The Who, Why, and When of Vitamin D Screening

My Recommendation: Get Tested at Least Once a Year

In the end, the task force is leaving it up to individual doctors to make their own determinations as to whether a patient may benefit from vitamin D testing. My recommendation is to get your vitamin D level tested at least once per year, when your levels are likely to be at its lowest.

For people in the northern hemisphere, this would be around January or February. In the southern hemisphere, it would be around June or July. This is particularly important if you're pregnant or planning a pregnancy, or if you have cancer.

From my perspective, it is simply reprehensible malpractice for a health care professional to fail to address your vitamin D level if you're pregnant or undergoing cancer treatment—it's just that important. For pregnant women, optimizing your vitamin D is more important for your child's health and development than folate, which is routinely recommended for pregnant women.

Recent Studies Confirm Vitamin D's Importance for Cancer Prevention

As for cancer, there are well over 800 references in the medical literature showing vitamin D's effectiveness—both for the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Vitamin D has a number of potent anticancer effects, including the promotion of cancer cell death, known as apoptosis, and the inhibition of angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor).

Carole Baggerly, founder of the vitamin D research group GrassrootsHealth, believes that as much as 90 percent of ordinary breast cancer may in fact be related to vitamin D deficiency.

According to a meta-analysis published in the March 2014 issue of Anticancer Research, patients diagnosed with breast cancer who had high vitamin D levels were twice as likely to survive compared to women with low levels.

The high serum group had an average vitamin D level of 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Women in the low serum group averaged 17 ng/ml, which is in fact the average vitamin D level found in American breast cancer patients.

These findings indicate you need at least 30 ng/ml of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) to prevent cancer from spreading. Other research suggests you'd be better off with levels as high as 80 ng/ml.

An even more recent study, published in the British Medical Journal on June 17, links vitamin D optimization to improved cancer prognosis among those with a family history of cancer—regardless of the type of cancer involved—and a reduced risk of death from any cause, courtesy of its multi-varied influence on your health.

Here, data from eight population-based studies were analyzed. All in all, the studies followed more than 26,000 Europeans and Americans, aged 50 to 79, over the course of a 16-year period.

The data showed a clear pattern: those with consistently lower vitamin D levels were more likely to die from various health problems, including cancer, compared to those with higher levels. According to the authors:

"Despite levels of 25(OH)D strongly varying with country, sex, and season, the association between 25(OH)D level and all-cause and cause-specific mortality was remarkably consistent."

Optimizing Your Vitamin D Also Reduces Your Risk of Diabetes, New Study Suggests

In related news, an Indian study found that vitamin D and calcium supplementation in combination with exercise can aid prediabetic individuals by preventing the progression into full blown diabetes. Since exercise is one of the most effective ways to improve your insulin and leptin sensitivity, this certainly makes sense. As noted by Nephrology News:

"Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to prediabetes, which is a blood glucose, or sugar, level that is too high but not high enough to be considered diabetes. It is unclear, however, if bringing low vitamin D blood levels to normal through supplementation will affect progression to diabetes.

In the new study, every unit increase in vitamin D level after supplementation of the vitamin decreased the risk of progression to diabetes by eight percent...

'Without healthy lifestyle changes, nothing works to prevent diabetes in at-risk individuals,' said the lead author, Deep Dutta, MD, DM... 'However, our results are encouraging because the addition of vitamin D and calcium supplements is easy and low in cost.'"

Here, a vitamin D level below 30 ng/ml was considered insufficient. All participants in the study were prediabetic.

The treatment group received a once-weekly dose of 60,000 IUs of vitamin D3, along with 1,250 milligrams (mg) of calcium carbonate daily, for eight weeks. A second group received only the calcium supplement. Both groups were advised to get 30 minutes of daily exercise. More than two years' worth of follow-up revealed that:

• Just under 11 percent of those receiving both vitamin D3 and calcium became diabetic, while 26.5 percent of the calcium-only group developed diabetes
• Blood sugar levels normalized in over twice as many of those in the vitamin D/calcium group, compared to the calcium-only group (41.8 percent versus 20.4 percent respectively)

Calcium/Vitamin D Supplementation Also Helpful for Gestational Diabetes

Similar results were found in another recent randomized placebo-controlled trial investigating the effect of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on the metabolic status of pregnant women with gestational diabetes (GDM).  The test group received 1,000 mg calcium daily. They also received 50,000 IUs of vitamin D3 at the outset of the study, and another 50,000 IUs three weeks later. The control group received placebos. After six weeks, the treatment group had "significant reductions" in fasting plasma glucose, insulin, and LDL cholesterol compared to the placebo group. The treatment group also showed improved insulin sensitivity, and had higher HDL cholesterol. According to the authors:

"Calcium plus vitamin D supplementation in GDM women had beneficial effects on metabolic profile... This is important because elevated circulating levels of inflammatory markers and impaired insulin metabolism in GDM can predict the progression to type 2 diabetes later in life and neonatal complications... In addition, increased inflammatory markers in GDM might predict the future development of both metabolic and cardiovascular disease."

