Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. So you can’t miss scrolling every day on the internet. I did such and such for 30 days and this is what happened. And it kind of cute and gets your attention, so I though I’d try today, something like that. What would happen if you took vitamin D for 30 days in a row?

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First of all, let’s start with the obvious. You should take vitamin D every day. Not just 30 days in a row, but every day. Now, here’s why. Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin. It is actually a hormone. And with every passing year in research, we’re beginning to realize that this hormone does a whole lot of important things. And I’ve written about this in a number of my books. First of all, here in Southern California, about 80% of people who walk into my office as new patients, uh, are vitamin D deficient, have low levels of vitamin D. And you go, “How can that be? It’s Southern California.” It’s always sunny, although it’s cloudy outside today. Why is that? Well, we’re so afraid of the sun in Southern California that, of course, we lather on the sunscreen and we wear hats and long sleeves to, you know, protect ourselves from evil sunshine.

(02:18)
And that’s a big part of it. Plus, I take care of a number of patients who have darker colored skin. And as you might suspect, that’s a natural sunscreen. In fact, study out of Brooklyn a number of years ago, the Black population of Brooklyn, only 8% had a normal vitamin D level in Brooklyn. Okay. So, so what? Well, first of all, vitamin D is essential for improving the biodiversity of your gut microbiome. What the heck does that mean? Your gut microbiome consists of thousands of different species of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and it’s very akin to a tropical rainforest. And just like a tropical rainforest, the more diverse the population, the s – more stable that ecology is, and the better it functions. There’s good guys and bad guys, and they’re all dependent on each other. And the good guys keep the bad guys in check, the bad guys keep the good guys in check.

(03:39)
And it turns out that the higher your vitamin D level, the more diverse your microbiome. And as you learned in gut check or in the gut-brain paradox, the more diverse your microbiome, the healthier you are. Number two, as you probably know, the lining of your gut is at least the surface area of a tennis court, probably two tennis courts. And it’s only one cell thick, to give you an idea that’s thinner than a human hair. So this huge surface area, the cell thickness is one cell thick. And it’s constantly under attack by, by lectins, by LPSs, by some of the foods that we eat. And this layer is damaged. Now, in the wall of our gut, we have stem cells that when a cell is damaged, the stem cell wakes up and grows to replace that damaged cell. And this should go on constantly. It turns out that vitamin D is essential to wake that stem cell up, to literally tell it, “Hey, uh, we’ve got a problem.

(05:00)
Start growing into another intestinal s – cell and close the gap that got damaged.” Without vitamin D, what I’ve seen in my patients is those stem cells just sit there and twiddle their thumbs and go, “What do you want me to do?” So vitamin D pushes the stem cell into action. And that’s one of the reasons why virtually every patient with autoimmune disease who comes to see me, and about 80% of my practice is autoimmune patients, they all have very low levels of vitamin D. They can’t repair their gut. Well, number three, on a similar subject, we now know that vitamin D basically teaches the immune system about how reactive it ought to be to threats. And normally, vitamin D tells an overactive immune system, “Hey, calm down. Things aren’t as bad as you think they are. And just relax. Calm down.” Now, we know that this is normally supposed to happen.

(06:13)
Vitamin D is a break on an overactive immune system. But what’s interesting in autoimmune research is that our immune cells and autoimmune disease don’t listen to vitamin D very well. And as I tell my patients, we’ve gotta hit them over the head with a sledgehammer of vitamin D to get them to calm down.

(06:44)
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(08:02)
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Now, the fourth thing that I’ve learned, and I’ll give you an example of that, early on, we didn’t have. Early on, I mean, 25 years ago when I first started doing this, we didn’t have any measurements of leaky gut, intestinal permeability that we have now. But one of the first things I noticed early on was that people with autoimmune disease had very low levels of vitamin D. And because I check vitamin D levels every three months in most of my patients, I noticed that particularly people with autoimmune disease needed a lot of vitamin D to get their vitamin D levels high. Now, what’s high? First of all, let’s get rid of the notion that vitamin D is toxic. The University of California, San Diego, one of the biggest vitamin D research groups in the country, has never seen vitamin D toxicity even at 40,000 international units a day.

(10:12)
And they believe that the average American should be taking 10,000 international units of vitamin D3 a day. Now, for those of you who think in micrograms, that’s 250 micrograms of vitamin D3 a day. And I certainly concur with that. So where do I want people’s vitamin D levels? First of all, Quest, a very large lab, and Cleveland Heart Lab, which is now owned by Quest, believe, and I think they’re correct, that a normal vitamin D level is up to and including 150 nanograms per milliliter. Now, most of your well-meaning physicians and healthcare providers were taught that above 80 is toxic. And that’s the farthest from the truth. And it’s been shown by groups like the University of California San Diego that that is not toxic. And that’s why labs like Quest, one of the largest laboratories in the country, says, “Oh, no, no, no. Up to 150 is perfectly fine.” So I push patients’ vitamin D levels to at least 100 to 150.

(11:33)
And I’m not happy until we get them up there. It’s then that two things happen. First of all, as leaky gut seals, your vitamin D levels at the same dose of vitamin D usually start going up, and we can actually drop down the dose of vitamin D. I’ll give you an example from this week. Uh, I have a patient who we have been spending about a year trying to get their vitamin D levels above 100. And we’re currently on 50,000 international units of D3 a day. And we finally got this patient’s vitamin D level above 100. It was actually 109 nanograms per million. And we were celebrating this. And he said, “I can’t dare tell my regular doctor that I’m on 50,000 a day because he thinks, you know, it’s killing me. His calcium is normal. His kidney function is normal. He doesn’t have kidney stones.

