With everything listed here I have just one wish – that I’d discovered them about 20 years earlier.

Supplements

I’ve tried quite a few different combinations over the last few years and have settled on the following as the essentials for me at the moment:

Pill popping Ammi

• Fish oil – If I leave this out for a while I find my hair getting less glossy and my joints get a bit creaky.  I even have a favourite brand – the strongest one on the UK market.
• Glucosamine condroitin – I can’t actually tell the difference with this one if I stop taking it, but the research supports the fact that, long-term I should be taking it.
• Vitamin D – I live in the UK and I do a desk job that keeps me indoor all day when the weak sun we have here is out and about.  Since I started taking this I’ve felt happier, healthier and when I’ve had colds they’ve been the kind that make my nose run without the fuggy head to go with it. (Except colds brought on by sudden removal of extreme stress which are still bad, but they aren’t really colds.)
• Magnesium – This has made an amazing change to my life.  I will never again go without a sack of Epsom Salts in the bathroom.
  

  Magnesium Epsom Salts

• Digestive supplements – When I am more stressed I take digestive enzymes, probiotics and hydrochloric acid tablets with my meals to aid with digestion.  I’ve found it reduces the digestion problems I otherwise get at times of stress and also seems to result in better nutrient extraction (I certainly seem to show less nutrient deficiency than I used to).

Mooncup

The mooncup is a brand of vaginal cup for collecting menstrual flow.  It’s made of silicone and sits inside the vagina unobtrusively collecting menstrual flow.

Mooncup

Thanks to this I haven’t bought tampons or other sanitary products for years now and the mooncup has more than paid for itself in the money I’ve saved and the peace of mind.  It is clean, quick and easy.

If I think my period might start while on holiday, I can just slip this into my washbag or rucksack.  I no longer have to worry that I might have a forgetful morning during my period week and fail to take sufficient sanitary products to get me through the work day – if I need to I can just empty it into the toilet and start again.

Every woman, without exception, should have one of these.  In fact, they should give one away to every girl as she reaches puberty.  It would solve so many financial and environmental problems.

Vibram FiveFingers

If I had the choice I’d live in these all the time.  As it is I tend to wear them for work if I’m not in my home office or with a client and am therefore with people who don’t know me so well.  In fact, in 14 months I’ve worn them so much, both indoors and on long-distance treks, that I’ve worn through the rubber soles in a few places, the sole is almost worn through elsewhere, the fabric has a hole on the top along one of the seams and I’m just counting the days until the next shipment of Vibrams arrives in the UK at the start of January (with plenty in my size again – currently there are none available in the UK in my size unless I’m prepared to trek to the other end of the country since I need to do a re-fit to a new size and want to look at the new designs and sole thicknesses).

My dying Vibrams

The rubber has completely worn through in places and it's so thin across the ball of the foot now that the ripple grip has all gone

Free weights

It might seem excessive to have your own free weights and, to be fair, we have two of us using them, which makes it more worthwhile.  Despite all of that I would strongly recommend people get their own free weights if they have a corner of a room where they can be fitted.

Just a few of our free weights plates (the rack would be full if they weren't scattered round the garage)

Free weights have done more for my body composition, health and well-being than anything else you’ll find in a gym and they aren’t that expensive to set yourself up with a basic collection.  We treated ourselves to a cheap squat rack from Decathlon, which was probably the most expensive bit (we’ve since had to upgrade to a proper Powerrack because Chris is now shifting weights that are at the upper-limit of the old rack’s range and it was getting dangerous having to walk backwards for big distances with a heavy bar on your back to squat and have no lower bar as a safety).

The old squat rack now rusting in the garden

Other than the rack, we got ourselves a bar for barbell work (again, cheap from Decathlon – it didn’t need to be Olympic style), a few dumbbell kits which came with 10kg of 2kg and 1kg plates already included, and then stocked up on some more iron plates (a few 20kg, 10kg, 5kg and 0.5kg plates).  On average the plates (again, Decathlon is the friend of UK lifters) cost £1 per 1kg so yes, there is a capital outlay, but neither of us has paid gym fees for at least 3 years now which, at about £45 per month (and not always having all the equipment you want available when you want it) means we’ve made a saving in the long run.

Having your own weights in-house also has some definite benefits although there are also problems.

Bar pad

This deserves a mention all of its own.  I don’t remember what exercise we originally got this for, but it was before we had discovered the hip thrust and I know it definitely wasn’t bought to “protect the back of the neck during squatting” which is what every shop assistant was describing it as when I was phoning round to find a replacement.

Bar pad - essential for hip thrusts

I quickly realised that some padding was needed to protect the pelvic and hip bones in the hip thrust since I had no muscular padding in those areas.  I had a moment of genius and started using the bar pad.  Imagine my disappointment a year later when Bret Contreras wrote in an article about the bar pad being an essential piece of equipment for hip thrusts when I thought I was the only person who had had this great idea.

