Healthy Origins, Vitamin D3, 5,000 IU, 360 Softgels

These Vitamin D3, 5000iu capsules are excellent value, considering you get 360 capsules for your money. Started taking them to counteract a very low Vitamin D blood count, after an initial problem thought to be multiple sclerosis. I've been taking them for over 3 months now and am very pleased with the results..quite noticeable improvements.

I had to source high potency Vitamin D and was pleased to find these so easily and reasonably. More on Vitamin D deficiency and scientific studies at [...]. Also for those suffering from Multiple Sclerosis an excellent book to obtain is Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis by Professor George Jelinek, obtainable on Amazon, which will tell you more about Vitamin D and the benefits for MS sufferers.

After reading about D3 I had to purchase some. I'm only 20 years old but this stuff has made a huge difference since I began taking 5000IU a day two months ago. I have taken a healthy turn, and my eczema has almost gone completely. Everyone in my house has been suffering with seasonal colds whereas I have been fit as a fiddle and going on long runs etc to make use of all my new found energy. I'm happy constantly now, I used suffer from bouts of depression but since about 6 weeks ago a new person has been born!

People don't take much notice when I tell them to buy D3, probably because they only take what the Dr orders! But if you have found this page and happen to be reading these comments, please for your own sake get some! (Look at the price!!)

Much Love & Peace!

I find that taking Vitamin D is a Must for me and my family, because we, like many people in the UK, barely have any exposure to sun (and did you know that if you apply SPF 8+ your skin doesn't produce vitamin D ? People of ethnic origins that have darker skins produce less Vitamin D than people with pale skin. Also, if people come from a culture where the body is traditionally fully covered, they are also likely to lack vitamin D. All this can explain how vitamin D deficiency became a global phenomenon.)

I use this product because it is high dose Vitamin D, a softgel (better absorption) and excellent value and I feel much better for doing so.

This will be a really Looong review about what I found out about Vitamin D3, followed by my personal anecdote how I started taking it, so have a cuppa ready, if you are really sure you want to read the rest!

It is not just a product review (clearly I am using it, for the reasons mentioned below) but I wrote So Much info about vitamin D3 for all the people like myself who trawl through amazon reviews and learn from others! So if you want to know whether the product is great - it is and I am taking it. If you want to know Why I am taking it, read on.

First some of the facts (I have a scientific background and tend to keep up to date with nutritional news):

- Vitamin D is not actually a vitamin, it is a HORMONE, which is produced in the skin from 17-dehydrocholesterol when we are exposed to the sun's UVB rays (mostly between 10:00-14:00, so if you avoid the lunchtime sun as you're supposed to, and then also put on sunscreen SPF 8+ ...you will produce very little vitamin D). I will continue using the historical term "vitamin" but it is wrong. If we called it "hormone D" as some of the researchers already proposed, then it'd be easier, perhaps, to get our heads around how a deficiency can have so many different effects and be associated with so many "big" illnesses. It's easy to understand the concept that a lack of insulin can lead to diabetes, a lack of sexual hormones to menopausal symptoms, a lack of thyroid hormones to hypothyroidism, treatment with (artificial) steroid (hormones) to a multitude of side effects like thinning of the skin, obesity, high sugar, high blood pressure, thinning of bones, etc. The skin is our biggest organ and if vitamin D3 = cholecalciferol is the hormone it produces (in fact it produces a precursor), then it might be easier to understand how a deficiency can have a massive impact on a lot of processes in the body. Hormonal effects are always global, they don't occur just in one particular site

- Vitamin D3 = cholecalciferol (found in animals) is the form we have in our bodies, Vitamin D2 = ergocalciferol (found in plants)

- Research of recent years found that vitamin D influences > 2700 genes (see a fairly recent article in the New Scientist this year, sorry, don't have issue number) and seems to be linked to a multitude of health issues including MS, osteoporosis/osteomalacia, asthma, diabetes, depression, chronic aches and pains, psoriasis, several of cancers (?17), cognitive function and low immune system

- intake recommendations have been revised/upped to 600 IU ( IU = international unit) for age 0-71 (infants 0-12 months 400 IU) and 800 IU for age 71+ - that's in the US. There are some researchers who say these doses are too low. E.g. read the info/book by Dr. Zaidi, an endocrinologist and former associate professor at the UCLA from southern California who found All his patients were deficient in Vit D3 (except one lady who works as a lifeguard!). Dr. Zaidi himself says his patients usually need between 2000-6000 IU a day, but he carefully monitors their blood levels every 3 months and so far he hasn't had patients with vitamin D toxicity. His website is [...] - BTW I have no affiliation with him or any company selling Vit D!!

