Dr. Martin reviews an article about vitamin D that was recently published in the Toronto Star. The article says hospitals are seeing more vitamin D toxicity than ever before.
The article is misleading because those who got toxic were taking 50,000 IUs daily. No one should be taking such high concentrations unless for short-term therapeutic use. Since vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin it will accumulate in the body, but rarely does it turn toxic.
Dr. Martin also teaches on vitamin D and explains why it consistently gets negative reviews in today’s episode!
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. And once again, welcome to another live here this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. Okay, couple of things I want to do. Toronto Star article, I only picked it up this morning. Thanks to my dear friend, Jerry from Nouveau-Brunswick, sending me the story. And then I went and read it. Negative about vitamin D. Guys, look, you got to read the article because then you really get the basis of the article. They're seeing more vitamin D toxicity than ever before. Yeah, but how much of it, and really what's happening? To become toxic in vitamin D, even admits it in the article. It's in the Toronto Star, the article I read. To become toxic and vitamin D. Vitamin D, first of all, is a fat soluble vitamin. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin. Right? What does that mean? It means it can accumulate in the body. Now, do they see that a lot? No. Like I've always said, waiting rooms are not full of people there with vitamin D overdose. It's a rare occurrence, but it can happen.
But here's what they said. Now you got to go down and read the article to get to this, but I'll tell you why I knew it because this has been done in the past. The Vitamin D Council did a lot of research, used to fund research for vitamin D because nobody else was going to fund research on vitamin D. Why would they? You're not going to get a lot of money to fund research on vitamins when you can't patent. You can't patent vitamin D. If you can't patent vitamin D, the pharmaceutical companies are not going to spend any money. When you want money for research, you better be hooked up to the pharmaceutical companies because they got lots of money for research. And that's all right, they do research. That's good, I'm not against them doing research. But they're not going to do research on something they can't patent. There's no money in it. And remember, they're public companies. They answer to their shareholders. They're not going to tell you how good vitamin D is.
As a matter of fact, I hate to be pessimistic, but they're never going to tell you anything good about vitamin D. They'll only report if they can. And I think this is fed to the media. And remember, you guys know this, if you know behind the scenes, what happens. The media, mainstream, is bought and paid for, big food, pharmaceutical. They're huge. Your nightly news, which isn't all that big anymore, because people have alternatives. But the mainstream media, Toronto Star being one of them, they get advertising dollars from big food and big pharma. Does that mean big food, everything to do is bad. No, it doesn't mean that, of course it doesn't. Pharmaceuticals? No, they do good things too. But you have to understand they have marketing people and they also have people that work for them and they go where their biggest influence is, we talked about this the other day, is getting to politicians. That is their biggest link, so that legislation or whatever, they want to have a big influence on that, in the United States.
I don't know about Canada, but in the United States for every Congressman, either in the Congress or the Senate, there are at least two lobbyists from the pharmaceutical company, for every one of them, full time lobbying. So when you see a negative study on vitamin D, read it. I got no problem with that. I want you to think. But if you know what's going on behind the scenes, it's helpful. Because when you read the article about toxicity of vitamin D, if you read the article, how much vitamin D do you have to take? These people who got toxic were taking 50,000 IUs of vitamin D. 50,000. Now, do I like 50,000? Yeah, if you want to do a vitamin D hammer, I talked about this. It's called a hammer. At the first sign of a cold, first sign of the virus, there's some good, good research on the effectiveness of using a hammer, 50,000 IUs.
I told you about a study done by a friend of mine with bacterial pneumonia, seven days of 50,000 IUs of vitamin D. What it did to people that actually were on a ventilator in the ICU, 50,000 injected every day of vitamin D and the difference it made compared to the control group, it was control. The other group that were on these ventilators, they weren't given vitamin D at high doses and the difference was astounding how the folks with the vitamin D hammer recovered. Now, let me say this. The Vitamin D Council, been around for years, funded research. In order to become toxic with vitamin D, you have to take 50,000 International Units a day, every day, seven days a week for six months. Now, who the heck does that?
Well, obviously some people do it. They shouldn't do it. I never recommend that. A hammer, yes. Short period of time, yes. But not for a long period of time. You don't need that much. So it's important to understand that. But that makes headlines guys. It makes headlines. And when you look at all the benefits of vitamin D, the benefits, how it works in the body, we're just scratching the surface of the importance of vitamin D and how it works for your immune system, how it is anti-cancer, it's antiviral, it's anti-heart disease. Your brain needs vitamin D. Every cell in your body. Here's what we didn't know 50 years ago. Every cell in your body has an antenna for vitamin D. It's looking, you're a human solar panel.
Your body's looking for vitamin D to operate properly. And 80%, and they don't tell you this, 80% of the population is low in vitamin D. They have low levels of what we call serum or dihydroxyvitamin D. They don't get enough of it. Okay? So there's three ways you can get vitamin D. Three ways. The best way is the sun, VitDerma. Remember? We trademarked our little group here, we have a name for it. It's called VitDerma. The sun. And listen, when you're in the sun, you will never overdose of vitamin D. Never. Never happens, never will. Your body knows what to do with the sun. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? And when you're in the sun for 20 minutes, no sunscreen, arms and legs especially, vitamin D is synthesized on your skin, 20 minutes, 10,000 IUs. But you'll never overdose. Now, I don't want you to burn in the sun. So don't go tell people, "Dr. Martin says, I can get as much sun as I want." No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying understand in 20 minutes you get 10,000 IUs. Okay? So when it's sunny, it's wonderful.
