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Vitamin D podcast with VitaminDWiki - Oct 2013

Podcast: Aaron Olson http://www.paleorunner.org/ interviewing Henry Lahore of VitaminDWiki



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Interview took place Oct 2, 2013. Emphasis on running
Audio http://www.paleorunner.org/2013/10/vitamin-d-henry-lahore.html via ITunes, Stitcher, Mobile device, or MP3 file

Aaron: My guest today is Henry Lahore. He runs the website called vitamindwiki.com where you can find tons of information on Vitamin D. I actually came across this site when I was looking for some information on Vitamin D and ended up buying one of the Vitamin D bulbs you recommended. So Henry, thanks so much for being part of the show.
Henry: Sure. Great.
Aaron: So how did you … Tell me a little bit about your background? How did you get interested in the importance of Vitamin D?
Henry: I’ve been interested in the importance of various supplements and healthy living for most of my life and have enjoyed sharing information with lots of people on all sorts of topics. About 4 years ago, a friend got me interested in Vitamin D after he found that his back pain went away really suddenly after taking extra Vitamin D. So I started exploring that and about a month into it, I came up with as I’ve done for many other things 10 questions for myself is to what is this about Vitamin D?
What things does it really help with?
What things does it sort of help with?
What does it treat?
What does it prevent?
What is its toxic level?
So anyway I had 10 questions that you could see under About US at the Vitamin D website. I answered all of those myself and continued on – about 6,000 hours into gathering Vitamin D information. It’s been very nice in helping people around the world with Vitamin D.
Aaron: So what are some of the more important things that you’ve learned? I mean, the main thing that I think about with Vitamin D is the health for your bones but there is a ton of other things on your website. What are some of the big ones?
Henry: You can put them into 2 different categories for your listeners. There’s … One category is in terms of sports and general health. The other category is avoiding major kinds of diseases that people get later in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, but so kind of 2 categories. Let’s talk about the health benefits from a sports point of view or feeling healthy when you’re in your 30’s and 40’s or 20’s. There are lots of things there under the … Of the 5,000 or so studies that I have on the website; I’ve categorized many of them into about 160 different categories. One of which is sports. So if you go to overview on sports and Vitamin D, you can see what the benefits are there for the person – I am going there right now.
Aaron: One of the things that you e-mailed me about was this idea that you really need to get out in the sun during the middle of the day, between 10 and 3 PM if you want to get any Vitamin D on your skin. You even showed me a link to some tan-through shirts, which I thought were pretty cool. How does that work and how much time do we actually need to spend in the sun to get adequate Vitamin D?
Henry: Okay. So let’s talk about it from that point of view, in terms of how does a person who is a runner for instance, your particular clientele, get more Vitamin D. Actually, you get … Probably an adequate amount of Vitamin D if you can run in the … Sort of the noontime area in this sunny day in the summer part of your world. That’s just fine. You probably don’t need any more Vitamin D. However, it’s for the other people who, maybe it’s too hot in their climate to run in the middle of the day and so they have to run way in the morning or way in the evening. I went down to Singapore for instance 2 years ago. I saw lots of runners at 6AM but they kind have went away by 7AM because it’s too hot. So they weren’t getting much Vitamin D, anyway, likewise if cloudy day and such.
So ways of adding Vitamin D for one simple way that I checked, I’m suspecting as much and you have to check that out. You can buy the tan-through shirt. There’s 2 different companies selling it. You can find out about it on the website. It reduces the amount of Vitamin D by about a factor of 2 from what you would get if you are nude above the shirt, above the waist. That gives a significant amount of extra Vitamin D for people who might not feel comfortable being shirtless while jogging along.
Aaron: So what are some of the benefits that you’ve personally seen since trying to increase your Vitamin D and do you do that mainly through supplementation?
Henry: As you’ll see on the website, I consider the sun as being the best source. UV is being the second best source and supplementation is the third source but the supplement -
you get a little bit better advantages, the higher up you can go on that curve, but straight supplementation provides a lot of advantages. So I get my sun … When it’s sunny, I live in Seattle. It’s kind of cloudy much of the time, so I get the sun during the summer in addition to having UV and in addition to having the supplementation from the supplements I take.
