Forum Statistics

Threads
27,576
Posts
541,648
Members
28,555
Latest Member
Kiddorism
What's New?

Vitamin D for Size & Strength

Hanniballickedher

Hanniballickedher

MuscleHead
Dec 12, 2010
1,235
119
Vitamin D for Size & Strength

Consider vitamin D if you're looking to boost your size and strength

December 7, 2010

FLEXONLINE.COM

Dr. Jim Stoppani, Ph.D.

Vitamin D just took a hit in the media when one study showed that the average person doesn't need to supplement with it. However, bodybuilders are not average, and if you're looking to boost your size and strength you'll want to consider supplementing with Vitamin D.

Since vitamin D gets converted in the body to a steroid hormone--1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D--it makes sense that it would have some effect on strength. This active form of vitamin D binds to specific receptors found on membranes and nuclei of muscle cells. When it binds to these receptors, it enhances muscle contraction and protein synthesis--the buildup of muscle protein that leads to muscle growth. Research shows that certain types of these receptors may be responsible for greater muscle size and strength. Adequate vitamin D levels can help ensure your muscle receptors are activated for optimal muscle function, strength and muscle growth.

We recommend taking 1,000 international units of vitamin D about twice per day with meals.
 
Get Some

Get Some

MuscleHead
Sep 9, 2010
3,442
648
A large portion of vitamin D comes from the sun and how it affects your body. If you live in a place where the sun is shining more often than not, you're probably getting all the benefits of vitamin D already. However, if you live in a place that is colder, darker, damper, etc...you may want to consider 2000 to 4000 IU per day. Scientific studies are just that....studies. Not absolute truths nor irreplaceable. The main thing here is that they didn't report any adverse side effects from consumption, just that you "don't need it." I think differently, especially for something that is so safe to supplement with.
 

SHINE

Friends Remembered
Oct 11, 2010
5,047
600
Been supplementng with it for a-while, thing i've noticed is a bit more energy in the gym lately. (I think it's the Vit D lol).
 
Number LL

Number LL

MuscleHead
Dec 4, 2010
465
72
I take 4000IU a day by capsule and get another 800IU from multi-vitamin and 1200IU from cod liver oil.
 
marx

marx

MuscleHead
Sep 29, 2010
4,671
626
Vitamin D is supposed to kick the flu's ass

Vitamin D is growing in popularity as a way to prevent flu. Current medical research has identified a correlation between seasonal Vitamin D levels and influenza. The more sun, the less illness. The less sun, the more flu. Research has also shown that vitamin D prevents respiratory infections in adults and children. Lots of flu remedies provide flu relief, but Vitamin D actually prevents flu. It is especially effective at preventing respiratory illness making it a perfect flu medicine. Here's how to use vitamin D safely and effectively.
Difficulty: Moderate
Instructions

1.
1

Buy the D3 form of vitamin D. According to the US National Institutes of Health, the D3 form of Vitamin D is much more effective than other types. In addition the Vitamin D council reports that other forms of vitamin D can cause hypercalcemia, very high levels of calcium in the blood, which can be dangerous. D3, however, is a safe flu remedies and does not cause hypercalcemia. D3 is available in 1,000 iu increments, over-the-counter, at pharmacies and other retailers. Larger increments of Vitamin D are more easily found online (see Resources for a link to a reputable online supplier).
2.
2

Take 5,000 iu of D3 per day, for adults, when healthy to boost the immune system and prevent flu. The Vitamin D Council recommends 1,000 iu for children under the age of 1 and 2,000 iu for children between the ages of 2-4 years. From the ages of 4 through 9 the suggested dose is 3000 iu. At the age of 10, children may take the adult dose of Vitamin D.
3.
3

Increase the D3 dose at the first sign of illness to 10,000 iu for adults. Higher doses have been used in human during medical studies without ill effects, but 10,000 iu is currently the highest recommended dose. However, if flu relief does not result after a few days, you may want to consider increasing the vitamin D dose. Consult a pediatrician for the correct dose for children. An alternative to taking a supplement would be to expose skin to the sun at midday for 15-20 minutes.
4.
4

Drink water while taking D3. While unconfirmed, there have been rare reports of kidney stones as a result of vitamin D supplementation. This can be avoided with adequate fluid intake to maintain proper hydration.
5.
5

Combine Vitamin D with other vitamin supplements known to boost the immune system. In particular, take zinc, vitamin C, vitamin A and vitamin E. See Resources for a link to more information.
 
marx

marx

MuscleHead
Sep 29, 2010
4,671
626
Check out the protien reference:

Flu virus exists in people year-round, and new strains seed a population during the "off-season." In the northern and southern temperate zones, flu epidemics occur in the cold part of the year, October—March and April—September respectively. Flu epidemics occur in the tropics during the rainy season.

