 Our boy vegan gains is having a little bit too much fun there, but we're not talking about that type of D today. We're talking about vitamin D3, one of the most important vitamins as well as hormones in human health. Unfortunately for vegans cholesterol is required for vitamin D3 to be transported in the body and we can only obtain cholesterol from animal foods. Cholesterol isn't limited to just vitamin D3. It's required for sex hormones, cortisol, as well as bile acids. Lacking fatty acids in the diet compromises the transport of all lipids. If the body can't transport vitamin D3 to cell receptors there's no point of taking vitamin D3. But do we see this in vegans considering they claim that the human body can produce as much cholesterol as needed? Before we take a look we have to touch a little bit on vitamin D3. It's important to note that the US RDA, the recommended daily allowance for vitamin D3, is based on a statistical fallacy. Unfortunately this was no small mistake. The 400 IU RDA is actually supposed to be about 9,000 IU. This error is very apparent when we look at the recommended reference range for blood work in the United States. This range is from 30 nanograms per milliliter to 100 nanograms per milliliter. That's what's considered adequate or sufficient. Most people fall between 10 and 40 but this reference range is not practical because you could be in the sun for 10 hours a day and you'll never get your vitamin D3 levels to 100 nanograms per milliliter. It's literally impossible and having levels around 30, 35 you could have not been in the sun for two three years. So there's obviously way too much variance in what we deem as acceptable vitamin D3 levels in the United States. If you look at indigenous native people to the Arctic, their vitamin D3 levels rose in the summer and fall months where they were getting more vitamin D3 from the sun and the food they were eating contained more vitamin D3. Then it would fluctuate back down during the winter. It's very clear that the human body needs a minimum amount of vitamin D3 to be in a reasonable state of health but it's safe to say that levels that are optimal are much higher than what we think. Let's take a closer look at the measurements of vitamin D3. So the United States uses nanograms per milliliter and that's what we were just talking about but in this video we will see the measurement nanomoles per liter. This is because you know the United States measurement systems are really wonky and every other part of the world uses something reasonable. Nanomoles per liter is roughly 2.5 times nanograms per milliliter and look at the numbers on the right here. According to the vitamin D council sufficient levels are 100 to 200 nanomoles per liter so it's safe to say anywhere between 100 and 200 is ideal but why is this important? Gene expression which regulates how every cell is made in the body through cell differentiation requires vitamin D3 as a precursor making it key to overall body function. Vitamin D3 levels are also strongly correlated with birth weight, pubertal timing, adult body size and educational attainment through season of birth. Now what are the levels that we see in these vegans? However not everything was off the charts 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 bottom line is I'm really close I'm not too concerned neither is my doctor. The biggest difference between this year and last year is that the previous years I was outdoors running all the time getting tons of sunlight running shirtless and for most of 2018 I've been working out in the gym and playing basketball plus I got this blood test done in December when I'm getting the least amount of sunlight as possible so I'm gonna make more of a point to get more outdoor exercise time in 2019. Hey guys it's happy healthy vegan. Now I did an interview with Kasumi Chris a couple months back and she had some very interesting experiences in regards to her blood levels vitamin D3 when transitioning from a vegan diet to a more meat-based diet. When I was a vegan that was in January January the third to be exactly my vitamin D levels were vitamin D total 34 it's not good and this you have to trust me but before that it was 20 it has even been 19 sometimes that is severely low and I always was yeah everybody here in the Netherlands has that everybody that that lives in the north of Europe has that problem probably in general they do they do have it but I was justifying myself through that so these four years never had good vitamin D levels even though I supplemented I tried my best my doctor even gave me those ampoules of vitamin D like four ampoules that I had to take four days in a row with a high dosage of vitamin D every time I went to check my blood and still nothing really improved. Now the last test results the last blood test result that I did was a couple of months ago two months ago let me check I was a vegan for four years on the first of September I stopped being vegan I ate some eggs and I ate some butter the next day I ate some chicken and I ate some more eggs and butter I continued on and introduced other foods to my diet within 12 days like I cannot be 100% sure if from January the 1st until September my vitamin D levels could have gone up or not but four years being deficient to two weeks of reintroducing animal products back into my diet what is my vitamin D level let me show you vitamin D 71 oh my god so to me it's pretty clear that happy healthy vegan is having a difficult time metabolizing vitamin D3 on a vegan diet and that crystal had a much more difficult time metabolizing vitamin D3 when she was on a vegan diet but why are happy healthy vegans blood levels twice as high as crystals this is because of gene polymorphisms genetic factors that dictate our body's ability to tolerate certain things whether your body can absorb vitamin a easier than someone else whether you're more predisposed to having certain vitamin deficiencies these vary from person to person so happy healthy vegan might be in a better situation due to his ancestry whatever it may be the thing is that we're not just talking about vitamin D3 levels here low vitamin D3 has definite negative associations especially in regards to degenerative disease such as heart disease and diabetes now there is something strange that I came across John Venus's blood levels of vitamin D3 let's go to vitamin D so the reference range for vitamin D is 75 to 150 nanomals per liter and my score was 91 which is amazing considering I didn't supplement with vitamin D3 before this blood test I was getting plenty of sunshine by going out for hikes and walks so it's definitely sufficient with sunshine if you're exposed to the sun but if you're not maybe you should consider supplementing with vitamin D3 because a lot of us stay inside too much and live in places where there is no sunshine if I was in a position where I had to place a bet if John Venus was actually vegan or not I wouldn't believe it if someone can show me a vegan who has blood levels of vitamin D3 this high please do I've seen a lot of vegan blood tests and blood work and there is no way he is not eating some sort of animal product specifically here I'm thinking maybe that he has some local eggs that maybe he gets from a farm or something that would make a lot more sense now this vitamin D3 problem is not just for vegans it's not just for people on a plant-based diet this encapsulates the United States in general most people are deficient in vitamin D3 the thing is vegans are supplementing vitamin D3 and actively trying to get it yet their bodies can't mobilize it they can't move it because they don't have cholesterol every cell in your body is made of cholesterol stop being afraid of it the problem with Americans is although they do have more cholesterol in their diet than vegans they're not actually getting supplements they're not going out in the sun they're not doing these things vegans are living healthier lifestyles than standard American dieters except they're not becoming healthier I think there is something obvious here that people are overlooking and unfortunately conventional wisdom what we've been told our whole lives the general health of everyone kind of masks this unfortunately I'd like to say in every video that I do on vitamin D3 that this is something that will be huge in the future and it's gonna be like how did we overlook basic vitamin deficiencies in the human population whether that's intentional by the government or not I don't know if you guys do want to look into vitamin D3 supplementation check out my video from about a week and a half ago where I had the beard I was talking about testosterone where I rubbed Frankie's ball grease on you know where this is on my Amazon shop as well as some other supplements that you guys can use to increase your metabolism of vitamin D3 I also have a patreon and on my patreon is exclusive videos if you guys do have personal questions one-on-one stuff patreon is a great way to ask them I'm also on Twitter I'm on Instagram I mean on Twitter I just argue with other carnivore dieters on Instagram I post pictures of my meals every day on my story I do have a bunch of hygiene products available on my website as well Frank dash to final calm you guys do want to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations in regards to diet sun exercise water as well as sleep I do incorporate vitamin D3 regimens into my consultation so enjoy the rest of your week guys