My first bar pad lasted for a couple of years, seeing me from my early days of only being able to shift 35kg in glute bridges through to shifting 130kg in my hip thrusts about 3 months ago. Eventually the padding completely split along its length and I had to find a new pad.  I hip thrust twice a week, and the new pad has only been exposed to weights of 135kg and 140kg – it split at the ends about 3 weeks ago.  Fortunately I bought cheap ones (could explain why it is splitting already) and bought two.  When it gets too far split I’ll unwrap the new one since the pain on my pelvic bone and hips of hip thrusting without a bar pad is unbearable.

*****

So these are the things I would never want to be without now.  Do you use these too?  Is there anything else you have on your essentials list?

Related posts:

1. Celebrating female strength
2. Weight training women
3. Blog-watch: interaction of diet and exercise with the menstrual cycle – part one

Vitamin D - all hail the great vitamin!

• Let’s start with the fact that the Vitamin D guidelines were updated at the start of the summer to a higher recommended dose.  The guidelines state that it is likely that everyone in the US is deficient (finally, some sense!) but the suggestion is that everyone is on a dose of 30ng/mL as a minimum and should really be 40 to 60ng/mL for children and adults.  This is quite laughable since you may recall from previous articles I’ve done on Vitamin D that a recommended dose in the sports and fitness industry is anywhere from 2,000-4,000 iu but it’s certainly a good start.
• Here’s a nice link between the diabetes series and this blog-watch.  Dr John Briffa did a great piece about a study showing that Vitamin D may be able to help in combatting type 2 diabetes.  I had already included in my type 1 diabetes article that Vitamin D can improve insulin production, therefore improving type 1 diabetes, but Vitamin D helping type 2 diabetes was new to me.  The same study was also reported on the Vitamin D Newsletter.
• I think it was last year that I flagged up incidences of rickets, an outcome of Vitamin D deficiency, in children on the south coast in England because parents were slathering their children in sunscreen all the time and covering them up with long-sleeved tops so that they ended up not getting any Vitamin D from the sun.  It seems that health workers in Cardiff are reporting a comeback of rickets there too.  Unfortunately the media aren’t making a big enough noise about this issue so most of the general public are still not aware that they could be hindering their health by always putting on high factor sunscreen from the instant they walk out of the door in the morning.
• It seems that the media have instead got themselves excited about a study showing that higher Vitamin D levels link to an increased risk in skin cancer and therefore we should all be wearing sunscreen all the time.  Huh?  What’s going on here?  It feels like we can’t get it right – too little Vitamin D and we’ll get rickets, too much and we’ll get skin cancer.  However Richard Nikoley had a shot at looking at the actual article and found that it wasn’t quite what the study found or rather, in Richard’s view the study wasn’t well designed at all.
• For a great study which is a bit different how about considering that Vitamin D might improve fertility?  Well, to be specific it improves the performance of sperm, improving both speed and motility.  Men with higher levels of Vitamin D also had a higher number of healthy sperm.  For those men with lower levels of Vitamin D their ability to absorb calcium and the acrosome reaction which occurs during penetration of the female egg were also inhibited.  Men – if you want children then you could do worse than increase your Vitamin D levels!
• The scientists at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) have been looking at links between Vitamin D and multiple sclerosis (MS).  It appears that there is a disease-causing protein, interleukin-17, which is produced by immune cells in the brain and ultimately leads to MS.  Vitamin D appears to terminate production of this protein.  Just don’t get too excited yet – it looks like they are still at the mice-experimentation stage so there is a while to go before this can be supported with humans.
• Dr John Cannell has recently published a new book titled Athlete’s Edge: Faster Quicker Stronger with Vitamin D.  It looks like it could be a good read pulling together reviews of plenty of studies into how Vitamin D helps athletes, whether in improving actual performance or ensuring seniors can continue to perform well.  I may well be adding this book to Chris’s technical books Christmas wish list.

So there you go.  There’s lots of really interesting stuff this summer.  Not only is Vitamin D able to do a range of extraordinary things but it seems that people are starting to take notice of it!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – more links!

