 Are we sure Vegan Gaines is allowed to call himself a vegan with all that funk he is sucking out from between his lady friend's toes? I'm a big believer in first impressions and if the first impression people see of me is that I am a makeup wearing, tranny, homosexual, I am not so inclined to live up to this reputation. This first impression is a result of Vegan Gaines not being too happy with my stance on fat and lipids in the context of Vegan Vitamin D3 levels. Let's see what his stance on that is. So first off, study dietary fat increases Vitamin D3 absorption and what they found was if you eat Vitamin D with a high fat meal, even if it contains mono and polyunsaturated plant fats, it'll boost Vitamin D3 absorption by about 30%. So you don't need cholesterol, you don't need saturated animal fats like butter to absorb Vitamin D, you can eat things like walnuts, cashews, olive oil that will help with Vitamin D absorption. And there happen to be plant foods that contain saturated fat like coconut oil, and according to the American Heart Association, coconut oil is just as bad as pure butter in terms of raising your serum cholesterol score. If you want to increase your cholesterol score and increase your risk of heart disease in the process, you can do that just fine by eating things like coconut oils. Also fat greatly improves Vitamin D absorption and I'm not sure what her vegan diet was like before, but it was likely relatively low in fat and not eating enough fat sources on a vegan diet. That's not a shortfall of the vegan diet itself, she just didn't appropriately plan her diet. Are you confused? Cause I'm confused. He's trying to prove that cholesterol isn't involved in Vitamin D3 metabolism by making a claim that various plant based fats can be used as an alternative to raise blood cholesterol levels such as almonds, maybe avocados, walnuts, but all of these plant based fat sources contain saturated fat. And he's saying that saturated fat is just as bad as butter and causes heart disease. But then he insinuates that a proper vegan diet has adequate amounts of fat. Buddy, you can't have it both ways like these dirty New York City girls do. It doesn't work like that. Your lovely lady friend is going to find out. The problem here is the study he used to claim that consuming plant based fats increased blood levels of cholesterol wasn't done on a vegan or vegetarian population. He's also going to contradict himself later by using the study. This study shows that there is a mechanism in the gut involved in vitamin D3 metabolism including transport. Vitamin D binding protein, which is vegan gains is claimed that cholesterol isn't used in vitamin D3 transport is not only found in the bloodstream, it's also found in the stomach and various cholesterol containing tissues. But my issue with this is neither vegan gains or myself are qualified enough to talk about this on an enzymatic or chemical level. We are not biochemists, we are not physiologists. We are both talking out our S's trying to look smart. To have an understanding of all these enzymes, genes, pathways in the body involved in these processes, you have to have a level of brain function that is unique in a sense. But vegan gains seems to think he's at this level. So if that's the case, I'm down to play ball. Firstly, he claims that cholesterol is used to transport vitamin D throughout the body. That is not true in humans. Humans have a specific vitamin D binding protein which transports vitamin D throughout the body. And cholesterol has absolutely nothing to do with vitamin D transport in humans. I think the reason Frank made this mistake is because he admittedly does absolutely no research on any of these health topics. Saying that vitamin D3 is not involved with cholesterol is pretty bold considering every single cell in your body is made out of cholesterol. But let's take a look at the specific processes in the body involving vitamin D3 and cholesterol. This vitamin D3 transport protein that vegan gains likes to talk about so much is in multiple parts on the chain of vitamin D3 metabolism. I think vegan gains was a little bit confused because the vitamin D binding protein is involved in blood plasma transport of vitamin D3. But vitamin D3 transport does not only occur in the blood. In regards to dietary vitamin D, it requires the components of lipid absorption. Vitamin D binding protein is present in chile which is composed of many lipids including cholesterol. The study disproves the idea that you don't need cholesterol to transport vitamin D3. Another study indicates that the synthesis of vitamin D starts in the bowel epithelial with the oxidation of cholesterol from food or bile to pro vitamin D, 7-dehydrocholesterol, which is then transported to the skin, mainly the epidermis wherein it is isomerized to pre vitamin D3 by UVV radiation. This is that mechanism we see in the stomach that he recognized in the study earlier. This also indicates that it is necessary to actually consume cholesterol from animal foods in order to have this reaction in the stomach. To understand on a deeper level how cholesterol is involved in the metabolism of vitamin D3, we have to look at specific genes. The first stage in vitamin D3 metabolism for the skin involves the gene DHCR7 which is responsible for making the 7-dehydrocholesterol reductase