Explanations for why flu epidemics occur in the winter when it is cold — people being indoors in close contact, drier air dehydrating mucus and preventing the body from expelling virus particles, the virus lingering longer on exposed surfaces, like doorknobs, with colder temperatures — do not explain why flu epidemics occur in the tropics.

Something that can explain why flu epidemics also occur both in warm and cold climates is this: During a flu epidemic, wherever it may be, the atmosphere blocks ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation from the Sun. In the temperate zones above latitude 35 degrees North and South, the sun is at a low enough angle in the winter that the ozone layer in the atmosphere absorbs and blocks the short-wavelength (280—315 nanometers) UVB rays. In the tropics during the wet season, thick rain clouds block UVB rays.

Skin contains a cholesterol derivative, 7-dehydrocholesterol. UVB radiation on skin breaks open one of the carbon rings in this molecule to form vitamin D. The activated form of vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) attaches to receptors on genes that control their expression, which turn protein production on or off. Vitamin D regulates the expression of more than 1,000 genes throughout the body. They include ones in macrophages, cells in the immune system that, among other things, attack and destroy viruses. Vitamin D switches on genes in macrophages that make antimicrobial peptides, antibiotics the body produces. Like antibiotics, these peptides attack and destroy bacteria; but unlike antibiotics, they also attack and destroy viruses.

Vitamin D also expresses genes that stop macrophages from overreacting to an infection and releasing too many inflammatory agents — cytokines — that can damage infected tissue. Vitamin D, for example, down regulates genes that produce interleukin-2 and interferon gamma, two cytokines that prime macrophages and cytotoxic T cells to attack the body's tissues. In the 1918—19 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 500,000 Americans, young healthy adults would wake up in the morning feeling well, start drowning in their own inflammation as the day wore on, and be dead by midnight, as happened to my 22-year-old grandmother and my wife's 24-year-old grandmother. Autopsies showed complete destruction of the epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract resulting, researchers now know, from a macrophage-induced severe inflammatory reaction to the virus. In a terribly misguided way, these victims' own immune system attacked and killed them, not the virus, something in future pandemics vitamin D, in appropriate doses, can prevent.

A creditable hypothesis that explains the seasonal nature of flu is that influenza is a vitamin D deficiency disease. Cannell and colleagues offer this hypothesis in "Epidemic Influenza and Vitamin D" (Epidemiol Infect 2006;134:1129—40). They quote Hippocrates (circa 400 B.C.), who said, "Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year." Vitamin D levels in the blood fall to their lowest point during flu seasons. Unable to be protected by the body's own antibiotics (antimicrobial peptides) that this gene-expresser engineers, a person with a low vitamin D blood level is more vulnerable to contracting colds, influenza, and other respiratory infections (e.g., respiratory syncytial virus).

Studies show that children with rickets, a vitamin D-deficient skeletal disorder, suffer from frequent respiratory infections; and children exposed to sunlight are less likely to get a cold. Given vitamin D's wide-ranging effects on gene expression, other studies, for example, show that people diagnosed with cancer in the summer have an improved survival compared with those diagnosed in the winter (Int J Cancer 2006;119:1530—36).

A growing body of evidence indicates that rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults (both a softening of bones due to defective bone mineralization) are just the tip of a vitamin D-deficiency iceberg. Tuberculosis and various autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, and type I diabetes have a causal association with low vitamin D blood levels. Vitamin D deficiency plays a causal role in hypertension, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, and stroke. It is also a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes, chronic fatigue, seasonal affective disorder, depression, cataracts, infertility, and osteoporosis. At the bottom of the vitamin D iceberg lies cancer. There is good evidence that vitamin D deficiency is a causal factor in some 15 different common cancers. (NEJM 2007;357:266—81.)

The increased number of deaths that occur in winter, largely from pneumonia and cardiovascular diseases, are much more likely due to vitamin D deficiency than to an increased prevalence of serologically-positive influenza virus (which also results from vitamin D deficiency).

Experts reckon that an optimum blood level of vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) is 50—99 ng/ml. (Children need a blood level >8 ng/ml to prevent rickets. It takes a concentration >20 to maintain parathyroid hormone levels in a normal range. A level >34 is needed for peak intestinal calcium absorption. And in elderly people neuromuscular performance steadily improves as vitamin D blood levels rise to 50 ng/ml.) The government's recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin D is 400 IU (international units) a day, an amount sufficient to prevent rickets and osteomalacia but not vitamin D's other gene-regulating benefits. To achieve all of vitamin D's benefits one has to take an amount ten times the government's RDA — 4,000 to 5,000 IU a day.