Now, the second way, and I will tie this together in a second, the second way to get vitamin D is in food. That is why the Inuit, formally called Eskimos, they had no lack of vitamin D. They ate it every day. They had vitamin D, it's a fat soluble vitamin. And what's that mean? Okay, if you get too much of it, you can become toxic. But fat soluble also means you have to eat fat to get it. It's in fat. What? Yeah, that's where your vitamin D and food is. So when the Inuit eat blubber from whales and seal, fish, liver, steak, with lots of fat on it, you get vitamin D. You get vitamin A too. That's why I call vitamin S, steak. It's such an essential vitamin.
Listen, Linda, listen, you can not get vitamin D or vitamin A or vitamin K2. Fat soluble. In plants, it's not there. How can being a vegan or a vegetarian, how can that be good for you when you can't get vitamin D from food? Well, then you need to supplement. So when you eat it every day, now, remember what I'm saying, this is important. In order to keep your dihydroxy levels, your serum vitamin D levels up from food, you have to eat that stuff every day. Seven days a week, you have to eat fat soluble, vitamin D and vitamin A. If you're not getting the sun, the Inuit, or us folks who live in Sudbury or Northern Ontario, Timmins, we didn't get the memo by the way on climate change because the climate hasn't changed here. It's stinking cold. And you're not going out and getting sun, although the sun is out today.
But you're not getting vitamin D from the sun today. It's still good for you. You get out in the sunshine, but you don't get the vitamin D when it's cold because you're not naked outside. But you're still getting benefits. We talked about that, because you get melatonin from the sun. But you're not getting vitamin D. So you either get it from the sun. Look, don't burn and you don't need to be in the sun long to get good levels of vitamin D. And when your body is topped up from the sun, it stops taking vitamin D in. You still can get the sun, but you never overdose. Never, never, never, never overdose from the sun.
Now, don't burn in the sun. There's no need for it. And I've told you before, this is 100% true for most people, when they change their diet, when they get off sugar, glycation, when they get off crappy carbs, oils, bad oils, it's amazing how much more sun that a person can take. Guys, I learned a lot of years ago. I taught my patients that many years ago and I know the reason for it because it's called glycation.
What is glycation? It is aging of the skin, of the tissue of your collagen. And you lose that elasticity and the sun will bother you, especially if you're a bad eater. So number one, what's the best way to get vitamin D? VitDerma, from the sun. Number two, you can get it if you live in the Northern hemisphere, like me, from food. The problem with that is you got to have that every day. Every day, seven days a week, fat soluble, vitamin D from food, blubber, fat. It's not in coconut oil. It's not in olive oil. I'm sorry, it's not there. You get so in bacon though. But especially like liver and the fat, saturated fat. Remember what I said about saturated fat? It's a satisfying fat. Not only satisfying for you, but for fat itself.
You know when you look at steak or butter and you see fat? Instead of thinking, that makes me fat, because it doesn't, instead of thinking that gives me bad cholesterol, and it doesn't, think that's giving me fat soluble vitamins. I'm getting my vitamin A, I'm getting my vitamin D, I'm getting my vitamin K2. You know me, I'm big on K2. Right in nature, you can get it, but you got to eat it every day. So that's why.
Now I'm going to get to the third one. Now, we'll talk about dosage here. Now, I'm getting to the third one. The third one in vitamin D, I brought to you a study, was it last week or the week before, during this virus study done Denmark, I think. I have to look at it again. I look at so many studies I forget exactly where that one was from. It decreased hospitalization by 21 days. Now, here's what they did.
Just to show you what I'm saying is true, when they did this study control group, those given vitamin D upon admission to the hospital with severe virus, one group was given vitamin D 300,000 IUs, injected. 300,000. And then I believe it was 7,000 IUs a day. What did they find? Compared to the other group, 21 days less in the hospital with vitamin D. See, you don't read about that. Why didn't the Toronto Star pick that story up? Seriously, why didn't the Toronto Star, Canada's number one newspaper, why didn't they pick up that story, that it decreased 21 days of hospitalization? You know much money that saved? Think about how many lives that saved. And that was vitamin D, giving 300,000. Here's the headline, Toronto Star. No, it's poison.
And then you got to read halfway through the article and realize these people were taking 50,000 International Units a day for six months. Exactly what the research of the Vitamin D Council said. I'm a big guy on supplementing with vitamin D. Now you Floridians, I love you, but I'm not always happy with you because the vast majority of Floridians, Arizonians, can I say that word? The vast majority of Floridians and Arizonians who live in the sunshine 300 and something days a year, us Canadians, we spend a lot of money to go there. And the Canadians are the only ones on the beach in January.