Vitamin D - still making the headlines

• In the UK, Vitamin D hit the headlines in a big way when several school children living on the south coast were found to have severe cases of rickets.  Brought on by vitamin D deficiency, these are children who were swaddled up in long-sleeved shirts and hats, plastered in strong sunscreen and generally kept well-protected from the sun.  In their defence, the parents were only showing love and care for their children by following the advice provided by UK authorities who, for as long as I can remember, have been scaring us all with stories of the cancer we will get if we don’t take these actions.  The media, who had been peddling the cancer scare stories found themselves a bit conflicted by the rickets story, but media memory is selectively short and I don’t think any of them struggled to forget that they were the ones shouting out the cancer scare stories before.  As always the lesson to learn here is about moderation.
• Even more frightening than this sudden upsurge of rickets in children is the concept of intrauterine rickets – rickets occurring in unborn foetuses and resulting in damage as the child passes through the birth canal – caused by insufficient Vitamin D in pregnant women.  It’s a sobering warning for any pregnant woman and, much as I don’t want to frighten anyone, I would recommend that it is something to be sure you’re thinking about if you are pregnant (along with the hundreds of other things that you are being advised on and warned against).
• Charles Poliquin is well-respected and understands how nutrition ties across to athletic performance.  He was interviewed back in January about Vitamin D and the interview write-up on his blog provides a really good reminder of the main points for anyone who has managed to forget them since my last blog-watch on the subject as well as some new information.  His recommended dose is massive and has recently increased – I actually ended up reading the paragraph about dose quantities twice, wondering if I’d misread the units the first time.
• That said, it is possible to overdose with Vitamin D.  This was shown in the case of Gary Null and Ultimate Power Meal who mislabelled their product at one point.  It contained 2 million iu of Vitamin D per serving (as opposed to the 2,000iu written on the label).  Gary Null reportedly became incredibly ill due to consequently overdosing with the supplement, although he recovered within 3 months of stopping the defective supplement.
• I continue taking my 2,000iu of Vitamin D which I take every morning.  While I could probably do with a little more than that, I get outdoors as much as possible in the summer (my understanding is that winter sun in the middle of the UK doesn’t give you any of the right things to generate Vitamin D due to the angle of the sun with the earth at this latitude) and can’t convince myself to spend the money on sufficient to double this dose.  However, I’m always interested in news on dose amounts and was surprised to read Dr William Davis advocating that, over time, you need a lower dose.  While the logic seems sound, I’ve read elsewhere that, as winter progresses you can measure people using up their Vitamin D store if they live at the more extreme latitudes.  At what point do your stores drop enough that you are no longer in “topping up” mode, I wonder?
• A good question to ask yourself about your vitamin supplement, especially something like Vitamin D, which is generated by the body, is where to the get the vitamins from?  How are they created into supplement form?  For some other vitamins and specific brands of those the answer is often from natural sources (eg. concentrated Vitamin C extracted from suitable fruits and vegetables) but Vitamin D?  To learn more about the different ways vitamin supplements are made, from all natural ingredients through to synthetic supplements, Precision Nutrition published a great article by Ryan Andrews which is worth reading.
• Here’s a fascinating “short and sweet” piece from Ironman Magazine, highlighting some recently observed and concerning interactions between Vitamin D and statins.  This could be another one in support of the “low cholesterol is not necessarily a bad thing” and “statins are bad for you” arguments.
• While I’m with Ironman Magazine, they also did a short piece of unconnected (except for the main subject) facts about Vitamin D.  A few little facts to throw into conversation next time Vitamin D is being discussed at a dinner party perhaps?  I particularly liked the one about it being a hormone, rather than a vitamin.
• Mistress Krista had a bit of a rant on Stumptuous a few weeks ago about Vitamin D supplementation and raised an interesting point as part of that: by taking supplements are we perhaps avoiding an important issue that something else in our life is impeding our ability to absorb Vitamin D and supplementing is just treating the symptom rather than the cause.  I think she’s right but I think the biggest hindrance is the fact that we no longer spend a large part of each day outdoors.  My preference would be to spend the majority of the day outdoors and I certainly spend much of the summer weekend days doing my chores outdoors when I can.
• Finally, to finish this off… I know this blog-watch is about Vitamin D, but I feel that Vitamin D and sunlight are closely enough linked to slip this one in under the radar.  It’s a fascinating article about the ways in which sunlight can also directly improve brain function and the nervous system.  No wonder people tend to feel better in the summer months.

I knew there was a lot, but even I am surprised looking back over that list of links.  I hope there’s been something new and interesting for everyone in there.  Now the big question is, should I increase my dose of Vitamin D after all?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – Sept 2011 update

Now that the noise has died down a bit and I am no longer trying to track a moving target I’ve decided to pull together a blog-watch post to give you some insight and further reading about the controversy, as well as a couple of other bits which have come up on Vitamin D in the last few months.

Vitamin D - controversial dosage?

