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Are You Getting Enough Vitamin D and Getting It in the Right Form?

Kristie Leong M.D.
5 min readJun 1, 2020

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Image by WhatWolf (https://www.freepik.com/whatwolf)

Are you getting enough vitamin D and are you getting it in the best form to maximize its benefits?

Vitamin D plays a number of key roles in human health. Although it’s called a vitamin, vitamin D behaves more like a hormone by affecting proteins that control bone build-up and breakdown and immune cells that regulate your immune system.

Vitamin D is an immune modulator, meaning it boosts the immune system’s ability to fight off foreign invaders like viruses but also helps calm an overactive immune system that leads to inflammation.

Low Vitamin D and Disease Risk

Why should we be concerned about vitamin D? Low vitamin D levels have been linked with a number of health problems including autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, muscle fatigue and pain, depression, heart disease, obesity, and, possibly, some types of cancer.

However, research is still preliminary and only shows an association between vitamin D and such conditions. It doesn’t necessarily mean that low vitamin D causes these problems or that taking a supplement prevents them. There could be some other factors common to people low in vitamin D.

It’s not clear yet whether low vitamin D increases the risk of any disease, as the results…

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Kristie Leong M.D.
Kristie Leong M.D.

Written by Kristie Leong M.D.

Ready to change your health trajectory? As a family physician, I'll help you build a path to lasting health—one meal at a time." https://www.histaminedoctor.com

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