But Floridians, they don't even go in the sun. They have as low levels of vitamin D as anywhere in the United States and Canada. They do very poorly with vitamin D. Why is that? Because they bought the lie of the sun, cancer, sun, cancer, sun, cancer. That gives me a migraine because it's nonsense. The people who get melanoma, the deadly cancer, are not sitting in the sun. As a matter of fact, they are usually, this is a fact, office workers. They don't get sun. I could give you another complete teaching on why we see so much melanoma. Has nothing to do with the sun. The only thing it has to do with the sun is you don't get enough of it. But Floridians and Arizonians, they don't go into sun because they bought the lie. They better substitute that with supplementing vitamin D.
That's why I'm big on it. Because the vast majority of the people, if you live where I live, in order to get true vitamin D from the sun, and again, every day, if it's 40 below folks, 40 below, my Floridian friends, 40 below zero and 40 below Celsius, it's the same. It's stinking cold. But if it's sunny and cold, that's all right, it's actually good for you. It's good for your feel good hormones and melatonin. But you're not getting vitamin D. Therefore, I'm a big guy on supplementing with vitamin D. And remember the headline, 40 cents a day of vitamin D will keep people out of the hospital. You're a human solar panel, you need vitamin D.
Now, I can't tell you personally, I'm not your physician, I'm going to tell you what I do with vitamin D. This is me. See the face? It's me, it's what I do. In the dark months, so we're in May, we didn't get the memo in Sudbury. Okay? Because it's still cold. But let's say June, July, August, September, when you live where we live, you can get enough sun three or four days a week when the sun comes out you're in your shorts or you're in your t-shirt or whatever, and you're getting sun.
You can sun bathe for 20 minutes or whatever and you're sitting by a pool or you're at a lake or you're at your cottage or whatever, you can get enough sun just from the sunlight. I always say about 15th of September. That used to be my little sweet spot for starting to take a supplement of vitamin D. And then I would go right for well past six months of taking vitamin D. Here's what I do personally, 8,000 International Units of vitamin D for me. That's sort of the sweet spot of vitamin D. For me. Like I said, I can't tell you what to do.
And remember when we talk about IUs and that, when they calculate it... Listen, you got to understand, you're going to bring me back, I'm a dinosaur. I was born in the days of Noah, according to my grandchildren. "You're so old grandpa." Yeah, I know. I know. When you get my age, you'll laugh and your grandchildren will laugh at you. Now, you got to understand, when I was in school and even in my postgraduate work, you know what they recommended for vitamin D? And even then, 200 International Units of vitamin D, that was stretching it. I remember our textbooks in nutrition, 200 International Units of vitamin D and don't go past it. Because first of all, all they could think of in vitamin D for the last 50, 60, 70, whatever years, vitamin D is good for your bones. That's it, and that's all. And you get doctors today, "What do you want to take your vitamin D levels for? Why do you want to get a blood test for? Your bones are good."
Vitamin D. They started with 100 International Units and it took drilling teeth without anesthetic to get Health Canada, to get the FDA to go to 200. And then they went to 400. I never forget that. We're starting to find out now that we need 400. 400? That's for a mouse, folks. Mice need 400 International Units of vitamin D. You're not a mouse. It was bad math. That's what it was, it was bad math. And then they went up to 1,000, and today they'll give you 2,000. And I read a lot of articles that well, 2000 you really, really, that's good. Yeah, that's good for a child. But again, remember, I'll deny I even met you, I'll deny that I know you because if you try and get me in trouble with vitamin D, the government don't like people talking about vitamin D. They really don't. They've been influenced by, I wonder. I wonder.
So my sweet spot, 8,000 IUs. Tony Jr's sweet spot for him, 10,000 IUs. And again, if you can get in the sun and you can take your shirt off, you got short sleeve and your arms are exposed, the best two places to take vitamin D are on your arms. If you're behind a glass window, because some people are in sunrooms or whatever. Are sunrooms good? Yep, but not for vitamin D. Melatonin, yes. Vitamin D, no. You need the UVB radiation going to your skin to get vitamin D.
Well, Jerry, thanks for getting me excited. Jerry sent me that article this morning. I was fit to be tight, but doesn't surprise me guys. Doesn't surprise me. You guys know better. You know better. You can read articles and not get panicky. You know better. Understand what goes on behind the scenes. Understand what goes on behind the scenes. Very, very important. Now, I know you probably got questions that I didn't answer during that. Don't be shy because Friday is question and answer. You want to send your questions, we'll try and answer as many as we can. Okay?
But guys, if there's something better for any chronic disease than vitamin D, you got to convince me. You got to convince me because I haven't seen anything better. You need to get your serum vitamin D levels to be in good optimized. We can talk about that, where I aim for. Okay, did you have fun? I got to tell you, I love you guys and I thank you. Our following is unreal. We're averaging about 50, 60,000 people a week, and that's because you guys are sharing this on Facebook. And then we are going to hit, Tony Jr is telling me we're probably going to hit a million downloads just on the podcast sometime this summer. That's you guys are doing that. So we really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Okay? Spread the message. We love you guys. We'll talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!