• First I will kick off with a bit of a recap.  A page that I found quite recently on HealthDiscoveries.net provides a useful summary of recommended Vitamin D levels and, more importantly, how much sunshine you need to meet the requirements.  Helpfully it also drills into the detail of what factors can influence your Vitamin D synthesis (eg. skin colour) and highlights that we synthesise Vitamin D from UV-B – the very substance that is blocked by sunscreen.  Be warned though that the dosage recommendations of this article pre-date the latest controversy. 
• I find that nothing explains technical information as successfully as a picture.  I was therefore really pleased to have this depiction of Vitamin D recommendations and requirements land in my RSS feed.  It covers all sorts of relevant areas, including the points in the northern hemisphere where you won’t be able to create Vitamin D from exposure to winter sun and which foods provide dietary Vitamin D.
• Moving onto the controversy, itself.  Many articles have referred to the findings as coming out of new research, however the reality is that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) did a meta-analysis – in other words, they compiled lots of existing research and looked at the overall patterns and conclusions that could be drawn from the research when considered as a whole unit, rather than as lots of separate pieces.  If you don’t want to read the whole report then you should get a good taste of some of the key points from an article that was in The New York Times.  However, remember that this is a media interpretation of a piece of news that had some “sensational” aspects and therefore isn’t a strictly accurate review of everything covered in the IOM report.  It seems that a San Francisco Chronicle columnist was certainly convinced although I am concerned that they think we get enough Vitamin D from sunlight, even in the winter.  Is San Francisco below the magic Northern Hemisphere line perhaps?
• Where do we go from here?  Well, I think a good place to start is to see what the nutritional people in the fitness industry said about it and a good reference for that is Brian St Pierre who was asked by a reader what he thought of the new recommendations.  Unsurprisingly he didn’t like them and feels that some research supporting higher doses was overlooked for the analysis.  He outlined his points in a brief article on his site which resulted in some particularly detailed correspondence with one reader and which Brian felt compelled to pull out into a post of its own.
• Also in disagreement was Dr William Davis from the Heart Scan Blog.  His issues revolved around the lack of scientific rigor for the IOM’s conclusions and he has sensibly come up with an alternative wording on what he thinks they should have said, highlighting where further research is needed.  Dr Davis went into more detail about why he thought the recommendations were unhelpful in a later post – if I’ve understood correctly, he feels that the focus of the research was wrong, looking for how to avoid Vitamin D deficiency rather than how to get optimal health benefits of Vitamin D.
• Richard Nikoley, never shy of getting involved in these sorts of debates, also posted up some information on the Vitamin D controversy.  Not only does his post have some handy links to previous posts he wrote about Vitamin D (for anyone looking for some further recap about Vitamin D and its potential benefits) but he does a good job of providing some lengthy quotes from Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council.
• So what happened?  Well, after that first flurry everything seemed to go quiet.  Those of us taking high doses didn’t pay any attention and carried on taking high doses.  Presumably a few people who were already sceptical about Vitamin D recommendations felt that they finally had the scientific evidence to support their scepticism.  Then it all erupted again in mid-December with the news that one of the council members involved in the decision had a serious conflict of interest.  Specifically, Glenville Jones is acting as an advisor to a pharmaceutical company which is developing a synthetic version of Vitamin D.  Of course, it doesn’t mean that he skewed the announcement, but it doesn’t look good, does it?
• Meanwhile, this latest controversy was catching the attention of other mainstream media outlets and causing them to think a bit more about Vitamin D.  In the case of The Guardian, this meant some sensible recommendations to people that they should increase their sunshine exposure a bit, particularly in the middle of the day.  I have to say that their common sense advice is a positive step in the right direction when it comes to getting knowledge out to a wider audience.  In the UK, leaflets were also being handed out encouraging us to get more Vitamin D, in recognition of the widespread Vitamin D deficiencies in this country.

So there you have it – the Vitamin D controversy from the end of 2010.  What do you think?  Are you tempted to reduce your Vitamin D dosage or do you, like many others, think that they’ve missed the point by focusing specifically on bone health and not looking at the other health benefits which seem to be gained from increased Vitamin D levels?

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – Sept 2011 update

This article is the fifth part in a series looking at various aspects of dairy.  During the series I am covering range of issues including intolerances, different types of dairy produce (specifically pasteurised, raw, full fat and skimmed), whether we need dairy for calcium and, ultimately, where I feel dairy should fit into the evolutionary paleo argument.

Don't we need dairy for calcium?

Back in the introductory post to this series I explained that the reason we moved to mass production of milk was the association between calcium, a fundamental building block for bones and teeth, and the high calcium levels within dairy.  Logically, it therefore followed that increasing dairy intake would also increase calcium intake and should subsequently improve bone health.

Why do we need calcium?

As Wikipedia explains, movement of the calcium ion into and out of cytoplasm acts as a signal for many processes in living organisms at the cellular level.  It is also a major building material in bones and shells and is subsequently the most abundant metal by mass in many animals.  Calcium is therefore essential for living organisms, including humans, with 99% of calcium in humans being stored in our bones and teeth.  The remaining 1% is busy playing a crucial role in assisting neurotransmitter release and muscle contraction (among other things).

Clearly the body needs the 1% of calcium to carry out essential cellular activities and assist our neurological and muscular activity so, in the event of calcium deficiency, the body will leech calcium out of the bones and teeth where it is being stored in order to enable the essential activities to continue, although rickets and poor blood clotting may also occur due to the deficiency outside the bone and tooth stores.  Unfortunately the thinning of bones can, in turn, lead to osteoporosis.

But this doesn’t mean you should overdo the calcium either.  The body can only store a limited quantity of calcium before it starts releasing calcium into the blood (known as hypercalcemia or hypercalciuria).  These elevated levels of calcium in the blood can impair kidney function and decrease absorption of other minerals.

Dairy as a calcium source

If you put whole milk into Fitday it will advise you that a pint of whole milk contains 551.4mg of calcium.  Since the recommended daily allowance (RDA) in both America and the UK is 1,000mg, that’s 55% of your RDA.  Why wouldn’t you consume milk or other dairy produce to get to your required daily calcium intake?

My biggest concern is that dairy isn’t actually a useful form of dairy.  This is particularly due to issues of acid-base balance and acidosis, both subjects I’ve written about before but which I’ll summarise below.

Acid-base balance and acidosis

The body is very sensitive to pH levels and needs to keep pH levels with a certain range in order to function.  If this balance is not maintained then the enzymes that are critical to our bodily functions can no longer.

All foods present themselves to the kidneys as either acid or alkaline base.  Once the body has processed these we are left with a net acid load or a net alkaline/base load.  Our bodies then use natural mechanisms to adjust this and ensure that it remains within a certain pH range.

