For those of you taking vitamin D supplements: Knowledge is power so I want to share a little something with you. This hair analysis graph is of someone who has a history of taking vitamin D3 supplements. For me, it’s pretty obvious without even knowing this due to the high calcium, low potassium, and low boron on their hair analysis report. And this pattern isn’t an isolated incident; it’s a pattern that I see in 75-80% of my hair analysis clients!
Why should you worry about high calcium, low potassium, and low boron levels?
Because they can make you feel like crap.
How Vitamin D Supplements Influence Your Hair Tissue Mineral Balance
Vitamin D (technically a hormone or messenger in your body) does several things that change your mineral imbalance in an unfavorable way.
First, vitamin D tells your body to absorb more calcium from your food. The presence of vitamin D in the bloodstream means that the person taking vitamin D supplements is going to absorb more calcium from their food than someone who isn’t taking vitamin D supplements.
For the very rare person who’s deficient in calcium (most people have plenty), a tiny bit of supplementary vitamin D can be helpful. But it’s still not preferred to get vitamin D from supplemental sources. Supplementing over the long-term can create chronically high calcium levels, which leads to calcification of your body. Think stiffness among other undesirable things, like back pain, joint issues, and osteoporosis.[1]
The next thing vitamin D does is reduce potassium levels.[2] This can cause a whole host of symptoms such as:
-Acne
-Weakness, tiredness, or cramping in arm or leg muscles
-Numbness and/or tingling
–Constipation
-Excess water consumption
-Depression
-Nausea or vomiting
-Edema
-Fatigue
–Insomnia
-Nervousness
-Mental impairment
-Abdominal cramping and/or bloating
-Fainting due to low blood pressure
-Heart palpitations (irregular heart beat)
Low potassium and high calcium levels—an imbalanced thyroid ratio, as I call it in hair analysis—can lead to a host of other negative side effects, which I’ll get to shortly.
The third way vitamin D affects your mineral levels is by lowering boron levels. Research suggests that getting enough boron in your diet has a host of fantastic benefits, including: healthy bones, improved wound healing, increased levels of sex steroids, increased vitamin D levels (or vitamin D deficiency prevention), improved magnesium absorption, anti-inflammatory effects, and anti-cancer effects.[3]
All of these mineral changes caused by vitamin D supplementation (D2 and D3) are not exactly favorable. If you’re going to take a supplement, it’s good to not only understand why you’re taking it but also make sure that it’s going to have a positive effect on your body. And there are several other ways to get your vitamins D levels up without taking a supplement.
The Thyroid Ratio
Your thyroid ratio, which compares your calcium to potassium levels, affects how you actually feel. When it’s out of balance, you may experience symptoms like:
-Fatigue
-Brain fog
-Low body temperature
–Blood sugar issues (hypoglycemia)
–Sluggish digestion
–Sluggish thyroid function
One of the ways to assess how a person is feeling is by looking at their thyroid ratio on a hair analysis. The desired ratio is pretty simple; we want it to be around a 4:1. (In the example above, this person’s ratio was over 70:1. It’s not rare to see it around 300!)
So if you’re taking vitamin D, which raises calcium levels and lowers potassium, you’re moving these minerals in the opposite direction of what supports your thyroid’s health and ability to do its job.
Don’t worry, though; once we know your levels, we can reverse this with nutrition!
The Key to Getting Results = Understanding Your Body
Now remember, vitamin D is a hormone. Hormones are chemical messengers or information molecules that communicate messages around your body. If you’re taking a messenger every day in the form of a supplement, be sure you understand the message that it is sending by reading the references in this article and beyond. I prefer to let my body control how much of the vitamin D hormone it wants to absorb through sunlight on its own, instead of forcing the body to do certain things with a supplement.
If you’ve been going with the popular advice about taking vitamin D (that is not without controversy I might add), but you still feel like crap, it’s probably a good time to start understanding your body. Start learning about your body so you can supplement it right, and correct your mineral imbalances—not just follow the latest supplement trend without working with your health professional and monitoring the effects of your supplementation. Hair analysis is my favorite tool to address your mineral deficiencies and excesses. You can learn more about all the other data it gives you on the interworking of your body here.
