Vitamin D is essential for a healthy gut microbiome—find out why!
Timestamps
0:00 Introduction: Vitamin D feeds microbes
0:53 Your microbes produce nutrients
1:42 Subclinical vitamin D deficiency
3:38 Vitamin D deficiency in winter months
4:37 Share your success story!
In this video, we’re going to talk about vitamin D and your microbes.
Vitamin D is essential for feeding the healthy bacteria in your gut. In fact, gut microbes are dependent on the vitamin D you get from the sun or ingest.
Along with fiber, vitamin D helps support microbial diversity in your gut. Low vitamin D can throw off your microbiome ratios.
Supporting your microbiome with vitamin D is also crucial for normal levels of butyrate. Butyrate is the small-chain fatty acid that helps regulate your blood sugar levels, feed your colon cells, energize your body, and improve your insulin sensitivity.
Additionally, a poor microbiome caused by low vitamin D can contribute to a deficiency in B vitamins. This is because microbes are a primary source of many B vitamins.
The majority of the population has a subclinical vitamin D deficiency. Oftentimes, a subclinical deficiency isn’t detected in a blood test.
40% of people in the US and Europe have low vitamin D, and up to 85% of people in Arabic countries have low vitamin D.
Vitamin D deficiency can increase your risk of…
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Heart attack
• Autoimmune disease
• IBD
• Allergies
• Asthma
• Dermatitis
• Regular colds
• Depression
• Weight gain
Vitamin D is essential for the integrity of your gut epithelium. Since 80% of your immune system resides in your gut, an issue with your gut wall (or even leaky gut) can cause serious immune problems. It may cause your immune system to attack your own healthy cells. This is why low vitamin D is associated with autoimmunity and inflammation.
It’s more difficult to maintain normal levels of vitamin D in the winter months. To help combat this, you can take at least 10,000IU of vitamin D daily.
Dr. Eric Berg
08/31/2023