One of the techniques used by the body to resolve a high acid-load (abnormally high acidity of the blood and other body tissues) is hypercalciuria.  Since calcium has a strong base (alkalinity) it is leached from the bones.  Once the calcium has neutralised the acid in the body it is discarded in urine along with the neutralised acid.  Hypercalciuria therefore degrades existing bone and also reduces the creation of new bone.

Why dairy as a calcium source could be a problem

Interestingly, hard cheeses and several other dairy products give some of the highest acid-load levels (PRAL scores) and all dairy is acidic rather than alkaline.  There is therefore a strong possibility that consumption of dairy as your calcium source could result in your body leeching calcium from bones rather than putting more on.

As a result of this, looking for alternative calcium sources is recommended.  One of the best would be brassicas (including kale, cabbage and brussel sprouts) since these, in turn, have high alkaline levels, offsetting the other foods you are consuming with them and reducing the risk of acidosis negating the beneficial calcium intake.

It’s also worth noting that, according to Patrick Baker in an article on The Paleo Diet, the absorption rate of calcium from brassicas is slightly higher than from milk.  He also refers to the studies showing that high protein diets can also increase intestinal calcium absorption, which may slightly offset the acid-load and potential hypercalciuria caused by the increased protein in the study.

Does calcium even help with bone density?

As an active person, my biggest reason for wanting plenty of calcium would be to ensure that I can keep healthy levels of bone density.  In turn this would enable me to remain active into my old age without worrying about osteoporosis.  It’s what led me into lifting weights in the beginning, since weight-bearing exercise is known to improve bone density.

A couple of studies provide some value to us here.  The first was a review of 58 studies, all looking into the question of whether evidence supports (1) the recommended calcium intake levels and (2) the suggestion that dairy products are better for promoting bone integrity than other calcium-containing food sources or supplements.  Of the 58 studies, 16 had to be omitted because they either didn’t control for weight, pubertal status and exercise or because the milk was fortified with Vitamin D which is also known to affect bone growth.  The remaining studies showed only limited connection between measures of bone health and dairy or dietary calcium intake (15 studies) or none at all (27 studies).

The second reviewed 19 studies to assess the effectiveness of calcium supplementation for improving bone mineral density in healthy children.  In this case there was only limited increase in bone density in certain parts of the skeleton and the researchers concluded that:

the small effect of calcium supplementation on bone mineral density in the upper limb is unlikely to reduce the risk of fracture, either in childhood or later life, to a degree of major public health importance.

I would also cite the study which Brian St Pierre refers to in his article about dairy, comparing fractures with calcium intake in different populations, but I have a concern that vitamin D is a major confounding factor in that study.  If you look closely at the graph you’ll spot that many of the countries with the highest numbers of fractures (eg. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, UK, US) are also located well into the northern hemisphere where populations are often vitamin D deficient, while those at the bottom of the spectrum (eg. Singapore, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Spain) are often located in places that are either near the equator or where there is more of a habit of spending time outdoors.

So it looks like calcium, especially concentrating on getting it from dairy, is unnecessary for bone health.  Instead the focus for calcium should be in ensuring there is sufficient for our cells to continue functioning correctly.  For building bone density we should be applying Wolff’s law (bone in a healthy person or animal will adapt to the loads it is placed under).

Drawing some conclusions

So where have we got to today?  I think the main points today would be:

• we definitely need calcium so that our cells function correctly;
• but we don’t necessarily need calcium to build strong and healthy bones and teeth, not even in children, despite what our governments, health advisors and midwives tell us – try picking up some heavy things instead (that applies equally to kids developing bones the first time round and adults trying to ward off osteoporosis);
• and just because dairy contains a lot of calcium, it doesn’t mean that consuming more dairy will provide us with more calcium – in fact the opposite may be true;
• alternative calcium sources, such as brassicas, may give us the calcium we need in a more useful format.

If you’re going to consume dairy it shouldn’t be for the calcium benefits but for some other reason.  You may choose to consume it because it’s got a wide array of nutrients and calories, making it good for mass gain as a lifter.  Or maybe use it for its insulinogenic properties which makes it so good as a post-workout recovery drink (but not so good for consumption at any other time).  Just don’t claim you’re drinking milk to build healthy bones. 

I’d love to know if you agree with my conclusions.

Related posts:

1. Full fat and low fat dairy
2. Acid-base balance
3. Is dairy paleo?

It seems that this is going to be a regular blog-watch theme, but there is so much new information always appearing about this particular vitamin and it appears to be so crucial to performance, that discussions about Vitamin D become central to a blog like this.

Vitamin D - a vital supplement

I have finally managed to plough through the 2,000+ articles that had collected on my Google Reader during the last three weeks (I had zero time to read during the week before I went on holiday and last week had no free time either).  On my way through I found a significant number of articles about Vitamin D and a few other topics which will appear over the next few weeks. 

To top this off, I heard an article on the radio news at the weekend while waiting for an update about the Tour de France and the Wimbledon (Tennis) Men’s Finals.  I was impressed to find that they were discussing a recent study connecting Vitamin D deficiency and pregnancy on mainstream media.  This convinced me to do an updating Vitamin D blog-watch this week.

