What this substacker got right and what he got wrong when he discussed supplements and vitamin D. Part 2.

Do not stop taking your vitamin D nor your other supplements because of what Agent131711 wrote on substack. Read this first!

Update: February 2025 on Vitamin D

Medscape MD says do not take vitamin D, don’t test it either

On Feb. 4, 2025, a medical doctor, Kenny Lin, wrote a short post about vitamin D on the propaganda Medscape site, telling people that the supplement is a waste of money.

This comes from an MD who was at the store to pick up a drug prescription and does not have a nutritional background.

Lin noted that the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found insufficient evidence in 2021 to test Vitamin D status since addressing a deficiency did not improve health outcomes.

In 2024, the USPSTF took it a step further, discouraging people over 60 from supplementing with vitamin D!

This is preposterous!

An aging person has greater difficulty meeting their D needs from sunshine alone. Many of our aging population is in institutionalized care and never gets out in the sunlight.

Yes, I said never.

Based on the facilities I have worked in, this is not uncommon.

Additionally, the very old can have tissue-paper-thin skin. I have seen people with such thin skin in the sun for only a few minutes, and severe burning can occur that quickly.

USPTF 2021 and 2024. Faulty studies?

They did not likely find health outcome improvements because the guidelines for optimal D levels are too low. Thus, even if people raised their D levels, they would still be too low to see any benefit.

Lin concludes that he will tell his patients to save money and do his best to “do no harm.”

Seriously?

Perhaps if he wants to do his best to “do no harm,” he should avoid the pill-for-every-ill model and prescribe fewer medications. As of now, this doctor does not make money prescribing vitamin D but does make money off the drug model of healthcare.

Here is something to consider: by not testing or encouraging optimal D levels based on the data, is the patient at greater risk for health issues such as psoriasis, cancer, and brittle bones?

But I bet the doctor will prescribe medications for those health issues that could have been prevented with optimal D levels.

Go here for studies, resources, and information on the health benefits of vitamin D.

Watch the 2024 International Vitamin D Forum Forum which includes several speakers. The presentation discusses optimal vitamin D ranges and the health issues that are related to vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency along with literature citations.

Beware. The medical industry wants to take your supplements away from you

Supplements are a threat to the pharmaceutical industry. They want you to think they are useless and poisonous.

The medical and pharmaceutical industry understands the power of many nutrients and herbal remedies. They would like to transition them into medications and eliminate your supplements.

For those of you who think all supplements are poison and evil, please be careful with these statements. I, for one, want choice and the freedom to choose health remedies. If the Westernized medical industry has its way, it wants all supplements off the store shelves and only sold to you via your medical professional. Do not expect high-quality supplements from your allopathic doctor, as they will likely be like the ones currently made by Pfizer, such as Centrum.

Is that what you want?

If you do not want to take vitamin D and can meet your needs through the sun, that is excellent. If you can meet all your nutrient needs through healthy, whole foods, that is also great.

However, you may need to take a supplement one day, which may no longer be available.

Alliance for Natural Health follows Congress and the FDA's push to reduce your access to supplements. This may not be an issue in the US in 2025 due to the new administration, but it doesn't mean it won't be on the table again in the upcoming years.

For instance, you may not have access to CBD.

CBD is a perfect example. The FDA has said that this incredible plant compound doesn’t meet the definition of a supplement because CBD has been approved as a drug that costs $32,500 a year. If the above-mentioned provision was in place, the FDA could have immediately swooped in and put a stop to CBD sales for good.

Bottom Line: Understand the benefits of vitamin D and the optimal D levels, and get your D levels tested. Sunlight is always preferable but not always possible.

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Unfortunately, since this post is older, I do not have time to read or respond to recent comments. Most of them have been rude and inappropriate recently, and I assume they are from the agent substacker himself or his followers.

I encourage dialogue and even people who disagree with me. However, I do not tolerate inappropriate and disrespectful language; if it continues on other posts, they will be blocked.

Thus, comments are disabled as of February 6, 2025.

But I will add a bit to this post for the recent know-it-all commenters. These people seem to think, in black and white, that all supplements harm everyone.

…to me, it sounds much like…everyone needs to take the C19 injection or else….

I do not think the rude commenters have even read this post or any of my others; they went straight to the comment section, and thus, they must have been unaware of my professional approach to health and wellness.

Food is critical for health. A person can take all the supplements in the world and still be very unhealthy because they eat an unhealthy diet—no surprise.

I emphasize that we are individuals. As a professional who sees clients, I need to meet them where they are in their health journey and work with them to determine what they can commit to. This is different for every client. I also need to factor in their access to healthy foods, finances, and free time for buying and preparing meals.

