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Why That Government Study Is Crap​

A study funded by the government said that vitamin D supplements don't work. Here are all the things they screwed up.​

It would be silly to conduct a study to test the efficacy of a new birth control pill using 90-year-old women as test subjects. It would also be silly to conduct a study to see if dogs really do love bacon, only using chipmunks instead of actual dogs.

Well, a recent US government-funded study on vitamin D is almost as silly. This one said that you don’t need to take vitamin D supplements (or even test levels of the vitamin) because they don’t help to protect bones from fractures. The study (Supplemental Vitamin D and Incident Fractures in Midlife and Older Adults) neglected to consider several factors that likely affected the results.

What Did the Study Say?​

The study, known as VITAL, compared bone fractures in older people who took a “high” dose of vitamin D3 (2,000 IU), n-3 fatty acids (1 gram per day), or a combination of both, for five years.

Taking vitamin D didn’t appear to reduce the risk of broken hips. In the accompanying editorial, the researchers said not to bother taking Vitamin D, even though most people are deficient. The newspaper headlines read, "Stop Taking Vitamin D!" and people who still get their news from the mainstream media and the government believed it.

Sad. The study neglected every other vitamin D benefit, like immune enhancement and its role in athletic function, lung function, heart function, hormone optimization, nervous system function, cancer prevention, and sexual function. What's worse, they forgot to consider other factors that determine whether vitamin D supplementation is effective or not.

Neglected Factor 1 – Magnesium​

The study didn’t address magnesium intake, and vitamin D can’t be metabolized without sufficient magnesium.

Roughly 80% of the American public is deficient in the mineral, so that could explain why vitamin D3 supplementation didn’t appear to do much in the VITAL study. Oh, and athletes? They’re even worse off regarding magnesium, as the mineral is fond of leaving the body in sweat.

If you really want to figure out if vitamin D is doing the things it’s purported to do, you’ve also got to monitor magnesium intake.

Neglected Factor 2 – Calcium​

Calcium and magnesium have a tricky relationship. If the ratio isn’t respected, if something mucks it up – like a dramatic increase in the consumption of calcium foods without a concurrent increase in magnesium consumption – you get unfortunate consequences. For one thing, you cripple the ability to transport, synthesize, and activate vitamin D.

Individuals with a high calcium-to-magnesium intake are at a higher risk of magnesium deficiency, and the activities of the three major enzymes that determine vitamin D concentrations are all magnesium-dependent. The result is a vitamin D deficiency or an insufficiency.

So maybe you’re thinking, no problem, I’ll just double my intake of vitamin D supplements. Not so fast. The more vitamin D you take, the further you tap into magnesium stores, leaving you an increasingly insufficient amount to activate the enzymes responsible for determining vitamin D levels.

Calcium consumption has increased at a rate 2.5 times that of magnesium intake, resulting in calcium-to-magnesium intake ratios of more than 3.0. The ideal ratio, however, is around 2.0, and anything higher than 2.8 leads to problems, such as the inability to metabolize vitamin D.


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Neglected Factor 3 – Fat Intake​

Vitamin D3 is fat-soluble. Without concurrently ingesting some fat, taking a vitamin D3 capsule won’t do much.

This problem is demonstrated by one of the dairy industry’s practices. Dairy companies remove much of the fat from their products (low-fat milk, skim milk, etc.). However, removing the fat also removes the fat-soluble vitamin D, so they fortify their products by adding back some vitamin D.

However, since the fortified product doesn’t contain much fat, the body fails to absorb appreciable amounts of the added vitamin D. The same thing is likely to happen with generic vitamin D capsules. Without taking them with a fatty meal, they won’t get absorbed efficiently.

Neglected Factor 4 – Difficulty Elevating Vitamin D Levels​

The total amount of vitamin D (D2 and D3) found in a food during chemical analyses often doesn’t reflect its bioavailability. A lot of the vitamin is bound up in the actual food and remains so after you eat it. Many things contribute to this: the fibers in the food, the size of the food particles themselves, and the quantity of the vitamin itself. Interactions between vitamin D and other fat-soluble nutrients might also be a factor, as well as a bunch of host-related issues (age, disease state, fed condition, genetics, obesity, etc.).

Then there’s how you might prepare any vitamin-D-containing foods. Heat affects it. Light affects it. Moisture, oxygen exposure, and even storage conditions affect levels of vitamin D. That means that any vitamin-D-containing foods that are boiled, pressure-cooked, Insta-Potted, baked, or air-fried could end up being vitamin-D compromised.

Traditional vitamin D supplements are prone to all the same manufacturing and absorption problems attributed to vitamin-D-containing foods – moisture, oxygen exposure, excess heat, and non-optimal storage conditions.

Unless all the above-listed precautions were taken in preparing and distributing the vitamin D used in the study, there’s sufficient reason to think that the capsules they used were compromised.

What They Should Have Used Instead​

The only form of vitamin D worth taking is microencapsulated vitamin D3. It's manufactured by encapsulating vitamin D molecules in liposomes, or solid lipid nanoparticles.

The vitamin then presents as tiny “beadlets” and is protected from moisture, oxidation, pH, temperature, and mechanical forces. The microencapsulated product is stable, water-dispersible, and, most importantly, highly bioavailable.

Studies show that the effects of this form of vitamin D remain constant for up to 14 days, making it superior to conventional vitamin D supplements. People who use it report rapid and impressive increases in blood levels of vitamin D.