By testing, we can know exactly what you need to get things back in balance, instead of just playing more of the “guessing game” or following conventional blanket advice that doesn’t actually always work out.
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Do you take vitamin D supplements? How do they make you feel? Please share in the comments!
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References:
[1]https://academic.oup.com/…/Hypercalcemia-and-metastatic-cal…
[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/…/P…/pdf/jcinvest00315-0040.pdf
[3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712861/
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Hi! I live close to the Arctic Circle with winter half the year and even in the summer I don’t get much sun bcs I don’t like to be much in direct sunlight. After I started supplementing with vit D I have had almost ZERO infections and before I had several a year so I don’t think vit D supplementing always is bad! Recently I bought one with K2 and that also helps with getting the calcium in to the bones instead of the soft tissues. At least, that’s the claims…But I think your article needs to maybe point out that sometimes supplementation with D really is NEEDED. Best regards from northern Sweden!
I agree! I, too, live where there is rarely sufficient sun. Since I started taking D (not as much as the doctor ordered), I have more energy and my depression has gone away.
Is is true that Vitamin D is best taken with healthy fats. My husband’s Dr. has him taking vitamin D and I give it to him at breakfast because he is also eating eggs and grass fed butter.
Hi, I am from The Netherlands. I hope my knowledge of your language is enough to understand me.
I have multple scl. and a user of many supplements. Also 5000I.E. of vitamin D!!
Recently I did a hair analysis and you are right!!! :
Aluminium 1.0 µg/g <12 µg/g Antimoon <0.01 µg/g <0.08 µg/g Arsenicum 0.037 µg/g <0.12 µg/g Barium 0.35 µg/g <1.5 µg/g Beryllium <0.01 µg/g <0.02 µg/g Bismut <0.002 µg/g <0.08 µg/g Cadmium <0.009 µg/g <0.065 µg/g Lood 0.09 µg/g <1.5 µg/g Kwik 1.5 µg/g <0.8 µg/g Platina <0.003 µg/g <0.005 µg/g Thallium <0.001 µg/g <0.002 µg/g Thorium <0.001 µg/g <0.002 µg/g Uranium <0.001 µg/g <0.06 µg/g Nikkel 0.19 µg/g <0.4 µg/g Zilver 0.02 µg/g <0.1 µg/g Tin <0.02 µg/g <0.3 µg/g Titanium 0.40 µg/g <0.7 µg/g Calcium 1540 µg/g 375-1100 µg/g Magnesium 75 µg/g 40-140 µg/g Natrium 100 µg/g 60-400 µg/g Kalium 15 µg/g 28-160 µg/g Koper 25 µg/g 11-32 µg/g Zink 220 µg/g 115-200 µg/g Mangaan 0.14 µg/g 0.15-0.65 µg/g Chroom 0.29 µg/g 0.4-0.7 µg/g Vanadium 0.011 µg/g 0.018-0.065 µg/g Molybdeen 0.042 µg/g 0.04-0.08 µg/g Borium 0.48 µg/g 0.4-2.5 µg/g Jodium 3.7 µg/g 0.25-1.8 µg/g Lithium <0.004 µg/g 0.008-0.03 µg/g Fosfor 252 µg/g 200-300 µg/g Selenium 0.80 µg/g 0.8-1.3 µg/g Strontium 2.4 µg/g 1-6 µg/g Zwavel 45000 µg/g 41000-47000 µg/ Kobalt 0.004 µg/g 0.006-0.035 µg/g IJzer 6.6 µg/g 7-16 µg/g Germanium 0.031 µg/g <0.04 µg/g Rubidium 0.02 µg/g <0.25 µg/g Zirkonium 0.13 µg/g <1 µg/g
So, please can you tell me how can I reverse high calcium, low potassium, low manganese, low chromiu , vanadium, lithium, kobalt and Iron???
I would be so thankfull and grateful for an answer, because I feel awful at the time.
Thank you in advance!
Bless you,
Peter.