So, to everyone who thinks that all vitamin D supplements, or any supplement for that matter, are harmful to the human race and that we all should stop what we are doing and run outside to make sure we get that daily dose of sunshine…

here are a few examples for those commenters.

So, hostile and rude commenters, since you know what is best for everyone, what would you do in the real-life scenarios below?

• A client with severe anxiety, to the point of hyperventilating during the Zoom consult. The client is unable to leave the house or do daily tasks due to the severity of the anxiety.

• A person with depression so severe they only get out of bed to open a can of soup and have been living on soup for weeks. Taking a shower is a major accomplishment.

• The person who has been an alcoholic for years and recently has abstained and who now has severe gut, skin, and mental health issues along with severe sugar and carb cravings.

• The person who has sugar cravings so severe that they pour sugar straight out of a bag into their mouth several times daily.

• The person who has severe fatigue due to the chronic stress of a full-time job, caring for children, and a parent with dementia.

Additionally, like much of the Westernized world population, each is on one or more medications, of which numerous medications can lead to nutrient deficiencies.

Each is under chronic stress, which further compounds nutrient depletion.

It is easy to say that you would tell them to change their diet, but this is impractical and will set each one up for failure.

In each of these cases, dietary changes are made in increments, and therapeutic-targeted supplementation can help each person gain the energy and motivation to make further health changes.

In the case of the depressed individual, if you told them to “just go for a walk and get sunshine and exercise,” it would be a very insensitive approach for the person who cannot get out of bed. In this case, a targeted supplement may be helpful so that they can get out of bed first.

In the case of the person with panic attacks, targeted supplements to calm them down would be part of the first step so that we can then focus on diet. While they are hyperventilating, would you say, “Hey, you just need to get to the grocery store and change your diet?”

Mind you, for my clients, I spend a couple of hours before and after each consultation reviewing and researching that specific individual. I do a detailed lab and dietary and health history analysis.

Seriously, all of you nasty, rude, and ignorant commenters, when you start seeing clients with mental health and other issues as a nutrition professional, then talk to me about supplements.

More Vitamin D links/resources

Orthomolecular vitamin D publications 2024

Dr. Vaquez vitamin D research 2024

Vitamin D and oral health

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This is part 2 of my response to a substacker who wrote on supplements and vitamin D.

If you are a paid Agent131711 subscriber, please share this post in the comment section of his post (link below).

He recently also wrote a post on B12. The same applies to B12. Choose from a professional who knows the best B12 form. B12 is part of the B family, and a “family” should “stay together,” so take your B vitamins that way.

Some people, even meat-eaters, do need more B12. You can test for B12, and I like the Spectracell micronutrient test.

Your B12 needs may be greater than someone else’s if you are under chronic stress, put a great deal of physical stress on your body via training/intense workouts, have a genetic defect, or have been following a vegan or vegetarian long-term diet.

When Agent131711 talks about forms, such as B12 forms, this is vital information regarding all supplements. For instance, cheaper brands will provide magnesium as mag. Oxide, of which only 5% may get absorbed and utilized by your body.

However, it is great if you are constipated.

For bio-availability, minerals must be bound to amino acids, so choose chelated minerals.

Another example is calcium. Many people take too much and take it as an isolated nutrient. Too much calcium has been shown to increase CVD risk.

Again, cheaper brands will have calcium in cheap, poorly utilized forms such as calcium carbonate. Choose a chelated form (in a bone blend product), or take it as elemental calcium (hydroxyapatite).

So, I agree with Agent131711 on cheap supplements. Stay away from them.

A word on professional supplements: Just because it is a professional brand does not mean it will not have added ingredients or poor forms.

This is frustrating, for sure. So just because it is a “high-end product” does not mean it is of quality. Some are, some are not.

However, this does not mean avoiding ALL supplements. Based on various individual factors, you may need a few.

Here is the post that I am commenting on

Vitamin D is Rat Poison: The FRAUDULENT WORLD OF SYNTHETIC VITAMINS

Vitamin D. Dispelling a Few Misconceptions

Agent131711 provides this vitamin D supplement label and then describes the added ingredients, such as dicalcium phosphate.

Some added ingredients to the vitamin D supplement are not found in many other vitamin D supplements. However, you will often see cellulose as they must identify the ingredients the capsule is made from on the label. Look for labels that state plant-sourced capsules or vegetable capsules.

Many people don’t want to take medications, so they look for the answer in a supplement.

I recently had a potential client who wanted to come to see me only to find out what supplement she needed to take for her shingles because she didn't want to take medication.

I was honest and told her there wasn’t one “magic supplement” for shingles…I lost that person as a client. Another wanted to know what was the best “weight-loss supplement.”

Sigh.

Bottom Line: Skip the big box supplements. If you cannot afford the ones a health professional suggests, focus on modifying your diet. Just like there is no magic medication, there is no magic supplement.