• Robb Wolf does his research thoroughly, saving the rest of us from trawling quite so hard on everything.  A while ago he did an article about Vitamins A, D and K including discussion about how they interact.  I like his key question which kicks the article off – “What are your needs?”  Everyone is different and therefore everyone’s needs are different.
• If you still aren’t sure about exactly how Vitamin D works, then a recent NephroPal article summarises how Vitamin D behaves a bit like an anti-inflammatory hormone.  NephroPal is concluding that the requirement for Vitamin D was one of the reasons that humans evolved to be naked.  My caveat for this point is that there are several plausible theories for why we should now be naked (if this is something that interests to then it is worth reading The Aquatic Ape hypothesis), so be sure to bear this in mind when you are reading the NephroPal article.
• It was really good to read a detailed review of “The Vitamin D Solution” by Dr. Michael F. Holick, written by Michael Eades.  It seems that there is a lot to get your teeth into in this book, although whether Michael Eades has summarised all the best points remains to be seen… I am certainly tempted to get the book and read the detail myself.
• I’ve found a recent update on Vitamin D for improved immunity from viral infections and other ailments from Dr Briffa.  A study suggests that those with a Vitamin D level of 38ng/ml or higher were half as likely to suffer from a viral respiratory infection during the study period.  Those who were ill suffered with severe symptoms for an average of 2 days instead of 9 days.  Dr Briffa has voiced some of his concerns about the study within the article, but I am also concerned about how different the people were.  Those with higher levels of Vitamin D may well have had a more robust/clean diet or been more active and have learned about Vitamin D supplementation through the fitness industry.  I’ve not had time to read the study so I don’t know if they’ve covered this, but it’s something to think about.
• Obviously, one of the best ways to get your Vitamin D dose is from the sun.  Difficult to do all year round unless you live near the equator, but what about the risks of overexposure?  General advice is that you want about 20-30 minutes exposure to midday sun without sunscreen before you start to slather on the sunscreen, but Chris at Zen to Fitness has been having some ideas about natural alternatives to sunscreen.  In itself, this is a great idea since I find myself applying sunscreen straight out of the shower in the mornings because I can’t guarantee that the opportunity will arise at the right moment once I am outdoors.
• A warning from Dr. William Davis about taking calcium supplements alongside Vitamin D.  It seems that the two can interact to create abnormal calcium deposition leading, in the long term, to kidney stones and arthritis (amongst other things).  So just be a bit careful about what other things you are supplementing with your Vitamin D.

Every time I write one of these Vitamin D blog-watch articles I think it’s going to be a long time before I find enough to do another one but new research seems to be endlessly appearing on this subject.  Have you seen anything else of interest?

I think I’m going to head outside and make the most of the remaining summer sunshine of the day now.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – more links!
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – Sept 2011 update

Vitamin D - my hero supplement!

The only supplements I take are fish oil, Vitamin D and glucosamine sulphate with condroitin.  Of these I consider fish oil and Vitamin D to be crucial supplements that anyone should take, not just athletes and other active people.

On the point of the glucosamine sulphate with condroitin it’s possible that I don’t actually need as much of this at the moment since my fat loss diet includes roast chicken with gravy almost every evening.  I make the gravy using homemade chicken stock for which I boil up the bones and gristle from my chicken for several hours, which means I’m extracting a lot of the condroitin from the chicken remnants.  As a result I’m probably getting a good daily dose of extra condroitin at the moment.

So, moving onto the Vitamin D links, there have been a few studies and articles recently that have been of particular interest to me.  I thought that, despite the relatively short time since I last wrote about Vitamin D, I ought to share them with everyone else.