Aaron: So you mentioned there that the sun is probably the best way to get Vitamin D. What kind of research have you come across that would indicate that? Why is the sun any better?
Henry: Don’t really know quite why it’s better. I guess in general, from like your Paleo site, the more whole foods you get, the better it is and they can’t quite figure out why that’s the case. They’ve seen that you get a particular B supplement or E supplement or such. That’s pretty good but not quite as good as getting it from the food. Well, that turns out to be the case for the sun as well. There are various problems that can be greatly avoided: multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and a few other odds ends. They’re finding … Like for instance for multiple sclerosis that you significantly decrease … I guess significant better impact to the body or benefit to the body by getting your Vitamin D levels in your blood up to the same level.
You get a much better benefit if that Vitamin D came from the sun or UV than if it came from a supplement. The science is. . . I’ll probably give it they may get it down pat from about 5 years from now – as to why that is, but that’s how it is right now.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned how that’s …
Henry: Go ahead.
Aaron: I was just going to say, you mentioned how that’s similar to the Paleo Diet and I think that is true is … We’ve evolved for a long time living in a more ancestral environment where we are outdoors a lot and I think science, in 100 years from now is probably going to look back and they’ll have the reasons for why the more natural living is better, but now, a huge amount of data shows that trying to live a more natural habitat is probably the way to go.
Henry: Yes, and I agree with that. I don’t know. I can’t point to a specific study that says so, but there’s more and more hints that way. Along those lines. So I’ve got various people that come to me and say, “Well, I don’t take any supplements. I couldn’t get everything I need from food.” And well, that used to be correct up until about 100 years ago. But now, there’s … If you look at the amount of Vitamin D content in food, I’d say 100 years ago, an apple pie would have 2,000 IUs of Vitamin D in a slice of apple pie. Because the pigs that made the lard to make the apple pie with were outdoors and their fat have 500 IUs of Vitamin D per tablespoon.
Aaron: Okay. Okay.
Henry: So if you’ve worked through the numbers, that’s how it worked … That’s how you got the extra Vitamin D. That’s one example. Likewise, the bacon, likewise, chicken eggs that used to have 4 times as much Vitamin D as it does now when the … Well, chickens indoors, pigs indoors, etc., they’re not getting their Vitamin D.
Aaron: So what … I actually went ahead and bought one of these Vitamin D lamps. It’s called the Sperti Vitamin D lamp. On your website, you have a lot of different products, not that you sell but just that you kind of described that could be helpful to people. What are some of the things that you found … I know I saw some of the lamps, you can buy on Amazon for $15 or $20 that are UV lamps? Are those going to be just as effective or how can you use those?
Henry: Not nearly … There are a little bit effective … I actually bought I think 4 or 5 different ones myself to give it a try. I’ve got a UV meter that looks at the exact amount of light that’s coming out of it and some of the … I have on the website what the company says is the amount of UV coming out. It’s pretty good. It’s correct. Some other companies don’t say how much is coming out so I just measured it myself.
Aaron: Okay. What did you find?
Henry: It’s basically the more you pay for it, the more UV you get.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: Down with the $10, $15 level, you get some UV, which works out to … Some of those by the way, the really little cost ones are under of $25, $30 are designed for reptiles.
Aaron: Right.
Henry: The reptiles and many other animals really need to have UV and if you have a pet reptile, it will die off or have a poor life or look really lousy after a couple of years of not being out in the sun. That actually happens with lots of birds, too but … So they found that by putting a little compact fluorescent bulb that puts out a little bit of UV that really perks up the reptile, they feel a lot better and have baby ones, etc. But the amount of UV that comes out through that is not very cost-effective or worthwhile for human use. You could have a little UV light like that and provided you’re wearing glasses so that the UV doesn’t get into your eyes but just gets to your body.
