Vitamin D & The Immune System

There are many nutrients that help to support our immune system. One of the most well known is Vitamin D. Vitamin D is known as the ‘sunshine vitamin’ because our skin utilizes the suns rays to manufacture Vitamin D in our body. Interestingly, Vitamin D would be more

accurately described as a pro-hormone rather than a vitamin. A pro-hormone is a substance the body can convert to a hormone. In the case of Vitamin D, this pro-hormone which is closely tied with cholesterol, has numerous roles in the human body. In fact, every cell in the body has the ability to interact with Vitamin D. Vitamin D has influences on blood pressure, bone health, cardiovascular health and of course immunity.
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While supplementing with vitamin D may be beneficial in some cases, there’s a strong argument that obtaining synthetic vitamin D through supplementation is not nearly effective (and can actually be damaging in some cases) as the benefits obtained from synthesizing our own vitamin D from the sun, as well as ingesting it through whole foods.

If you live in Canada like me, it is much more difficult (impossible for many people) to obtain adequate vitamin D from the sun alone during the winter months. This is where whole food sources become extremely valuable.

Some of the best whole food sources of vitamin D include raw milk and butter from grass-fed cows, organic lard, wild-caught fatty fish such as salmon, and [fermented] cod liver oil. While cod liver oil is technically a supplement, it is sourced from a natural, whole food and contains a form of vitamin D that our body can easily digest and metabolize.

Check out my Citrus-Glazed Salmon recipe in my 'Recipes' section!


For more information regarding Sunlight and Vitamin D, please read Stephanie Seneff’s article titled Sunlight and Vitamin D: They’re not the same thing! You can access this through the Weston A. Price Foundation website:
 
https://www.westonaprice.org/?s=sunlight+and+vitamin+D

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