• I remember being incredibly confused about which Vitamin D supplement to get when I first started shopping (and remember from my last blog-watch, just because it says it has a certain strength of Vitamin D doesn’t mean it’ll do the trick so don’t just go for the budget brand – it’s worth doing a bit of research on forums and google for recommendations before you make the purchase).  There seemed to be D2 and D3 available but what was the difference.  I eventually established that I needed Vitamin D3 but if you would like to see a nice short article explaining why that is, Iron Man Magazine have just published something explaining the sources of the two types of the vitamin and some astounding research that seems to emphasise the need to use natural D3 and not D2.
• If you want some real-life evidence of a potential link between Vitamin D deficiency (and supplementation) and athletic performance but you are tired of reading research studies while trying to decide if they are biased in some way then it is worth considering the improved performance of the Chicago Blackhawks.  The Blackhawks, a professional hockey team, had seen many losing seasons and then they started supplementing the whole team on Vitamin D.  In the last 18 months since starting this supplementation regime they made it to the Western conference finals last year, are performing even better this year, have seen a reduction in the number and severity of colds and have also seen a reduction in the number and severity of repetitive use injuries.  Does it sound intriguing?  For a broader discussion of these sorts of Vitamin D benefits I suggest a read of Jimmy Moore’s blog post that was kicked off by the same article from the Vitamin D Council.
• In Jimmy Moore’s post that I just linked to he refers to the pain hat his wife suffered from.  It seems that the message about chronic pain being associated to extremely low Vitamin D levels is starting to get out into the public domain with an article popping up about this on WebMD.  The article includes a fascinating reference to a woman who had barely measurable Vitamin D levels and 3 pages of symptoms and problems.  After an intensive course of Vitamin D supplementation she was able to cross every single symptom off the list.
• Lupus is an unpleasant autoimmune disease that is present in my family.  As a result I’m always interested when I see research about lupus.  I was even more interested though when Nephropal wrote about the link between Vitamin D and Lupus.  It seems that Lupus sufferers have seen a reduction of activity of the disease when they have supplemented with Vitamin D.
• Helen Kollias did a really good article for Precision Nutrition a little while ago discussing in detail a study that looked at the possible connection between body composition and Vitamin D levels.  It seems that, surprisingly, there is a connection between these.  Specifically it seems that women who are deficient in their Vitamin D levels carried more abdominal fat, more body fat and had a higher BMI.  So it seems that Vitamin D may help with body composition goals too.
• Dr. Briffa wrote about a piece of research that suggested that in an elderly population, those with higher levels of Vitamin D also had improved physical function, suggesting that Vitamin D levels may help me in my goals of living a long and active life.  As Dr. Briffa points out, there could be other reasons why these older people had improved physical function, but for want of further detailed information about the participants the Vitamin D is definitely a plausible explanation.
• Finally, I think Mark Sisson must be a mind-reader.  I drafted this post up last weekend and then on Wednesday up came a post by Mark all about Vitamin D!  He’s covering the similarities (and differences) between solar and oral/dietary Vitamin D sources and how much to dose up with.  Worth a read as a reminder for any salient facts if you don’t want to re-read my previous blog-watch posts which cover some of these same topics.

That’s it for another blog-watch about Vitamin D.  I’ll see if I can leave it for a bit longer than a month before I next write about Vitamin D!

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – Sept 2011 update
2. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D latest news

Vitamin D - an important supplement but don't overdo it

• I thought I would start off with a warning about vitamin D supplements.  Dr. Davis from the Heart Scan Blog has come across five people who have taken the Nature Made brand and seen almost no improvement to their vitamin D blood levels.  He did actually get a response to his post from Nature Made but the response doesn’t seem to have much substance to it.  I don’t know anything about the Nature Made brand, but it’s a warning about vitamin supplements in general.  If possible, test yourself before and after taking them to see if the supplement is actually doing what it should do, and be wary of the very cheapest brands unless you trust the provider.
• Eric Cressey interviewed Dr. Rick Cohen from Bioletics where they use testing of nutrients to help athletes to improve their performance.  It fits in here because there is particular focus in the interview on the vitamin D deficiency that is found in so many athletes and the improvements that can been seen in performance if vitamin D levels are improved.  Here’s also some fascinating information about iron.  Most women have iron deficiency (unsurprisingly) while a lot of men have excess iron from eating more calories and red meat than women.  Excess iron can result in the development of heart disease, cancer and immune disorders in later life and is linked to hemochromatosis, a genetic disorder where the body absorbs iron too easily and which I am particularly aware of since a member of my own family suffers from this.  A reminder that you should check your levels of all nutrients before supplementing them rather than just assuming that you are deficient.
• Staying on the theme of taking care with supplementation, the Vitamin D Newsletter responded to a letter from someone who had taken so much vitamin D that they ended up toxic.  It was fascinating reading about an issue I had previously never considered.
• ITB Health have done an article about The Vitamin D Solution, a new book by Dr. Michael F. Holick that identifies the causes of vitamin D deficiency, outlines why it is important for health and provides solutions to our vitamin D deficiencies.  It certainly sounds like a book to direct towards any vitamin D naysayers.
• For a couple of specific health reminders we’ve had a few , No Bull Muscle posted up a short article to remind women that vitamin D can help maintain bone density since vitamin D helps the body to absorb calcium.  So if you are supplementing with vitamin D then you can optimise the calcium that occurs naturally in the foods we eat all the time.  Dr Briffa also recently highlighted various pieces of research that suggest that vitamin D supplementation may be linked with reduced risk of cancer, including breast cancer.
• Finally, in case you were thinking that Vitamin D is the only benefit from the sun, Chris on Zen to Fitness provided a reminder on all the other benefits, so don’t think you can get away with sitting inside all day and supplementing.

Hopefully there’s been some new information for people who are interested in supplementation and how it impacts on their performance.  I’m certainly interested in that book and may see if I can get hold of a copy at the library.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: weight loss diets latest news
2. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – more links!

The observations below are based on what I have seen of my own health, my own experiences during what could be considered a very typical year.  They are not a controlled scientific experiment and as such you must make up your own mind about whether you think the changes I noticed were due to the Vitamin D.

Vitamin D

Setting the scene – the ailments at work

In order to make a more realistic comparison to a typical winter, since every winter is different and the coughs and colds thrown at us will change each year, I’ve found it useful to compare my health to everyone else at work. 