Let’s say you’re semi-nude in front of the lamp, you have to spend … I’m just guessing . . . 2 hours a day to get a minimal amount that you can get for a 2-cent worth of Vitamin D supplement. So it’s not, not very … If you look at the cost of your time for doing something when we’re talking pennies for hour, most people time is worth more than pennies per hour.
Aaron: Right. Right.
Henry: The brand you bought was a pretty pricey one. It’s got a fair amount of output and it’s pretty well but that was beyond my spare of change level. I guess that’s why I came up with was not spare-change either. Anyway, at $150 level, I installed it next to my bathroom and I use it while I’m brushing my teeth or shaving and such and it puts up about 500 … It gives you about 500 IUs in 5 minutes, which is okay. It’s not great but it’s nice so I use that.
Aaron: Why are you using that? Are you having to wear protective eyewear?
Henry: No. As it turns out, all you want to do is just make sure that the light doesn’t get directly to your eyes. If you’re just wearing regular glasses, 99.9% of all glasses stop UV even if it says that it’s … Even if It doesn’t mention it, the glasses really do, they have to go out of their way to not stop UVB.
Aaron: Okay. Okay. Well you know, I really like it in the sun and since I’ve started a more … A Paleo diet and learning more about the importance of Vitamin D, I’ve been getting more sun on my skin but what about people who say, you really got to be careful. You shouldn’t … You should always wear sunscreen when you go outside. Is there a risk of cancer?
Henry: There is a … There’s a risk, as you probably aware from lots of things. If you overdo anything, there is a problem to your body. If you drink too much water every day, there’s a problem to your body. If you have too much salt, if you have too much sun, if you have too much of anything, there is a problem. So the Australians for instance, the people who are the most for having sunscreen, they’ve finally come around to saying, “No, doggonit.” Probably if you’re outdoors, that’s going to vary with exactly where you are but if … You could probably look at it in terms of how hot it feels. If it’s not really hot, that is to say, over 80 or 90 degrees, then you can probably be outside, just fine, no problems of cancer at all for like 15 minutes to half an hour provided you’re getting used to it.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: The problems that people have with cancer or with your skin having difficulties in burning and other odds and ends often come when they do it too suddenly. That is to say, they’re indoors all the season and all of a sudden, OKAY. Let’s go out and be outdoors for 4 hours or 6 hours very first time for the season. Woa, you run into problems with that. My dad, as an example, was a carpenter and he never suntanned, he never sunburned, and yet he was out every day. So it’s that gradualness. So if you have a person who … Okay, let’s say a runner who has not been running for a while or has been indoors for a while then all of a sudden decides in … For the Northern part of the world, decides in May … Okay. I’m going to go out and jog or be outdoors for 2 or 3 hours, no, that’s a little incorrect in the Southern part of the United States. You could be out there for a while but you had better put the sunscreen on. By the way, just a little subset of this, it turns out that if you have enough Vitamin D in your body, whether it’s coming from the sun or from supplements, you don’t burn nearly as much. That’s one of the small inconsequential benefits or hardly noted benefits that I have for Vitamin D over the last 3 years that I’ve had a lot of it. I haven’t burned once. In fact, I went for a bicycle ride. I was kind of trying this out in a very sunny climate in May this year. I bicycled such that the sun was on one side of me only for 2 ½ hours right at noon time and I felt like I was going to be getting … It reminded me of having going to be getting a bad sunburn from that I had for many years. At the end of the day, nothing. The next day, I couldn’t tell the difference of the sun tanning on one leg versus the other. The other leg was essentially in the shadow from not being seeing the sun at all. That’s how it is with bicycling because you only go on one direction oftentimes.
Aaron: Right. Right. Interesting. Now, I had a lady on the podcast a few weeks ago. Her name was Stephanie Seneff and she wasn’t quite sure about this but she thought that perhaps Vitamin D supplementation might actually in some way trick the body in that it’s providing you with Vitamin D as a marker in your blood but whether it was really having the same benefits as the sun. You seem to say the same thing. Would you agree with that sentiment?