Hi Peter,
Yes, there are ways to bring calcium down through supplementation. Unfortunately I can’t give advice to non-clients and it would be irresponsible to give you recommendations over comment (as others might replicate without knowledge of their own levels). Please reach out to me personally and we can discuss.
Abundantly,
Catherine
That is my understanding of it. I play it on the safe side and take all my vitamins & supplements with food. Fat soluble ones obviously need to digest with fat, and it seems logical to me that water soluble ones would potentially work better too being slowly digested and mixing with other nutrients
Great, now that I bought several bottles I probably can’t return most of and have upped from 5,000 iu per day to 20,000 to 25,000.
How does “absorb more calcium” go with osteoporosis? Especially if you’re taking K2 to make sure the more calcium goes to the right place?
yeh, that’s what i had read, too, john, that k2 makes sure eg that the calcium treats the bones rather than clog up the arteries. but, there again, if there are other ways to bolster d levels than thru direct d2 & d3 supplementation than that may be the better way to approach the conundrum, atleast for some, even if not for everyone? eg many have been taking d supplementation due to fm & / or sad.
I wonder too, John. I have osteoporosis and they want me to take calcium supplements and vitamin D3. I am not a fan of taking this stuff. What’s the K2 for?
The K2 helps regulate the calcium. It also helps with blood clotting (which is good if you take blood thinners or eat a lot of turmeric).
What I have supposedly learned is that K2 is the big secret that hardly anyone seems to know about including doctors, except those who know. Supposedly it does this:
1. While calcium + D3 helps you absorb calcium, K2 is needed to make sure the calcium gets absorbed into the right parts of the body instead of parts of the body where it can cause harm.
2. Decalcify and cure calcified heart arteries, organs, and parts of the brain.
So essentially, K2 is extremely essentially and virtually nobody even knows about it. In fact, I wonder if this blogger even knows about it.
You can google this and also find numerous videos about it.
Personally, I find all these claims about K2 to be credible. But I’ve also been taking D3 thinking it was doing me good.
So if it’s all true, you should find a good K2 supplement and take at least one a day. I take the Life Extension Super K2 with Advanced K2 complex.
Thank you so much! I had no idea and I’ve asked a few of my friends, and they had no idea but the internet certainly backs you up!
What
I have supposedly learned is that K2 is the big secret that hardly
anyone seems to know about including doctors, except those who know.
Supposedly it does this:
1. While calcium + D3 helps you absorb calcium, K2 is needed to make
sure the calcium gets absorbed into the right parts of the body instead
of parts of the body where it can cause harm.
2. Decalcify and cure calcified heart arteries, organs, and parts of the
brain.
So essentially, K2 is extremely essentially and virtually nobody even
knows about it. In fact, I wonder if this blogger even knows about it.
You can google this and also find numerous videos about it.
Personally, I find all these claims about K2 to be credible. But I’ve
also been taking D3 thinking it was doing me good.
So if it’s all true, you should find a good K2 supplement and take at
least one a day. I take one.
The article doesn’t state another health hazard. In order to convert vitamin D supplements into a form that the body can use, it uses up magnesium. So a person who habitually takes D supplements will eventually run low on magnesium unless they also supplement that.
It’s always best to get your D from sunshine. But some of us have a problem doing that, particularly in winter. I’m forced to supplement from December through March in order to keep my costochondritis at bay (D is very effective against that). But I have to watch my magnesium level very closely or I run into other problems.
Always supplement D with magnesium, and throw in some K2 once in a while, too.
Hi Brett, how do you watch your magnesium level?
What do you suggest instead fogr someone who has low vitamin D levels and/or lives in a cold climate?
Taking K2 with D3 is needed. I take D3 and K2, and feel wonderful: I also take a mineral supplement that includes boron. My bloodwork and hair tests are all good.
Maybe boron is what I’ve been missing. I do take some minerals, but have not been feeling good. I already feel better after not taking any D3 as usual last night, which I don’t know if that’s just a temporary anomaly, but I still take the K2.
I’ve just started taking Garden of Life Raw Calcium at my doctor’s recommendation. I haven’t taken it long enough to say how I’ll feel or how it will affect bloodwork, but it looks good. It has Vitamins C, D3 (1600 IU),and K2, and Calcium (746 mg), Magnesium, Strontium, Boron, Silica, and Vanadium.