A light-skinned person will synthesize 20,000 IU of vitamin D in 20 minutes sunbathing on a tropical beach, at which point vitamin D synthesis shuts down for the day (it takes a dark-skinned person 6 to 10 times longer to make this amount). Human breast milk does not contain vitamin D, since, from an evolutionary standpoint, our African ancestors' infants, reared near the equator, could readily synthesize this gene regulator from sunlight in their skin. Food contains very little vitamin D. (The highest concentrations are in wild salmon, mackerel, sardines, and cod liver oil.) Federal regulations now require that some foods, like milk, be fortified with vitamin D. But one would have to drink 200 glasses of milk to obtain the amount of vitamin D a light-skinned person can make in 20 minutes sunbathing.

The majority of Americans are vitamin D deficient, with a 25-hydroxy D blood level <20 ng/ml, or insufficient, with a level of 20—<30 ng/ml. Cheap vitamin D supplements (D3, not D2) provide the only way most of us can maintain a year-round vitamin D blood levels greater than 50 ng/ml. That requires taking 4—5,000 IU of vitamin D a day (50,000 IU every ten days or 150,000 IU a month).

Taking vitamin D in these doses is safe, far safer than a flu shot with all the bad chemicals it contains. Concerns about vitamin D toxicity are overblown. One can take a 10,000 IU vitamin D supplement on a daily basis without any adverse effects. In healthy persons, long-term consumption of more than 40,000 IU a day is necessary to cause an elevation in the blood calcium level (hypercalcemia), the first manifestation of vitamin D toxicity (Am J Clin Nutr 2006;84:694—97). Check your vitamin D (25-hydroxy D) blood level. People with granulomatous diseases like sarcoidosis should also check their blood level of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the active form.

Can a shot (or tablets) of vitamin D prevent influenza better than a flu shot? There is good reason to believe that it can.

Doctors in India and Canada give people a once-yearly injection of 600,000 IU of vitamin D (MJA 2005;183:10—12). That would be better, and safer, than having a flu shot. Daily, weekly, or monthly vitamin D tablets work just as well. For more on this subject see my article "Vitamin D in a New Light" and visit Dr. Cannell's Vitamin D Council website.

Investigators have completed one double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial that shows vitamin D prevents colds and influenza significantly better (P <0.002) than a placebo pill (Epidemiol Infection 2007;135:1095—6). A large multi-center randomized trial conducted over multiple flu seasons comparing vitamin D to a flu shot can show conclusively which is better, and safer. But given the financial stakes underpinning flu shots, and unpatentable vitamin D, who will fund it?

In the meantime, considering what is most likely to be the outcome of such a trial, if it is ever conducted, I recommend that you avoid flu shots and take vitamin D instead.

Notes

Influenza virus Flu viruses are classified into types A, B, and C. Type A viruses cause most influenza epidemics. They exist, replicate, and mutate in swine and horses; seals, dolphins, and whales; migratory water birds, geese and ducks; domestic birds chicken and turkeys; and humans. Type B and C viruses exist only in humans and only type B causes (relatively mild) infections. Influenza A viruses are further categorized into subtypes on the basis of two surface antigens (proteins): hemaglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). There are 15 different H and 9 different N antigens. The 1918—19 Spanish flu pandemic was caused by an H1NI Type A virus. Subtypes of influenza viruses are further classified by the names of cities, states or countries, along with the year they were discovered. For the 2008—09 (northern temperate zone) season, officials predict and have directed vaccines to be made against A/Brisbane/59/2007 (H1N1), A/Brisbane/10/2007 (H3N2), and B/Florida/4/2006. In an unusual departure, they are all different from the previous season, which missed the strains that caused influenza that season. What doctors diagnose as "influenza" is often an influenza-like illness caused by a respiratory virus other than the flu. Serologic tests are necessary to prove that one's respiratory illness is actually caused by the flu virus.

Other things to do to prevent the flu Avoid sugar. It suppresses immunity. Avoid Omega-6 vegetable oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, canola, and soybean oil). Americans consume 50 times more of these oils than are necessary for good health. In this amount they are powerful immune suppressants. Take a well-balanced multivitamin/mineral capsule on a daily basis. Eat garlic. Manage stress. Exercise. Get enough rest. And wash your hands. Viruses spread most often from touching contaminated objects, like doorknobs, phones, shared computer keyboards, and shaking hands.
 
G

guinessforstrength

VIP Member
Sep 24, 2010
73
4
Good post, Ive been getting sick a lot lately. Think ill give it a try
 
hugerobb

hugerobb

VIP Strength Advisor
Sep 15, 2010
2,027
56
good info didnt know that about vit.D I just drink alot of milk didnt kniw I should be taking 5000IU's aday
 
AWARE72

AWARE72

MuscleHead
Oct 17, 2010
323
18
I recently start taken 5000iu twice a day. It is cold and don't see much sun this time of year. What I noticed right way was a better state of mind...if that makes sense...
 
Last edited:
JackD

JackD

Senior Moderators
Staff Member
Sep 16, 2010
6,406
1,607
I've recently started taking it, and I can say I do feel better, more energy, and have morning wood all night too.
 
Who is viewing this thread?

There are currently 0 members watching this topic

Top