Henry: I’ve read a little bit about her stuff. I’m not in complete agreement. I find it very intriguing what she says. I guess I agree in terms of what I stated a little bit ago that I believe the sun is better than UV, which is better than Vitamin D. Then the other part, I often say, is if you’re going to take only a single supplement, it should be Vitamin D.
Aaron: Okay. Okay.
Henry: I use quite a variety, like about 30 different supplements in different amounts and ... But Vitamin D has taken the place of virtually all of those. I’m feeling far better than I used to by taking a whole, witches brew of various supplements.
Aaron: How old are you, Henry?
Henry: About 69.
Aaron: Okay and before we started recording, Henry actually told me that he’s still biking around 100 miles a week and he used to run upwards of 100 miles a week. So he’s staying in very good shape and do you think that the Vitamin D that you’re supplementing with or getting from the sun has helped with your longevity as far as exercise?
Henry: Oh, absolutely. In fact, my wife has stated quite easily that … Quite often that she feels she’s 10 years younger because of taking Vitamin D. I know for myself, I used to have at my age lots of little aches and pains and my heels would be cracking and I’d have to put heel cream on it all the time, all the time like 20 times a year especially in the winter. I’d get a little bit of creakiness getting out of bed and have to pull myself up out of bed holding on to the piece of furniture there. And getting little aches and pains in my … Anyway, just feeling older, okay? I no longer feel older. I feel like I’m in my 40’s maybe instead of my … end of my 60’s.
Aaron: Okay. Wow. Wow and has there been other changes in your life that could have helped you feel younger or has Vitamin D been the main change?
Henry: Vitamin D has been the main change. I’ve done a couple of other things, Omega 3 I’ve been having … I’ve been doing that for about 6 or 8 years now and it’s quite good. I’ve been adding Magnesium recently. By the way, I studied through and have probably looked at 200, 300 different studies concerning the cofactors to go along with Vitamin D and I’m taking all of the necessary cofactors with Vitamin D. I’ve got on there as to how you can increase the benefit, the response in your body to the Vitamin D, which you actually get, by a factor of two by doing the various things, such that I now have the quite high Vitamin D level that most people would consider to be excessive, but I don’t consider to be excessive.
That just reminds me of the little note, how much Vitamin D should you have. There’s various recommendations as to the number of nanograms per milliliter that you should have. Some places around the world have this … They say 10 nanograms is enough! The United States says 20 nanograms is enough! A great number of scientists who have looked at this say: somewhere between 30 and 100 nanograms is good.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: The … Looks as though the optimum level is somewhere between 40 and 80 nanograms for most people. In fact, I’m putting together a video on Vitamin D and will be stating that as being the optimum level to have that you wish that you should have at least 40 nanograms. There’s some people down in Brazil . . a doctor down there who’s been treating people, treating people with multiple sclerosis and reversing and sometimes completely eliminating the multiple sclerosis and he gets his people up to 150 nanograms of Vitamin D. So that’s for treating.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: I happen to be about 120.
Aaron: Oh wow. Now, you mentioned a few … Some co-factors that you’re taking along to increase your Vitamin D by as much as 100% or 200%.
Henry: By 100, … It’s doubling the Vitamin D in your body by … In fact; I’ve got the numbers there if you’re going through the co-factors. Little costs and the co-factor section on the Wiki as to … There’s about 5 things you can do. Some of which are the co-factors in terms of Magnesium. If you get enough Magnesium in your body, it increases the benefits [response], the Vitamin D level in your blood stream by about 30%.
Aaron: What kind of Magnesium, because I know there’s a slow releasing Magnesium and then there’s just a regular sort of Magnesium. Do you prefer either one? Does it matter?
Henry: Actually, I’ve looked at about 10 different ones. I personally tried 6 different ones. It turns out, Magnesium is a strange critter. Many people, most people have problems with having too much Magnesium in terms of bowel problems or diarrhea. Given that, there’s still … There are some Magnesium types that are much better, have much less of that problem. Magnesium Chloride liquid is quite an inexpensive way of … that most people don’t seem to have any problem with at all. There’s another kind of Magnesium, which I’ve seen recently called Pico Magnesium in which they claim, but I’ve not seen any documentation on, that it has zero problems for people in terms of difficulties, intestinal difficulties.
