Boosting Your Immunity -6 Vitamin D Deficiency may Lower Immune System
May 04, 2020
[The Foolish Couple are founders of the Foco Academy, nutrition specialists and success coaches. We focus on teaching Jack Canfield’s Success Principles and applying the principles to the 3 areas of life that money can’t buy, that is, Health, Time, and Love Relationship.]
We started releasing our ‘Boost your Immunity’ blog series in response to the Covid-19 Coronavirus. So, what do we think are important for boosting your immune system?
Know Your Numbers
First thing is to know your numbers. We started off by talking about metabolic efficiency and how it is important to track your health numbers and what your optimal numbers should look like.
Banish Fear
In the second episode we talked about fear. You are probably aware of how fear can heighten your stress level, but fear could also lower your immune system. To help you face your fears, we have included an exercise in episode 2 that may help you release those fears.
Eat the Rainbow
In the third episode we talked about what we should be stocking our food shelves with. To buy fresh and whole fruits and vegetables, to shop the colors of the rainbow, and to eat less of the processed dull white and brown stuff. We included a downloadable PDF for you.
Don't Over-sanitize your home
In the fourth episode, we talked about how over sanitizing your home may actually cause more problems with your health.
The Importance of Exercise
In the Last episode, we talked about the importance of exercise and how cardiorespiratory fitness is crucial for your health and a healthy immune system especially if you are over 50.
The Importance of Vitamin D for boosting Immunity
Today we are going to talk about the importance of Vitamin D.
Let’s start by saying that Vitamin D is crucial for your wellbeing, longevity and your immune system.
Everyone is talking about the importance of Vitamin C and how that boosts your immune system. We agree Vitamin C has been shown to boost your immune system as we talked about in a previous episode. But many people overlook Vitamin D and what roles it plays for our overall health.
Vitamin D is usually known for musculoskeletal health especially for those that are older, to prevent osteomalacia, which is severe aching in bones and muscles, and also the more commonly known osteoporosis, which is the weakening of bone mineral density which makes the bones more brittle and easier to fracture.
I can still remember all the milk commercials on TV that “milk builds healthy bones”, because it is fortified with Vitamin D. But Vitamin D does so much more than just build healthy bones.
Vitamin D deficencies has been shown to increase problems with your cardiovascular and respiratory systems, which is your heart and your lungs. Studies has shown that Vitamin D deficiencies is associated with higher risk of self-reported upper respiratory tract infections.
It is associated with obesity, raised LDL cholesterol, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. And guess what, all these raised risks are also associated with chronic conditions that people had that died from when they were infected with Covid-19.
Most people are probably normally low in Vitamin D levels already without knowing it. They just never got tested for it. You can read more about this in a previous blog here.
Now with the shelter-in-place, we are going out even less.
Our bodies normally make Vitamin D when we are exposed to UVB rays from the sun.
Our daily rituals have been disturbed with the shelter-in-place order and that includes opportunities where we normally exposed to UVB rays from the sun, like walking to the train station or walking to your work. Even when we were living our normal lives, most people are already deficient in Vitamin D. Now that we rarely leaves the house, even more people are going to be deficient in Vitamin D.
There are many benefits of Vitamin D, and that includes:
- Help with insulin resistance, which lower the chance of getting Type 2 diabetes
- Helps lower blood pressure
- Improves heart health
- Boosts lung functions
- Protect against bacterial and viral infections
That’s right, it helps our body defend itself and that is more important now than ever before.
So, what can we do to get more vitamin D?
Doctors normally recommend daily allowance of 600-800 IU of vitamin D daily.
So that would be the minimum that you should have.
But as function nutrition specialists, we believe that the optimal level of vitamin D that you need in order to have optimal health and nutrition, is at least 2000 IU of Vitamin D.
There are three ways to get vitamin D: direct exposure to the sun, through your foods or through supplementation.
So, if you are comfortable going out, go out and get some sun. Even if you don’t feel comfortable going out to the public, maybe you can just hang out in your backyard. We have been meditating and doing yoga in our own backyard because it is so relaxing and so rejuvenating.
The sun helps your body make Vitamin D on your own. But if that’s not an option, you can also go with foods that are high in Vitamin D, or choose a high quality supplementation.
Food wise, there are not a lot of choices. The healthiest foods that contain vitamin D are fatty fish, such as wild caught salmon, herring, mackerel, tuna, halibut and sardines.
A 3.5-ounce serving of wild caught salmon can have as much as 988-1300 IU of Vitamin D, more than the daily recommended allowance. I would recommend a double portion or a 6-7 ounce serving to get your optimal dose of vitamin D.
I won’t bother eating farmed salmon because they only have up to 250IU of vitamin D and all the potential downsides of farmed such as antibiotics, GMO feed, and artificial colors.
The other fishes have a lot less vitamin D ranging from 112-384IU per serving.
On the flip side, eating fish every day, especially if that is your only source of vitamin D may risk raising your mercury levels which is also toxic for your body.
Of course, there is cod liver oil, But I never liked that as a kid and definitely don’t like that now.
Other healthy choices are egg yolks and wild mushrooms.
Regular eggs only have about 37 IU while pasture raised eggs can have up to 160 IU of vitamin D per egg. That means you’ll have to eat almost a dozen eggs a day to get the optimal levels of vitamin D.
So probably not ideal.
Wild Mushrooms can have about 130-450 IU per 3.5 ounce serving.
The last choice is fortified foods such as cow’s milk, soymilk, orange juice, cheese, oatmeal and cereal.
A serving of any of these will only have about 54-140 IU of vitamin D. They are a far cry from what you need daily.
The best choice to get Vitamin D right now is through supplementation.
You can get it through multivitamins and Vitamin D capsules. We recommend that you get D3 rather than D2 since your body would need to convert D2 into D3 before it can use it.
D2 is plant based and usually used in fortified foods while D3 is animal based like how our body makes its own Vitamin D. We also recommend finding a Vitamin D3 that also has Vitamin K to help boost the effects of the Vitamin D3.
There are a lot of choices out there for supplementation, do your research as a lot of them may not be pure and full potency. Even for us, we get the sun every day, and we also take a Vitamin D supplementation ourselves. If you want to go with the same brand that we use, here’s a link and you’ll also get a 10% discount with this link.
That’s it for today. If you missed any of our first five episodes, make sure you watch them and get our gifts. Download our Free Metabolic Efficiency List and also learn more about how our digestive health is important to your immune system in our Free “gut matters” book and how chronic inflammation in your cells can cause you to be immunocompromised in our free webinar in the links provided.
Here's Our Gift To You - to keep you motivated and get you moving
Make sure to take advantage of our Free concierge online personal training until May 15th. The difference with this training is that you don’t do this alone. You grab a group of friends or family and train together online. This keeps us socially connected while keeping each of us accountable to work out.
I hope you take this opportunity to boost your cardiorespiratory fitness by grabbing a few friends and working out together with me. I would love to get to know each of you better and looking forward to seeing you in our concierge workout session soon. Click this link to book your free session now.
Don’t miss our last episode on Boosting your Immunity Series. We are going to talk about water fasting and how that can reset and boost your immune system. See you there!
Until next time, love what you live, and live what you love.
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We are not medical doctors. This blog is not intended to diagnose medical condition, or replace your health care provider. The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only. Statements on this website have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Always consult your personal physician before starting any fitness or exercise program or changing dietary habits. The content of this site is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It is not a substitute for a medical exam, nor does it replace the need for services or counsel provided by medical professionals. However, we do hope to inspire you to become healthier, more self sufficient, and more aware of options.
