Is It Safe to Take 10,000 IU of Vitamin D3 Dr. Berg Explains

So is it really that safe to take 10,000 IUs of vitamin d every single day ?

That's what we're gonna talk about .

Did you know that every single cell and tissue in your body has receptors for vitamin d ?

And yet , there's actually still no medical consensus or agreement on what a vitamin d deficiency really is .

So I even think a better question than is , 10,000 IU's of vitamin d safe , we should ask , is it actually safe to be deficient in vitamin d ?

The great majority of the population is deficient , and they have all sorts of problems ranging from a lowered immune system to arthritis to autoimmune problems and inflammation , depression , high blood pressure .

And most of the research that came up with the RDAs for vitamin d , I think roughly it's about 600 IUs , were based on preventing , rickets , things like that .

But not therapeutically to address all the other issues like autoimmune problems and severe infections .

So there's a couple very important things for you to know .

Number 1 , vitamin d toxicity is very rare .

Okay .

That's number 1 .

Number 2 , the symptoms for vitamin d toxicity are almost identical to a vitamin k two deficiency .

In other words , do you really have too much vitamin d or just not enough vitamin k 2 ?

Vitamin k 2 addresses 2 proteins mainly , and it mainly had to do with the transportation of calcium .

So vitamin d helps the absorption of calcium from your gut into your blood by a factor of 20 x .

And then vitamin k 2 drives that calcium from the arteries into the bone .

So , 2 big functions of vitamin k 2 is keeping calcium out of the soft tissues , Not just the arteries , but the joints , the kidneys , the lungs , other tissues , as well as making your bones really , really solid .

I'm talking about dealing with osteopenia or osteoporosis .

You can't fix osteopenia and osteoporosis with vitamin D .

Vitamin d doesn't even prevent fractures .

Vitamin k 2 is the key nutrient .

So when I did a deep dive in this , I think I found the main confusion with vitamin d toxicity .

It has to do with this thing called international units .

It's this confusing measurement of vitamin d .

So what actually is an international unit ?

Is it actually a measurement of some mass or volume or weight or something ?

The answer is absolutely not .

It's an arbitrary number that was agreed on from some committee .

So I'll give you just a couple examples .

If we take 1 international unit of vitamin e , that would come out to 0.67 milligrams .

Now what about 1 international unit of vitamin a ?

Well , there's 2 types of vitamin a .

Well , you have the precursor to vitamin a , which is beta carotene , and then you also have the actual , bioactive form of vitamin a , which is retinol .

So , check this out .

One international unit of beta carotene equals point 6 micrograms .

And 1 international unit of retinol equals point 3 micrograms .

One international unit of vitamin d equals 0.025 micrograms .

That's like a quarter of 1 milligram .

So you can see it's very confusing , and I think they're trying to get rid of it .

And , you know , just the sound of 10,000 IUs sounds like a lot , but you're dealing with just a quarter of a microgram .

You see , the big problem with vitamin d is there's a lot of barriers to entry to absorption .

Skin color , the darker your skin is , the harder it is to absorb vitamin d .

Your age , how much weight you have if you're obese , insulin resistance , how much stress you have .

If you have any type of genetic issue that is blocking vitamin d , which is very , very common , that's a big barrier .

You also have where you live , the latitude on the planet .

You also have the season .

I mean , one really interesting thing about d , if you go to PubMed and you just type in seasonal diseases , wow , you're gonna find all sorts of fascinating research related to vitamin d .

Or even latitude diseases .

Massive amount of data .

Also , the more unhealthy the liver is or your gallbladder .

If if you have the gallbladder removed and you don't have the bile to absorb it , that could be an issue .

Or if there's inflammation in your gut that you can't absorb it .

So , there's a lot of barriers for this vitamin d to go on the body .

So if you're like me , it's kind of a hassle to go get a prescription for vitamin d .

Go to some , like , Labcorp and get your blood drawn and get a blood test .

There's a much better test .

It's a home test .

It's a blood spot test .

And I use this company right here , Omega Quant .