I bought that, I didn’t notice any difference myself so I’m back to the other stuff, which is 1/3 of the price.
Aaron: So over-the-counter Magnesium that you can pick up off the shelf will be good enough is what you’re saying.
Henry: It appears as though over the counter stuff … If your body and your digestive system can handle it, should be just fine. There’s maybe a difference of 50% between the effectivity of the Magnesium element in your body, the bioavailability of the Magnesium element in your body, between the various Magnesium Citric, Magnesium Chloride, Magnesium Oxide, etc. etc. Let your body be the judge of that. To keep it very simple I have for the summary for the co-factors provided in the … I’d say 500 Calcium, 500 Magnesium.
Aaron: Okay. Okay.
Henry: So for most people, that’s reducing the amount of Calcium down to about 500 and increasing their Magnesium up to 500. [milligrams of the element in each case]
Aaron: Okay and are those the two important co-factors to take to increase your Vitamin D?
Henry: Yeah. The Calcium is not … Changing the amount of Calcium will not affect the response level in your body but it will make things a little bit … Get extra Calcium in your arteries and things of that sort.
Aaron: Oh, okay.
Henry: So there are … The co-factors get involved in some not directly in what happens in your bloodstream but happens elsewhere in your body.
Aaron: Okay. Are there any other things that … Are those the two main ones or are there other things, too?
Henry: I think the two others to be concerned about … Again, don’t deal with what happens to the Vitamin D level in your body but are good to have anyway is Vitamin K2 and also Omega 3.
Aaron: Do you take those as supplements or do you get those through food?
Henry: Both of those I get through supplements.
Aaron: Okay. Okay. Now, you mentioned that you might want to decrease your Calcium that you take in. So if you’re taking say 3 glasses of milk a day, plus Vitamin D, that might be too much milk.
Henry: No, that’s not too much milk. No. Nope. Three glasses is not that much Calcium actually.
Aaron: Okay. Okay.
Henry: Also, what turns out to be Calcium in milk is not super bio available anyway. Some people are taking 2 grams or 3 grams a day of Calcium supplements with the idea that’s going to help their bones and we all got to be careful of that because as you increase your Vitamin D, it increases the bioavailability of the Calcium. So equivalently, if they’re taking 2 grams of Calcium and then add on some good amount of Vitamin D, that’s equivalent to taking maybe 9 or 10 or 12 grams of Calcium which gets to be a bit of an overload for the body.
Aaron: Okay. Well, let’s talk a little bit about dosage. How much does that … Do you just have to go to your doctor and get your blood checked or is there some general dosing that you would recommend taking as far as Vitamin D?
Henry: What I’m generally recommending for virtually anyone in … Who doesn’t get much direct sun on kind of a daily basis year-round. Most of the people on earth is about 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D, which is the current upper limit as to what you … What people are allowed to have in the United States without asking your doctor.
Aaron: Okay and if you’re going outside say for 30-minute run, would that count towards your 4,000 IUs?
Henry: Oh, yeah. Definitely. Depending on how you’re dressed and what time of day and time of year, etc. that you’re going for a nice run in the middle of the day could give you 200 IUs, could give you maybe 2,000 IUs.
Aaron: Okay. Okay.
Henry: If you were a white person and not overweight, which tends to be the case, and not a senior … Seniors by-the-way get ¼ amount of Vitamin D from the sun as … So I for instance get ¼ of benefit of Vitamin D than I used to when I was aged 30.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: It turns out that the skin of virtually everyone on earth decreases the amount of Vitamin D, which is generated from, as you get older and older. So I’m up about ¼ of the level I used to get.
Aaron: Okay. How about people with darker skin? What do they need to think about?
Henry: If they kind of think that they’ve got a permanent sunscreen on, that’s a good way of looking at it. Such that I think I saw … I remember recently that … Well, it varies with approximately 4 times longer for a person with very dark skin to get the same amount of Vitamin D than a person who’s light skinned.