Diet first. Always!

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Cholecalciferol and Rat Poison

Agent131711 raises the alarm that we take rat poison when we take a vitamin D supplement.

This is not true.

Rats are susceptible to vitamin D3, so adding it to rat poison can kill them.

That would be equivalent to giving a human a vitamin D dose of 4 million IUs. Also, humans want to balance vitamin D intake with vitamin K2 and magnesium, whether from a supplement or food.

He rationalizes that we test on rats and mice first because they are similar to humans.

Yes, animal studies are essential, useful, and beneficial before moving on to humans, and there are studies that you may read that say “humanized mice,” but this does not mean that mice, rats, and humans are alike in every way.

For some animals other than rats, such as dogs in their pet food, vitamin D can be deadly if the dose is too high.

But vitamin D is now added to medications for its benefits, such as medications for renal failure.

So, is vitamin D in rat poison? Yes, it is!

Because vitamin D at those very high levels is toxic to them! Nutrients need to be in balance. We would never give a person 4 million IUs of vitamin D.

We need vitamin D. I think that, especially since 2020, people have become familiar with the need for vitamin D for immune support.

Some people can get it from the sun; very minute amounts can be found in food.

Bottom Line: Many people need a vitamin D supplement but avoid the ones with unnecessary added ingredients. Get tested first (more on testing below).

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Understanding Vitamin D: Vitamin or Hormone?

I encourage you to visit https://www.grassrootshealth.net (Grassroots Health Nutrient Research Institute). They have a wealth of information on vitamin D, research, and health benefits.

Is vitamin D a nutrient or a hormone?

It is both! Vitamin D is needed by every cell in your body and is needed in hundreds of processes that occur daily. Vitamin D acts as a regulator of cell types, tissues, and organs. Mild impairment can occur with low D levels that you may not relate to one another, such as impaired cognitive and immune function, some cancers, and some autoimmune diseases.

Vitamin D, a fat-soluble nutrient that, in supplement form, should be taken with fat, is biologically inactive and must undergo hydroxylation reactions to become active (Gaby, 2011).

Vitamin D Deficiency and Testing for Vitamin D levels

What number indicates low vitamin D levels

Agaent 131711 discusses Vitamin D deficiency, and how it may be a scam to get more people to take vitamin D., I understand where he is coming from. For example, cholesterol numbers were updated, so doctors prescribed more cholesterol-lowering drugs such as statins.

However, sufficient vitamin D levels have been updated based on research such as on it’s anti-inflammatory properties. The original guidelines for vitamin D levels were based on studies that indicated a vitamin D of 20 ng/mL prevented fractures in older women. This information did not consider the adequate vitamin D levels necessary for other bodily reasons.

However, the debate about an adequate vitamin D level continues (Gaby, 2011).

Even the Institute of Medicine still considers a vitamin D level of 20 ng/mL adequate, so I do not think there is a scam. (20 ng/mL is considered a deficiency by Grassroots Health research findings).

As a side note, vitamin D from the sun is synthesized in the skin but requires adequate cholesterol molecules. (Could lowering cholesterol with medications also contribute to lowering our vitamin D status?)

Why do tests measure vitamin D as an inactive compound?

Serum 25-OH is measured on blood tests, which is also called Calcifediol.

Vitamin D is initially inactive and is next hydroxylated in the liver to form 25 OH vitamin D3 (25 D).

Some say that 25D is also inactive, but currently, it is the most reliable measurement of an individual’s vitamin D status. (more on this below)

BUT nutritionists look at your labs via a functional lens. We will not just look at your D lab result but look at that in combination with alkaline phosphatase (increased if deficient) and serum phosphorus (decreased if deficient) (Marz, 1999).

25D is then converted in the kidneys to the active compound, 1,25 dihydroxy vitamin D (1,25 D). 1,25 can be further metabolized to inactive 1,24,25 vitamin D. 1,25 is regulated in a negative feedback loop.

An important clarification regarding vitamin D is that even though the 1,25 D form is considered active, this is not the only form with specific and important effects within the body.

Below is a PDF chart that explains the forms of vitamin D and their importance

https://www.grassrootshealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Forms-of-Vitamin-D-Diagram.pdf

Vitamin D3 – The Most Potent Form of Vitamin D

“A study by Gibson et al. looked at a genetic inflammatory disease called cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) to identify potential suppressors of the disease and resulting destabilization of the endothelial membranes. They found vitamin D3, the pre-converted form that our bodies get from food, supplements and sun, to have such effects both in vitro and in vivo. In a subsequent study, the researchers investigated whether vitamin D3 and its metabolites could provide general endothelial stability outside of the genetic disease model.

