Natural Sources of Vitamin D
Summary: The best sources of vitamin D isn’t a one size fits all answer. You must take into account your personal situation like sun exposure, where you live, disease states, how you eat and other factors. Sensible sun exposure is usually your best source of natural vitamin D.
Q: What are the best natural sources of Vitamin D? Or, should I just be taking a supplement and not worrying about it?
A: It’s funny. Yesterday my wife went to her doctor and he questioned her on her calcium intake to make sure her bones were going to be strong in the years to come. She told me this story later at dinner and I had to chuckle because on of the most important factors surrounding how much calcium you actually absorb in your body is dependent on your vitamin D levels. But no one ever asks this – including her doctor.
But it was a good reminder of just how important vitamin D in our bodies and how much it is often ignored by us.
So, I’m glad your thinking about how much vitamin D you need to get on a daily basis.
Vitamin D Blood Levels
It’s best if you know how much vitamin D you need everyday before you start trying to increase the amounts. Unfortunately getting your blood drawn and serum vitamin D levels taken is pretty much a crap shoot and not a very reliable indicator because it measures the amount of vitamin D in your blood and vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and can be stored there. So, it’s often hard to tell how much vitamin D you need based on blood levels.
I’ve been in arguments before with clinicians and natural health advocates who claim that a vitamin D blood test should be mandatory. I’m not saying it shouldn’t. But I am saying that there are serious limitations to the test which include:
- Wide variations in lab results from one test to the next
- Seasonal variations in vitamin D status
- No measurements of other blood markers that coincide with vitamin D like parathyroid hormone (PTH), Calcium (CA) and Phosphate (PO)
- Cost of the tests (some tests run over $200)
If you’d like to read more about some of the problems associated with simply measuring vitamin D blood levels here is a very comprehensive report on the subject with references.
Vitamin D Deficiency Risk Factors
In addition to how much vitamin D you need is also your lifestyle. Because that will also dictate how much vitamin D you need.
For example, are you a strict vegetarian? Strict vegetarians generally eat less fat and less vitamin D containing foods which puts them at risk. Are you obese? Not trying to be forward here. But, the more obese a person become the more vitamin D they store in their fat and the less they release into their blood stream where it can actually go to work helping you. How old are you? As you age your body begins to become less efficient at converting vitamin D to it’s active form. Where do you live? If it’s in a northern area (like me) you have to be careful during the winter months because you almost certainly are NOT getting enough vitamin D through the suns UV rays. But, if you live in South Carolina this is probably not an issue.
How Much Vitamin D?
There is a lot of argument among experts right now about how much vitamin D a person needs. However, I am on the side that the recommendations from the past are far too low.
For most adults the general recommendations have been 400 IU (International Units) a day and 200 IU’s for babies.
Even in the last year pediatricians have come out and raised the babies levels to 400 IU’s and a panel of vitamin D experts and nutritionists have been on record as saying adults should be taking about 1700 IU’s per day. That’s over 4 times the old level.
My personal opinion is that you should shoot for between 1,000 IU’s and 2,000 IU’s per day depending on your nutritional intake and sun exposure (see discussion below).
Because the old rule was that you could get toxic from vitamin D going over about 2500 IU’s a day most doctors were hesitant to recommend anything over that. But recent evidence suggests that you may have to take up to 10,000 IU’s a day before you start seeing signs and symptoms of vitamin D toxicity like nausea, vomiting, confusion and even kidney stones.
Best Natural Sources of Vitamin D
(1) Sunlight
Without a doubt, sensible sun exposure is the most efficient and potent form of vitamin D intake.
If you are light skinned and out in the summer sign at high noon with full body exposure and no sunscreen for 30 minutes you might be able to produce up to 20,000 IU’s! But, keep in mind most of that will be stored in your fat. If you are someone with a low body fat content you may be putting yourself at risk for vitamin D toxicity. On the flip side, if a dark skinned person did this same thing they would likely only produce 50% of that amount as the amount of melanin in a person’s skin makes a difference.
If a fair skinned person took a short 10 to 15 minute walk with only their face, neck and lower arms exposed and no sunscreen that would like be the right amount and they would not need to supplement. Ideally, you want to be getting the sun exposure during the high noon hours of 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.
Since I live in a northern area I shoot for about 10 minutes a day of sun exposure during the summer months. During the winter months I supplement with a quality cod liver oil to make up the difference.
(2) Natural Food Sources
Experts are big on touting ‘fortified’ foods like cereals and so forth for vitamin D needs. Actually, as far as getting vitamin D into your system that would work. I just don’t consider them healthy foods and avoid them. Instead, look for completely natural foods which are natural sources of vitamin D.
Some examples are:
- Herring (3 oz) = apx. 1300 IU’s
- Salmon (3.5oz) = 360 IU’s
- Tuna, canned in oil, (3oz) = 200 IU’s
- One whole egg = 20 IU’s
- Beef liver, cooked, (3.5 oz) = 15 IU’s
(3) Vitamin D Supplements
In my opinion, the best and most natural vitamin D supplement you can take is a quality cod liver oil. A one tablespoonful serving will give you nearly 1400 IU’s a day. In addition it also contains vitamin A which your body will generally require more of when taking vitamin D.
I say a ‘quality’ cod liver oil because they are often better tolerated and don’t have the fishy smell or burps afterwards. But, some folks are concerned about mercury content so they opt for a pill form of vitamin D which despite what some supplement manufacturers would like you to think is just fine.
I would recommend that you get the supplement so that it contains the vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) form. Why? At this point it’s debatable but I know a couple of things: vitamin D3 is the ‘natural’ form of vitamin D (like when the sun gives you vitamin D – that’s started with vitamin D3). Also, at this point, it’s clear that vitamin D3 has a higher affinity for your bodies vitamin D receptors than vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol). Also, vitamin D3 appears to be up to 3 times more effective at raising your blood levels of vitamin D than vitamin D2 is.
Just check your label to make sure you know what you are getting.
Conclusion
In short, how much vitamin D you really need is going to be very dependent on your personal situation as I described above. In general, aim for sensible sun exposure when you can. Take into account any disease states or personal situations and then adjust your intake based on those. I would try to avoid the old RDA recommendations for vitamin D as they are dated in my opinion and shoot for between 1,000 to 2,000 IU’s per day from all sources.