Wow, what a dummy I am. I never heard of Boron. So I looked it up and it’s just what I may need since I have been diagnosed with Osteoporosis, I have been taking calcium and D3, no boron or K2 so I’m going to have to figure this out so my body is actually getting the right thing! Thanks everyone!
Sarah, please let us know exactly which mineral supplement you take. Thanks.
It’s really not wise to teach about the benefits OR the dangers of any medicine, supplement or nutrition, based on your own experience. You really throw a lot of people off course, and it damages people who really do need it. E.g. my experience is TOTALLY the opposite of yours, vitamin D3 supplementation has been crucial to my health, but I am careful to balance it with the minerals and nutrients that work synergistically, through either foods or supplementation. I would NEVER presume to advise people on my own personal experience. My body profile is unique and what works for me might not work for someone else at all. What IS important, and at least you acknowledged that, is to be educated about your own body, it’s needs, strengths, weaknesses and deficiencies. That does take a lot of research, time and dedication. I am not sure why you have this vendetta against Vitamin D but, please, no blanket generalizations and incorrect advise!!
Hi MKF,
Thanks for joining the conversation. All of this is in the literature and I’m not sure why sharing it with my readers makes me have a personal vendetta against vitamin D, but those were your words, not mine. If you re-read the article, you may notice that I’m not telling people what to do other than understand what they are taking and the cause/effect of taking hormones in supplement form without monitoring the way they influence the mineral balance in the body. One can do more harm than good by supplementing without understanding their own body’s levels/needs.
Also, this is not my own personal experience with vitamin D supplements, it’s what I see with 80% of my hair analysis clients. If you work with clients and see otherwise, please feel free to share your personal experiences as a practitioner with me.
Abundantly,
Catherine
Why haven’t you allowed any of my attempts to reply to Gail appear?
Catherine do you think you can whitelist me from having to go into moderation that holds up every comment now since I’m obviously not a spammer or troll?
Were your clients on REALLY high doses or between 1000 – 5000 iu?
Most of them take between 1,000iu to 10,000iu/day, and I do see the higher the D supplementation the higher the calcium levels. Some clients don’t take it “regularly” so it’s hard to give a firm number based on how it is reported to me.
I appreciate all of this research. I have every symptom described in your list other than acne. I am very youthful but retired. I really need to do something. I receive prescribed vitamin D supplements. What can I suggest to my GP? I cannot get clarity. Fatigue, cramping and bloating in addition to nervousness defeats me at times. Warmest wishes, Lynda from Edinburgh, Scotland
Vitamin D is a great pain reliever for me. I found that out when after a surgery I was in a lot of pain I Couldnt control. A few weeks later a routine blood test showed low D. I started taking 2500 IUs a day and my pain level went way down to almost. nonpain. It also lifted my mood. I’m a much happier person taking D with much less pain. After a year of supplementation D levels are in the low normal range and I’m still taking it. Total life changer for me.
There is an abundance of literature regarding D deficiency and mood. While I agree that balancing vitamin and mineral intake is valid, one would do best to consult with an actual physician who is also knowledgeable in nutritional physiology. Metabolism is complex, and affected by many variables.
As a fat soluble vitamin, D can be stored so it is theoretically possible to take too much of it, although one would have to ingest an awful lot.
Blood levels of 25 hydroxy D will reflect a deficiency.
It used to be believed one could get enough from sunshine exposure but we now know this is not the case and many individuals are in fact deficient b
Both my Internal Medicine Doc and Sports Doc recommended me to take D. I was supplementing and also getting it in fortified food (which I wasn’t thinking about). My bones, way deep, starting aching and I then read an article about overdose symptoms on D and achy bones was listed.. I live in the Midwest where sunshine is limited. How else can we get it?
I’m concerned about my grandson, 15 mths old who has been taking Vit D supplements daily before he was a year old. Is it necessary when he was breast fed up to 10 mths old, and now drinking 3% whole milk? He had a fall and showed signs the next day of huge “hives” on the area that he banged, which later bruised, is that normal? Should I be concerned?