Aaron: Okay. So it would probably be more important to supplement for those people.
Henry: Yes, it would be … I think …
Aaron: I don’t mean to say those people, what I meant to say is it’s probably more if you have darker skin, it’s more important to supplement.
Henry: Yes. Well, it becomes more important. IF they have a lifestyle, that’s either construction worker or something else such that they’re outdoors all the time, okay, fine. They don’t have to supplement.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: That’s … But no fair being a construction worker in Northern Alaska, they have to get some amount of sun anyway.
Aaron: Okay. How about animals, if we have pets?
Henry: Yes. They tremendously like … Okay, talk about animals. The very first web page I made on Vitamin D was concerning veterinaries and animals.
It turns out that the vets learned a good decade ago that … hey - US government recommends a certain amount of Vitamin D for various animals, for cows, pigs, cats, dogs, etc. and the vets learned well over a decade ago that they get paid by keeping their patients, if you will, healthy.
They are noticing that the amount of Vitamin D that the US government was recommending weren’t keeping their patients, cows, cats, dogs, etc. healthy. So they’ve now in general gone to 3 times the level of Vitamin D than is recommended by the US government.
Now their animals are healthy, at least they stay alive long enough before they get killed or eaten. So I consider them advance warning as to things which are working out nicely.
Back on cats and dogs, I’ve gotten various people around the globe who have contacted me and then tried giving their say aging dog, one was 17 years old, and it was getting kind of arthritic and kind of slow, etc. then wow, he got onto the fight of taking the Vitamin D. You figure it out per pound basis versus per kilogram basis as to how much to give to them. It was … He described it as being really giving a second life to the dog and so he lasted another 3 years. So, well into the dog years.
Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Henry, I found your website very interesting and you have it really nicely organized by different subjects.
Aside from Vitamin D, it seems like you’re interested in a lot of health topics. Are there any other things that you’ve been looking into that my listeners might be interested in?
Henry: Yeah. I’ve been looking at health topics for about 40 years. A little hard to summarize briefly.
Aaron: Would Vitamin D be the biggest thing that you’ve come across?
Henry: Absolutely. That’s why I was saying … I say quite often that if you’re going to take only a single supplement, it should be Vitamin D. There’s few other odds and ends as we’ve mentioned in this podcast that are quite useful, but … And I take a miscellaneous of their small oddments, D-Ribose for example, for restoring energy, but I don’t …
D-Ribose doesn’t give me nearly the boost that used to before I was taking Vitamin D. It’s a neat thing for … I used to do quite often after going for a long, strenuous jog, it kind of tired out. Now, okay …
Not addressing your question directly but it’s another benefit I finally found for myself. I live in a recreational vehicle now. I travel all around the United States and I used to go off to an exercise place every-other-day to get my exercise and go out do the workout but I knew I wasn’t able to do that when I was going RV-ing because they’re just not available. I’ve ended up going to about 90 different ones throughout the United States as a day pass. So I now have a thing that I learned about 12 years ago called Strength Training that it really … Put it very quickly, you do that maximum amount of output you can do in about a 2-minute period on any one of the exercises. Then you just force yourself to exhaustion on that particular thing and you go on to the next one.
Then you do that same thing again in 2 days, same thing again in 2 days and then later on, you’re getting a little bit used to that then you do it, say in every 3 days and 4 days. Well anyway, I’m now about once every 3 weeks for doing that kind of thing. I was still finding myself being … Going to maximum output on about 30 different muscle sets or groups that I’d feel really tired that same day and the next day, it gets kind of wiped out. I said, okay, this is good for my health. I’m no longer tired out.
Aaron: Is that from doing it every 3 weeks, you’re saying? You’re giving your body more recovery or what’s going on there?
