Take stock of your health
Why was GrassrootsHealth founded? To help others have the information available to take charge of their health. And not just blanket recommendations, but scientific evidence to back it up. Do you know how hard it is to get 48 people to agree on anything? On where to go to dinner at night? To even have a restaurant to fit them all, which, by the way, we never did have them all in one room. But 4
8 scientists agree that vitamin D levels of 40-60 ng/ml (100-150 nmol/L) is both the observed physiological range and, the range associated with the
most disease prevention of various conditions.
Measure
Regardless of where you want to keep your vitamin D level, it is important to measure. We have seen with both vitamin D and omega-3s that there is a
big variability in how a person responds to supplementation (or sun). What is good for one person may not be good for another. The only way to know where you stand is to measure. For vitamin D this is your 25(OH)D serum level measured in ng/ml in the US and nmol/L most everywhere else. For omega-3s this is an
Omega-3 Index test which
reflects the relative amount of EPA + DHA in red blood cells. It is expressed as the percentage of the total amount of fatty acids present.
Would you start a diet without getting on the scale at least once? To get your baseline?
Learn
After you know your starting point then you can research what to do. What habits will raise or lower nutrient levels? For the few people that are within range at first test - great! But most of us will need to make changes. What will these be? Supplements from our new
GrassrootsHealth Wellness Center, daily unprotected sun, changing eating habits? There are many different solutions that you can read about on
grassrootshealth.net.
Just like a weight program - you will create a plan of attack - how will you manage your levels?
Change your habits
Here is where you execute on your plan. Some days will be perfect, others won't - but overall you make changes. So, the next day all will be different? No. It can take up to 2-3 months for vitamin D serum levels to change to a new steady level. We recommend testing again between 3-6 months depending on how low you were in the start and how extreme your program.
Just like a weight program - give it time to work with daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
Measure again
Finally, after your set time, test again. Was there a change? As much as expected? More? Less? This will allow you to make another plan and execute again. For most people in D*action this will take between 3-4 tests before the plan is finalized. What works well for you. Then, people still test every year or two to make sure not much has changed and it is still working.
Give it a try, what have you got to lose?
Onwards!