How would this advice apply to someone who has the VDR mutation? (Where the body cannot manufacture vitamin D very well from sunlight like normal people without the mutation.) My husband and I both have the VDR mutation and supplement with vitamin D3 daily (4000 IU) following the advice of our functional medicine MD. We also just moved to Germany where we barely see the sun in the winter. We did buy a sun lamp but even if one would lie naked in front of it I don’t think it would do much for vitamin D synthesis….lol. I’m using it more for simulating sunlight for circadian rhythm purposes/mood. Anyhow, I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the difficulty with vitamin D conversion and whether people with that mutation would be an exception to what you’re saying. Because if we weren’t supplementing, our D levels would be in the tank which leads to a whole other host of problems.
I would love to see a response to Malori’s post as we are in the same boat with VDR mutations, very low vitamin D levels and not much sun annually. Catherine, do you have any experience with hair analysis and genetic mutations?
Mine actually are in the tank right now. June 6th my vitamin D level was 13 ng/ml. I am on an anticonvulsant drug that can make the bones weak. I am on 4000 IU right now. I plan to start trying to taper the dose August 16th. I’m just trying to get my levels up right now. I had balance problems, headaches, and fatigue from the deficiency. I actually am starting to feel a lot better now that I am on supplements.
Appreciate the post and will look into boron, perhaps at some stage hair test (looks expensive). My experience though was being barely able to get up for months then being diagnosed extremely low D. I found out myself that I should take magnesium (glycinate) daily, and the D3 and K3 with a fatty breakfast. The result was life changing! So much more energy and ease getting up in the morning. I do have to be sure to take magnesium daily though or I’ll get monthly cramp (an issue I’d had for years), but upping the magnesium because of the D has given me many months of NO cramp which has been a first in 20 Years, so also life changing. In summary, this article interesting re Boron, but really, is whether or not to take D not all about magnesium? Finally, I’ve had no colds or flu this winter when everyone around me did. Pre starting vitamin d i would get the annual winter flu like everyone else. Appreciate the advice to consider cod liver oil instead of vitamin d (from lanolin), but one way or the other D with magnesium seems to have been massively positive. Will look into the Boron!
I purchased a Vit D lamp (a Sperti) this winter, as living in Canada means there’s not enough sunlight through the winter months to produce adequate levels. Have you any concerns about these kinds of lamps? Have any of your clients used them and noticed an improvement? I have read enough about the dangers of supplementing with D and would prefer my body make it own. I am going to get my D levels checked soon to see how they compare to previous years soon, but wondered what your take was on the lamps. Thanks!
Hmmm…all of our HTMAs have elevated calcium and magnesium with undetectable boron. I find it interesting because we have NEVER taken vitamin D suppmentation. We do each take a teaspoon of GP HVCLO, a couple raw desiccated liver caps, raw egg yolks, and raw milk. We should be balanced, yet the HTMA results mirroring someone taking D3 supplementation has been bugging me for months now. My only thought is that we’re mobilizing a decent amount of heavy metals (taking binders) and I wonder if that could lower boron. Need to look into that more.
Hi Moneca,
Are you taking about Green Pastures Cod Liver Oil? It definitely contains vitamin D.
Abundantly,
Catherine
Noone should ever, put that in flashig red neon lights, please, take Vit. D without Vit K2.. Otherwise you r Vit D will end up putting the calcium in arteries, muscles, every placer but bones. Vit. K 1 is great for those of us who tend to hemorrhage when they take various supplements like Vit E and fish oil. Vit K2 puts the calcium in bones.
My vitamin d was found to be 13 ng/ml, and my calcium a little deficient itself. According to the Endocrine society, normal vitamin d levels are at least 30 and ideally 40-60, ng/ml of blood. So, i have to take supplements. It’s not funny how deficient I am in vitamin D right now. My neurologist thinks its because my carbamazepine, or anti-seizure medication, is eating up the vitamin d in my blood. But, I also have low thyroid hormone, so juggling these two and keeping the supplements at least 4 hours from the thyroid hormone is not going to be easy, as I need a lot of D to get me back in the healthy range.