(12:46)
And yet that’s the dose for him. Now, that’s a big exception. But I certainly have other people with autoimmune disease that will use, and we have to use 40,000 international units a day. The vast majority of people really don’t need any more than 10,000 international units a day. The vast majority. Now, if you’re really tiny, if you’re five foot tall and weigh 100 pounds, that’s probably gonna be a little too much for you, but there are not that many small people around. And through the years, 10,000 is usually the sweet spot for most people. Have I personally ever seen vitamin D toxicity? No, I have not. My whole thinking on vitamin D changed dramatically well over 20 years ago when I saw two new patients who were both in their late 70s. And their vitamin D levels were actually around 270 nanograms from there. 270.

(13:59)
And I’m looking at that in shock. And here they are, look completely normal. I’m looking at their other labs. Their kidney function is normal. Their calcium levels are normal. I asked them, uh, any history of kidney stones? And no. In theory, vitamin D toxicity could maybe give you numb fingers and numb toes. And I asked them about that and they go, go, no. And they said, “You’re. Why are you asking all these questions?” And I said, “Well, it looks like you take a lot of m – vitamin D.” And they said, “Oh, yeah. It’s a longevity hormone.” And of course, my eyebrows raised. And they said, “Why are you so worried?” I said, “Well, from what I’ve been taught, you ought to be dead from vitamin D toxicity.” And the gentleman kinda leans towards me. He said, “You don’t know much about vitamin D, do you, Sonny?” And I said, “Well, just what I’ve been taught.” And he says, “Well, maybe you ought to read about it.” And like so many things, I compliment my patients for teaching me.

(15:07)
And sure enough, I read about it. I read every book, every article, and the guy was right. And if you’ve read the longevity paradox, you know that people who have the highest vitamin D levels live the longest. Now why is that? Is it the vitamin D itself? Maybe. Is it because vitamin D promotes better gut diversity? Absolutely. Is it because vitamin D helps seal the wall of the gut? Absolutely. Is it because vitamin D keeps the immune system on an even basis? Absolutely. So 20-odd years ago, I learned something very useful from a patient. And they were right. I didn’t know much about vitamin D. And so take your vitamin D. It is a longevity hormone. And I can guarantee you, if you take your vitamin D every day, your vitamin D will go up. And that’s a good thing. In fact, I love vitamin D so much that we sell it, uh, at Gundry MD.

(16:17)
We also put vitamin K2 with our vitamin D. I’m so impressed with vitamin D. It’s part of our Gundry MD family of supplements.

(16:32)
Now it’s time for the question of the week from @53151G over on YouTube on my episode about top foods you need to stop eating. They asked, “Dr. Gundry, I love red peppers. Can I ferment peppers to alleviate the lectins?” Well, that’s a great question. In fact, just this week, I saw a physician who, unfortunately, has really horrible muscle pain, muscle stiffness, and has even pulled muscles that he was shocked because he’s in pretty good shape. When we did food sensitivity testing, wouldn’t you know it? Bell peppers were way up there on the scale that he reacted to, and he loves bell peppers. Eats them all the time. He never made the connection. Now, having said that, in general, lectins in bell peppers are in the peels and the seeds. So if you remove them, they are safe. But this physician also reacted to the aquaporins, another type of lectin in bell peppers.

(17:37)
And they’re in the flesh. To answer your question though, fermentation of peppers usually detoxifies the lectins. That’s why fermented hot pepper sauces, like Tabasco, uses fermentation to detoxify the lectins. So great question. Be careful. Now it’s time for the review of the week, a review from @ruth by a 405-443 over on YouTube on my episode about asthma. They say, “Good morning, Dr. Gondrey. I have already sent this podcast to a couple of my friends. I feel so blessed to have parents that fed me tons of olive oil growing up, fermented foods, because I have a gut of steel. I feel great all the time. I hope everyone listens to you. Two smiley faces. Well, thanks very much. You know, you were lucky in the parent sweepsticks. Unfortunately, most of us, our parents did not have decent advice. Were assured that giving antibiotics for every little sniffle and cold was a really good idea.

(18:45)
Was convinced that convenience foods were much more modern than the old-fashioned way of making things from scratch. And you can see what happened. So I’m glad I could help out. And asthma does not happen to people who grow up on farms, around animals, and don’t unfortunately live in our cities. So thanks for writing in.

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That’s a wrap on today’s episode. And before you go, I wanna leave you with one task. If anything you heard today made you think, made you wanna dig deeper, or gave you something you’re going to pass along to someone you care about, please take 15 seconds and leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I know that song’s small, but those reviews are how Apple and Spotify decide which shows to surface to new listeners. And this show only grows when people who’ve never heard of it suddenly find it. That person finding this podcast today could hear something that genuinely improves their life or the life of someone they love. Maybe even saves one. Everything I share here comes from my research when writing my next book and my clinics where I’ve been seeing patients six days a week for over 25 years, working with nutrition and supplements as the primary treatment.

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This is real world medicine. Help me get it to more people. And thank you. Truly thank you. I’m Dr. G, and I’m always looking out for you.