It's a blood spot .

So basically , it's a way to take a pinprick of your blood , put it on this little piece of paper , stick it in this kit , send it to them , they send it back .

I don't have to get a prescription .

I don't have to go to LabCorp to get my blood drawn .

It's really really convenient .

So I contacted this company and they wanted to know if I wanted to be an affiliate .

I said no .

But I would like my viewers to get a discount on this test .

So if you click down below , there'll be a code .

You'll get the discount .

Not me .

I'm not gonna get an affiliate , commission .

And that way , you can save a little bit on the test .

But there's over 53,000 , last time I checked , studies in vitamin d and PubMed alone .

Crazy amount of research .

And vitamin d , is intimately involved in your immune system .

And , I just wanna mention one part of the immune system called the T helper cell .

The T helper cell helps to regulate and make sure that we don't attack our own tissues .

It's kind of like differentiating self from non self .

And if there's confusion in this area and this cell can't work , potentially you can develop an autoimmune disease , which is your own cells or your immune system attacking itself .

And it just so happens that vitamin d has a big responsibility of making sure that cell works .

I mean , even inside your immune cells , they have the ability to convert the inactive to the active form of vitamin d .

So you can imagine how important this is .

And another point is that we've been told to stay out of the sun in the summer .

Right ?

Use sunscreen , hats , and coats , and just cover ourselves .

I I mean , this is like an interesting thing to look at .

I mean , it stirs up a lot of controversy because everyone knows that the sun is bad , but is it really ?

Well , you're thinking about skin cancer .

Right ?

Have you ever heard of the skin cancer paradox ?

So despite the sunscreen , despite staying out of the sun , skin cancer continues to increase .

We assume that it's coming from the radiation , but really is it ?

Vitamin d has a protective element against melanoma .

So if the sun's rays radiation were really responsible for this , then we would have seen a decrease in cancer not an increase .

Also , vitamin d is really important for your lung .

Okay ?

It helps to modulate your immune system to make sure that that immune system is not overreacting or underreacting .

So it's really good for anything related to lung like COPD , asthma , things like that .

And there's also doctors that are well recognized that will recommend taking 50,000 IUs of vitamin d at the first sign of a cold or flu symptoms .

Let's look at this chart right here .

This is based on some data .

I'm gonna put all the links down below , but we have the amounts or doses of vitamin d , a1000000 .

We have 300,000 , a 100,000 , 30,000 , and 10,000 .

Okay ?

And this is not scaled .

But you can see that these are in weeks and this is the amounts .

So we have 1 week , 3 week , 10 week , 30 week , a 100 week .

How many weeks are in a year ?

52 , right ?

That's gonna be right here .

So , this is about a year right here .

So , check this out .

You can see the toxicity level right here .

You'd have to take a 100,000 IUs of vitamin d for a period of time before it becomes toxic .

But what I want you to look at right here is this line right through here .

This actually is considered safe if you adjust for the cofactors .

In other words , there are certain nutrients that vitamin d uses to help , prevent complications like vitamin k 2 which I've already mentioned , like magnesium and zinc .

So , these three nutrients are very important to take with your vitamin d .

It doesn't even have to be taken exactly with it at the same time , but , sometime around .

You just wanna make sure you're not deficient in these because all of these help to make vitamin d more active and prevent the toxicity effect .

Don't wanna forget about increasing water too because one potential toxic effect could be kidney stones .

But if you're drinking minimally 2 and a half liters of fluid per day , you can very easily prevent kidney stones and keep your , your urine diluted so these calcium stones don't develop , despite if you have high levels of calcium in the urine .

Now what should a normal level of calcium be ?

Okay .

When you get it checked , should be between 90 a100 nanomoles per liter or there's another measurement you can use which is 35 to 40 ng's per milliliter .

Okay .

So depending on what lab you're using and what units .

So , I hope you feel a little more comfortable of it with vitamin D taking 10,000 or even more .

I have a really good , summary of what I just talked about in a 2 page document .

If you wanna download it for free , I put the link down below .

Check it out .