The authors discovered that, not only is vitamin D3 itself needed and taken in by the cells, it is also actively used by the cells as a “potent and general mediator of endothelial stability at physiologically relevant levels.” They found that each form of vitamin D (vitamin D3, 25(OH)D and 1,25(OH)2D) increased stability within minutes, inhibiting permeability of the endothelial and vascular lining, and reversing inflammation, all of which resulted in reduced leakage into surrounding tissues.

Of particular note in the results was that vitamin D3, which was previously thought to be inactive, had the most potent effect – more than 10 times more potent than 1,25(OH)2D and more than 1,000 times more potent than 25(OH)D.

They also discovered that vitamin D3 directly inhibited the destabilizing effects of multiple pro-inflammatory signals, such as interleukin-1b, tumor necrosis factor-a, and bacterial lipopolysaccharides.”

If you read the above source, then you may realize that measuring vitamin D3 in its inactive form is, in reality, a potent form and useful to measure on blood tests.

However, Gaby (2011) states there are concerns with vitamin D testing as it is not a perfect test since lab variability has been identified, and the test does not measure all the vitamin D metabolites.

Gaby (2011) states that measuring parathyroid hormone in combination with vitamin D levels may provide a better picture of D status since parathyroid hormone levels decrease when D increases. However, most doctors will not run the additional test due to cost.

Should You Rely on Food to Obtain Vitamin D?

The short answer is no for the majority of the population.

Sourcing vitamin D from food and the sun and problems with this.

Some people can obtain vitamin D from sun exposure, with 30% of the skin surface exposed by staying in the sun for 30 minutes at moderate latitude. A person’s skin can stimulate 200 IU production by doing so (Marz, 1999).

Food Sources

Agent 131711 mentions we can get vitamin D from food sources. This is true, however to obtain 5,000 IU you would need to consume 50 glasses of fortified milk or 10 pieces of salmon.

But on the flip side, perhaps you do not need that much vitamin D daily as others say 800 IU daily may be sufficient (Gaby, 2011).

He mentions getting vitamin D from mushrooms. Mushrooms can contain vitamin D2 if exposed to sunlight, but most commercially grown mushrooms are grown in the dark and thus contain very little vitamin D2.

Do not assume your store-bought mushrooms are a good source of vitamin D.

You can increase the vitamin D content in your mushrooms by putting them out in the sun, but how much D your mushrooms contain will be unknown.

Vitamin D2 is found in plants and synthetic forms, and research indicated that D3 is more effective at raising and maintaining vitamin D levels because it is more efficiently absorbed and utilized by the body.

Sunshine

Obtaining vitamin D from food or the sun is best since it requires co-nutrients such as vitamin K2, calcium, magnesium, boron, zinc, and B vitamins. Therefore, whether you take vitamin D as a supplement, you should also get these other nutrients, preferably from your diet.

Many people lather with sunscreen before heading out the door, preventing D absorption. People with darker skin or those who are overweight or obese may need a longer time in the sun to get adequate amounts (Gaby, 2011; Marz, 1999). This is not feasible for everyone in our modern era.

Living in a polluted area or with less sunshine, you will have greater challenges acquiring vitamin D from the sun (Marz, 1999).

If you are elderly, even the supplementation absorption rate will slow down (Gaby, 2011).

The elderly are at risk of vitamin D deficiency, and from my long-term care experience, it is difficult for them to get it from the sun because their skin is thinning and burns quickly.

The prevalence of obesity continues to rise, and overweight people tend to store vitamin D in their fat (Gaby, 2011; Marz, 1999). However, when a person loses weight, that stored vitamin D becomes usable.

Kidneys play a role in the hydroxylation of vitamin D, so people with renal failure may be vitamin D deficient (Marz, 1999). Certain medications can reduce vitamin D levels, so discuss this with your doctor (Gaby, 2011).

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Bottom Line:

1. Look at other biomarkers in conjunction with the Vitamin D lab test to determine where your levels are.

2. Based on studies cited by Grassroots Health, the current vitamin D3 test is an accurate and helpful biomarker.

3. Vitamin D is essential for many bodily processes, and we require it, whether from the sun, food, or supplementation.

4. Vitamin D3 is more readily accessible to the body than D2.

5. Not everyone has access to sun exposure.

6. Specific subgroups may have more difficulty meeting their vitamin D needs (overweight, obese, aging, darker skin, on specific meds, kidney disease).

7. Vitamin D3, at very high and toxic levels for rats, is IN rat poison.

I do not post on mainstream social media, so please share and like my posts to help spread the word about staying healthy.

Paid subscribers receive supplement and consult discounts.

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Other sources

Gaby, A. (2011). Nutritional Medicine. Fritz Perlberg Publishing.

Marz, F. (1999). Medical Nutrition. 2nd edition. Omni Press.