Michael Holick on Vitamin D
Michael Holick is known by many as the leading authority on Vitamin D.
From his book, the UV Advantage:
- Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure ultraviolet radiation.
- The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) do not penetrate glass, so vitamin D is not made when in your car or home.
- It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.
- A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.
- The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.
- People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 – 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption and without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb it, rendering calcium supplements useless.
- You can’t reverse chronic vitamin D deficiency immediately. It takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body’s bones and nervous system.
- Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body’s ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. So, actually sunscreen products may have actually caused disease- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.
- It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.
- Vitamin D is “activated” in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.
- There is no prescription required for your body to make vitamin D-it’s natural!