- so far studies have confirmed benefits for bone health, but not for the other conditions studied (but studies involved a plethora of different regimes and included both D3 and D2 - look e.g. at the Mayo clinic website [...] and search for Vitamin D - which will give you details on studies, health conditions, dosing and Safety)

- in the UK testing Vit D costs £45 (if your GP will do the test and If their pathlab will accept testing it to start with) and currently it is rather unlikely you or your GP would be able to get more than 1 test on the NHS, even for a follow up of treatment
- in the UK Vitamin D hasn't been put on the list of prescribable NHS drugs, so your GP will not be able to prescribe you vitamin D, even if you do have a proven deficiency, but a GP could prescribe a combination of vitamin D and calcium, if he/she thought this was clinically indicated
- Scotland has the highest incidence of multiple sclerosis in the world (MS is rarely found in Asia and Africa, compared to northern countries) and a vitamin D researcher has been warning the Scottish government about the link between MS and vitamin D deficiency for > 10 y (it was in the news some months ago), asking them to introduce food fortification with Vit D (hasn't happened yet)

- taking doses higher than recommended could cause side effects in some people, so you take higher doses at your own risk. Be cautious in particular if you or any of your family have a history of kidney stones!
- to help reduce the risk of side effects from taking Vit D, you'd also benefit from Vit A, magnesium and ESPECIALLY VITAMIN K2 (which helps prevent calcification of organs/arteries, etc which is one of the risks when taking high D3 doses). Vitamin A, K and D are all fat soluble, so make sure you eat something that contains fat if you take these supplements in tablet form

- certain drugs further deplete the body of Vit D, especially STEROIDS (including inhaled ones), antiepileptic drugs (e.g. Phenytoin) etc.
- people who suffer from chronic kidney impairment are less able to metabolise vitamin D properly, so they are almost certainly Vit D3 deficient. Some of you might not even be aware that this is the case - but you can ask your GP about it - especially about something called eGFR (estimated glomerular filtration rate). If it is < 60 ml/min, you would fall in the stage 3 (or higher) category of chronic kidney disease (called CKD 3 which is Extremely COMMON in older people, especially if they suffer with high blood pressure (+/- diabetes) and also take medication that may affect the kidney function - you may want to discuss this with your GP, including Vitamin D levels (and good blood pressure control)

- Vitamin D gets stored in fat, so people who are overweight have even less vitamin D. It gets produced in the skin, so when the skin thins as an effect of ageing or steroid intake, it is less capable of producing Vit D

There are several books on Vitamin D out there (as I said, I found Dr Zaidi's very useful), so do the reading for yourself, the info is on the internet and available as kindle books.

What follows is my own anecdote how I became aware of my own lack of hormone D.

Last year I went through a stressful period of working 14-15 hours daily for several months, the majority of time being spent in front of a computer screen. I felt as if I aged overnight and all my muscles and joints felt creaky and painful. Before going to a GP I thought that I could try to see how I can help myself first and bought several supplements in case I had become deficient (though I have a very healthy diet, don't smoke and barely ever drink alcohol)..
I took a handful of supplements and right the next day, after a refreshing 6h sleep I woke up at 6 am (normally I barely manage to crawl out of bed, tired and aching, like a zombie around 8am!). In those days I had to take 2 Paracetamols first to get rid of my joint aches before starting my day and there I was, fresh as a daisy and without pain! It was absolutely amazing, because I had taken that handful of supplements just before I went to bed! How could a single dose of *whatever* make such a dramatic impact? I was totally puzzled.

Unfortunately, I have to admit that this was not a particularly clever self-experiment, because there I was, with my own miracle cure and WITHOUT A CLUE which vitamin/supplement had done it! And taking them all longterm was Not an option for me. I narrowed the suspects down to Vit D and Vit B12 which are found in animal products only in very small quantities and are dependent on several other things for their absorption, so it makes sense that they'd be the ones I'd lack.

I started taking Vitamin D3 and that seemed to make all the difference, because I stopped having joint aches and didn't pick up a single cold this winter ( I had Loads and I mean LOADS of opportunities to do so!). I put my husband onto it as well and he noticed the same effect, his immune system became stronger and his skin got much smoother. I didn't have creaking joints anymore, so I bullied my parents into starting taking it, because my mum suffers from really painful osteoarthritis and I have started wondering whether osteoarthritis might be linked with a D3 deficiency. I'll update this review if she reports any benefit.
I have also started taking Vit K2 and Vit A as well (all 3 Vit A, D, K are fat soluble, so they are best taken as softgels or with food) because I don't want to risk side effects from my 5000 IU dose of Vitamin D - I have considered cutting down to 2000 IU at some point, but for now I feel so good that I don't want to change a thing!!