What you need to know to assess 'vitamin' D more thoroughly

First off, let me be clear, the primary source of vitamin D is the sun, and it is found naturally in very few whole foods, foods that are naturally exposed to the sun. Sunlight and vitamin D are not the same thing. 

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST VERSION OF THIS POST HERE

{You can also find my podcast: A Joy To Be Me on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher and Spotify }

The real problem is that more and more people are spending time indoors AWAY from the sun. Not to mention, slather their bodies with sunscreen when outdoors and this blocks them from making the sun to skin process that creates vitamin D in the body. 

Get nerdy and check out this conversation with Kris Kross of EMRTEK about these very problems and the added challenge with our exposure to blue light. 

It's important to understand that Vitamin D is made in our bodies by a step by step conversion process. It's not a vitamin we get from food as our primary source of it for human health.

We CAN choose to consume these foods in the winter if we live in a northern latitude. Foods such as, raw milk, butter from grass fed cows, organic lard, wild caught fatty fish like salmon and cod liver oil. Foods artificially supplemented with vitamin D are not the answer because they don't contain cholesterol sulfate (see image below).

'Vitamin' D is also a pro-hormone to vitamin conversion in the body. This distinction is important so the average person doesn't assume it's something to run out and supplement with from a bottle. The way the body responds to a supplement is not the same as how it responds to source: sunshine on exposed skin with no barriers (such as clothes or sunscreen). 

We need to be thinking about how the body creates it (from sun exposure), uses it actively and stores it when necessary and what other factors play a role in it's function and use by the human body. Vitamin D is a Hormone NOT a Vitamin. So let's call it the sunshine-hormone-vitamin! 

First we get in the sun, the sun's rays penetrate through the skin and under our skin. Then cholesterol gets converted into cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) the fat storage form, provitamin D. 

Then in the liver this provitamin D, cholecalciferol gets converted into calcidiol, the main circulating form of D, which is water soluble. 

Then, in the kidney, the calciderol gets converted into calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D. 

Calcitriol is a steroid-like hormone that interacts with the vitamin D receptors in target tissues: including the small intestine (to increase calcium resorption), osteoblasts in bone (to increase bone calcium absorption), in the renal tubular cells in the kidneys (to increase their calcium resorption).

All of those interactions and conversions can only happen when the body has enough magnesium available. 

That shared...