I spend an enormous amount of my waking hours in the office and the air conditioning system there is superb for spreading the germs between us.  In a typical winter we seem to have one or two bouts of cold go through the office and by the end of the winter about half of my team have usually had one or two days off from one or the other cold (or, for the unlucky few, both colds).

This year seemed particularly bad.  About half the office went down with swine flu and I think everybody in my team ended up taking a couple of days off in December or January.  In late February most were either ill in work or took at least a day off again when something else spread between us.  Finally, last week over half the team took one or two days off with variants on a theme of high temperatures, vomiting and diarrhea.

Winter colds

Typically I have had two or three colds each winter.  Usually they don’t get me hard enough to take time off work, but I spend a miserable week snivelling and sniffing and generally feeling horrible. 

This year with everyone having ended up bed-bound for several days I couldn’t expect to get away completely free.  I was enough of a sceptic to have not expected a dose of Vitamin D each morning to completely rid me of the risk of catching something when I get stressed and tired in such an unhealthy air-conditioned atmosphere.

I did get a cold in early January but it was a novelty.  Rather than my usual miserable self, I was cheerful and happy.  Yes, my nose ran for a couple of days and I got through a few handkerchiefs, but at no point did I actually feel under the weather.  I was able to function and work as well as usual.

An unusual bout of flu

Last week I went down with the high temperature (though thankfully I seemed to avoid the vomiting and diarrhea).

I had a particularly stressful day at work on the Friday, ended up working late, the next morning I woke early, did a strenuous long walk in snow and a bench press max effort and then to top off the weekend I spent Sunday sat at the computer working on the website all day, except for the bit when I did a deadlift workout. 

On Monday I developed a sore throat in the late morning.  By late afternoon I was aching all over, not the usual DOMS I would expect from a satisfying deadlift session, but an ache that left me flinching when touched and feeling like my head was going to implode.

That evening I passed through some feverish stages but I woke the next morning feeling mostly ache free and almost fine.  I took the day off work, since I still didn’t feel up to the drive to work and standing up for an hour getting dressed, preparing the breakfast and clearing up afterwards left me feeling sore and tired again.  The day after that I also took it easy but I did do 5 hours of work from home, so I was pretty much back up to full working order.

Overall I noticed that there was none of the exhausted weakness that I usually find follows for a couple of days after I’ve been ill with a temperature and I certainly didn’t get hit as hard as most other people.

My conclusion

Given the poor health of everyone around me this year I seem to have had a winter of particularly good health.  I feel that I’ve been better than I usually am in the winter, and that in a year when everyone else appears to have been worse than usual.

Should I be taking a higher dose to ensure that I don’t get ill?  When questioned, nobody seems able to conclude how much is the right dose.  Suggestions range from 1,000iu – 5,000iu.  Considering the stress I habitually put my body through during the winter months when I also have busy season at work maybe 2,000iu is too low.

I’ll keep taking the Vitamin D pills until they run out, which will be in April time.  By then the weather will have improved enough that I will be outdoors in the sunshine almost every day for a decent amount of time.  I’ll definitely be taking Vitamin D again next winter too.  I’m certainly convinced that it did something for me this year.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D controversy

I’ve listed below the top 6 blog posts/articles I’ve read recently on Vitamin D which I really recommend you read – it’s a matter of good health and responsibility here!

1. D is for Doping: to start off, here is the article by Chris Shugart.  A must read for everyone who wants to know about Vitamin D.
2. Don’t let “D” stand for deficiency: this blog post from Mark Sisson makes some readable and valid points on Vitamin D deficiency.  Unfortunately I haven’t managed to find the very useful post he did where everyone’s comments point you in the right direction for where to get Vitamin D tested, especially for people not in the US.  If you know the answer, please let me know.
3. Eric Cressey: Random Friday Thoughts: I really liked Eric Cressey’s mention of Vitamin D in this week’s Random Friday Thoughts.  It also reminds me why I haven’t taken my company up on the offer of an annual medical check up (apart from the fact that I’d pay for it and disagree with half the things that they do want to test).
4. Vitamin D and H1N1 Swine Flu:  the blog of the Vitamin D Council and specifically a recent post suggesting that Vitamin D can protect against swine flu.
5. Swine-B-Gon:  continuing on the swine flu theme, Mistress Krista on Stumptuous did a post about the recent research into Vitamin D.  This article also has handy information about the different types of Vitamin D, which I was unaware of before now.
6. The Miracle of Vitamin D:  finally, a technical article from the Weston A. Price Foundation.  Some of the articles on this website can be controversial, but they are usually worth reading for additional viewpoints and extra technical information.

So with the onset of winter and decrease in sunlight in my northern habitat (England) I’ll be investing in some Vitamin D supplementation immediately.

4 October 2009 – update:  With reference to my query above about how you go about getting tested (asking for tests for things in the UK is not always simple – your Doctor will quite often look at you and tell you that you’re wasting his time if you have no immediate symptoms for anything), I’ve just seen a recent post on PaNu, a Paleo Diet blog about Vitamin D Home Testing which may be of help.

Related posts:

1. Blog-watch: sunshine and Vitamin D
2. Blog-watch: Vitamin D controversy
3. Blog-watch: Vitamin D – Sept 2011 update