recently we've launched Frankie's for your range meat. My goal being to provide you guys with high quality, nutrient dense animal foods at an affordable price. So if you're looking to get some vitamin D3 in, definitely check out maybe the cod liver we have on the website at the moment. We will have fish shortly. Yesterday we just put some fresh, never frozen beef on the side. So if that sounds interesting to you guys, go to Frankie's for your range meat dot com. Read more about our mission and the things we are looking to do in the future. Again, thank you guys for joining me today and enjoy the rest of your week.