Henry: No, it was a night and day thing for me that up until about 4 years ago when I started taking the Vitamin D, I would be very tired after doing that once every 3-week thing. I’ve been into that every 3 weeks now for about 10 years. So it’s a kind of a constant for me. I’d be very tired when I take that D-Ribose and it would help some but I’d still be kind of wiped out but I allowed that was, okay it’s good for me overall. Since taking the Vitamin D, I’m no longer tired immediately afterwards or the next day. The next day, I don’t even notice it. So overall, it greatly benefits. I would expect, anticipate a majority of your listeners who are okay for myself, it used to be in my 30’s that’s when I’d go for a long jog, long for me, I will say is 1 ½ hour. I’d go for a long jog, I feel very tired at the end of the day. The next day, I’d kind of recuperating and kind of a week later, I’m all back to normal. Same kind I think for a marathon except a little bit longer for recovery. I don’t think I’d be doing that right now. I suspect a majority of your runners will find that the … When they get their Vitamin D level up, that they will be much better. You’ll see under the Sports and Vitamin D review that I have that …
Here, I’ll just quickly list some of the documented benefits of them seen by athletes around the world with Vitamin D,
faster reaction time,
far fewer colds and flus in the winter, %%less sore and tired after a workout like we just talked about.
Fewer micro cracks and broken bones,
bones which heal far more quickly than if they do get broken.
Increased VO2 and exercise endurance,
anyway, so we now have professional athletes around the world giving this a try. There’s one group that’s … Hockey players for instance, this is particularly good for indoor athletes, the hockey players, which kind of almost indoor by definition. There is a group in Chicago that had been doing lousy for the last 60 years. They got … Took 5,000 IUs for every one of the players and then they won the championship for their league the next year. So, complete reversal, things like that. Olympic athletes have been on the sly using either UV or Vitamin D since the 1930’s from different countries. Germany and Russia had learned about that, kept that kind of a state secret for a good 30 years but that was one of the reasons that they were doing pretty well.
Aaron: Okay. Is there any danger to overdosing if … You recommend around 4,000 International Units a day.
Henry: Yup.
Aaron: I’ve seen some of the … Those you can buy at the store come in as much as like 10,000 a day. Would you want to avoid that much?
Henry: Oh, no. No. I actually myself on average take 12,000 a day.
Aaron: Okay.
Henry: 4,000 is about the upper limit you should do without just arbitrarily unless you … More than 4,000 and you do that as a monotherapy. That is to say, the only thing you’re adding, you’re kind of unbalancing your body. You have to be taking those other co-factors. So when people take the idea and listen to this podcast, they say, “Oh, 4000 and okay, that’s fine.” If that’s the only takeaway point they have from this, I’d like to say, it’s 4,000.
If they’re more careful about adding one of those other factors and listing for their body, what’s going on and then you can bring it up much higher than that. That person down in Brazil that’s dealing with multiple sclerosis, he has these patients on between 20,000 and 140,000 per day. He is watching their Calcium and a few other odds and ends about that and getting this really excellent benefit.
Aaron: Wow. I want to go back to something you mentioned about your weight training. You said you only do it once every 3 weeks, what’s … Is that … Do you maintain the same benefits as doing it every 2 days or every 4 days or is that just what works into your lifestyle? Why do you do it every 3 weeks?
Henry: It turns out, I tried doing it every 4 weeks and that wasn’t quite [often] enough. So I started to degrade in terms of the strength of the muscles. On average, each of the different exercises that I do of leg pushes and pull downs and well, the various fairly standard exercises, on average, I had started … When I started off, I was at a certain level and I’m now about trippled in terms of the amount of weight that I can push and do and endure. I kind of maxed out at that but apparently, if you really workout, you can do even more than 3, but 3 times level is just fine for me. I guess at a particular place I go, I’m at the maximum amount of weight plates that you can use for those particular exercises on about half of them.
So it’s inconvenient for me to go for more because I have to go scrounge around for extra weight plates to put it on there.
Aaron: Okay. Well Henry, it’s been very interesting talking to you and I really appreciate all the work you’ve put into your website. I hope people listening to this will check it out. I’ll definitely put up a link to it. I just wanted to say thanks so much for coming on the show and taking your time today.

See also VitaminDWiki