enzyme. This is responsible for the final step in cholesterol production in many types of cells as well as converting 7-dehydrocholesterol to cholesterol. Now there are two genes involved for absorbing vitamin D3 in the stomach. CYP2R1 is responsible for making an enzyme called 25-hydroxylase. It carries out the first of two reactions to convert vitamin D to its active form. The gene CYP27A1 is responsible for being able to hydroxylate vitamin D3 and cholesterol, turning it into an organic compound. It's located in the energy producing center of cells where it is involved in the pathway that breaks down cholesterol to form acids used to digest fats. Two more genes, CYP27B1 and CYP24A1 are involved later in the metabolism of vitamin D3. These are important to note because they are involved in maintaining the balance of several minerals in the body, particularly calcium. And we know calcium metabolism requires vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 can only be found in animal foods as well as fermented foods. Now the only fermented foods that contain high amounts of K2 are natto and fermented soybeans and soybeans aren't exactly something that's been around too long. K2 is definitely not the best tasting food, so enjoy vegans. But if cholesterol has nothing to do with vitamin D3, why does taking a vitamin D3 supplement decrease blood cholesterol in professional rowers? Vegan gains also has the nerve to say that cholesterol does not affect hormones. And there is no evidence that elevating your serum cholesterol has any positive effects on things like hormonal balance. So vegan gains doesn't think that if you alter the precursor to steroid hormone production that your hormone production is going to change whatsoever. Okay, you could say that, but I think anyone with any semblance of intelligence is going to not think so highly of yours. Is that why the Seventh Day Adventists, a predominantly vegetarian and vegan group, had lower testosterone? Is that why estrogen levels in vegetarians were lower than omnivores? Is that why vegetarian teen girls have implications for breast cancer risk because of higher estrogen? He even tried to discredit the anecdote of a former vegan's vitamin D3 issues. Rather than providing actual evidence for his claims, he just continues to make broad assumptions off of these meaningless anecdotes. 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 of 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. 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. I was a vegan for four years, on four years one. So the problem here is that this is an anecdotal claim and we don't have much information to work with, and if you're familiar with this person, she's not exactly trustworthy. So she claims that she was supplementing with vitamin D and as a vegan her levels remained low. Well what type of vitamin D was she supplementing with? There's D2 and D3. Which one was she taking? How often was she taking it? How much? The only thing she mentions is that she did take large doses of vitamin D for four days straight as per her doctor's orders, but she might not have been supplementing frequently enough and with a high enough dose. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have much information to work with. So actually, I do. I remember that the doctor gave me this thick ampoule of vitamin D3, like a really high dose to just get it up and stay on that, but since going to Carnivore, of course incorporating the eggs and the liver especially and other things, fish, it has risen the vitamin D levels up. In those four years I was always below and now in two months it suddenly went up. Typical dosages for these ampoules from doctors are in the hundreds of thousands of IU usually in the form of D3. I find it ironic that Vegan Gaines tries to discredit me saying I'm a liar, that I don't do my own research, yet who didn't do their own research here, buddy boy. But what's the real reason that Vegan Gaines is trying to discredit me? Vegans can absorb vitamins, if they couldn't then the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics wouldn't have released a published peer reviewed statement stating that vegan diets are nutritionally adequate and helpful for all stages of the life cycle. No, I'm actually inclined to believe that they would have released a published peer reviewed statement regardless because they and their peers are all 7th day adventists and vegetarian book authors. Whether or not Vegan Gaines wants to admit his bias for the vegan diet is based on his misconceived notions about the ethics of consuming animal foods, that is not for us to decide. That is up to the audience. So thank you guys for watching. If you would like to support the channel, please like, subscribe, and share the video down in the comments below. You guys can see my Amazon shop with things such as Frankie's bowl grease, aka vitamin D3 supplements. Patreon guys is a great way to support me and ask me personalized questions on there. If you want more detailed dietary advice, you can reach out to me for one on one consultations through the contact form on my website down below in the comments or through email frankatufano at gmail.com. Guys, I'm on Twitter arguing with vegans. I'm on Instagram posting cute selfies, but outside of that guys, you enjoy the rest of your week.