The Importance of Optimizing Your Vitamin D Level During Pregnancy Cannot Be Overstated

Optimizing your vitamin D levels prior to, or at the very least during, pregnancy is important for other reasons besides protecting against gestational diabetes. Previous research has shown that your levels need to be above 50 ng/ml to protect you and your baby from even more serious complications such as premature delivery and preeclampsia. So please, if you're pregnant, make sure to get your 25 hydroxy D levels checked.

Previous research by Drs. Hollis and Wagner reveals even more reasons for addressing any vitamin D insufficiency during pregnancy. Their preliminary findings were discussed at a 2009 international vitamin D research conference in Brugge, Belgium, and included the following (the study was eventually published in 2011):

Mothers who took 4,000 IUs (10 times the RDA of 400 IU) of vitamin D daily during pregnancy decreased their risk of premature birth by half	Women taking high doses of vitamin D had a 25 percent reduction in infections, particularly respiratory infections such as colds and flu, as well as fewer infections of the vagina and the gums
Women taking high doses of vitamin D reduced their chances by half of delivering their babies prematurely at both 32 and 37 weeks	The "core morbidities of pregnancy" were reduced by 30 percent in the women who took the high-dose vitamin D. (Including diabetes, high blood pressure, and preeclampsia -- a potentially deadly increase in blood pressure and fluid accompanied by low platelets)
Fewer babies were born "small for dates"	Babies getting the highest amounts of vitamin D after birth had fewer colds and less eczema

According to Dr. Hollis: "I'm telling every pregnant mother I see to take 4,000 IUs and every nursing mother to take 6,400 IUs of vitamin D a day. I think it is medical malpractice for obstetricians not to know what the vitamin D level of their patients is. This study will put them on notice."

How to Optimize Your Vitamin D Level

When it comes to vitamin D, you don't want to be in the "average" or "normal" range, you want to be in the "optimal" range. Based on the evaluation of healthy populations that get plenty of natural sun exposure, the optimal range for general health appears to be somewhere between 50 and 70 ng/ml. 

Sources

As for HOW to optimize your vitamin D levels, I firmly believe that appropriate sun exposure is the best way. In fact, I personally have not taken a vitamin D supplement for over four years, yet my levels are in the 70 ng/ml range. There's a handy smartphone app called DMinder (dminder.info) that will tell you how much UV radiation you're getting and how many IUs of vitamin D you're making based on your local weather conditions (reported from the weather service) and other individual parameters such as your skin tone and age. It will also tell you when to get out of the sun, to protect yourself from sunburn.

If you can't get enough sunshine, then a safe tanning bed would be your next best option. Most tanning equipment use magnetic ballasts to generate light. These magnetic ballasts are well known sources of EMF fields that can contribute to cancer. If you hear a loud buzzing noise while in a tanning bed, it has a magnetic ballast system. I strongly recommend you avoid these types of beds and restrict your use of tanning beds to those that use electronic ballasts.

If your circumstances don't allow you to access the sun or a safe tanning bed, then you really only have one option if you want to raise your vitamin D, and that is to take a vitamin D supplement. GrassrootsHealth has a helpful chart showing the average adult dose required to reach healthy vitamin D levels based upon your measured starting point. Many experts agree that 35 IUs of vitamin D per pound of body weight could be used as an estimate for your ideal dose.

If You Opt for Oral Vitamin D, Remember Vitamin K2

Keep in mind that if you opt for a vitamin D supplement, you also need to take vitamin K2. The biological role of vitamin K2 is to help move calcium into the proper areas in your body, such as your bones and teeth. It also helps remove calcium from areas where it shouldn't be, such as in your arteries and soft tissues.

Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the consequences similar to vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. The reason for this is because when you take vitamin D, your body creates more vitamin K2-dependent proteins that move calcium around in your body. Without vitamin K2, those proteins remain inactivated, so the benefits of those proteins remain unrealized. So remember, if you take supplemental vitamin D, you're creating an increased demand for K2. Together, these two nutrients help strengthen your bones and improve your heart health.

Test Your Levels at Least Once a Year—Even if You're Healthy

While the US Preventive Services Task Force may be unclear on whether otherwise healthy people need to test their vitamin D levels, I believe the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: if your levels are consistently low, you will eventually suffer some kind of consequence. And when you consider how inexpensive vitamin D testing is becoming, there's little financial disincentive to get tested at least once a year, in the middle of the winter when your level would be at its lowest.

This will at least give you an idea of the extent of your insufficiency. Ideally, I recommend getting your level tested several times a year, at regular intervals, to ensure you're continuously staying within the ideal range. Once you know your pattern and can comfortably predict that you will not fall below 60 ng/ml, then it would be fine to shift to annual testing.

A Wired¹⁵ article published earlier this year discusses the revolutionary work of Elizabeth Holmes, a woman who invented a way to run 30 different lab tests on a single drop of blood. The pricing of these tests are as groundbreaking as the technology itself. For example, a cholesterol test costs less than $3. Her company, Theranos, rolled out its blood testing service in a Walgreens pharmacy in Palo Alto, California in the fall of last year. As reported by Wired:

"Theranos requires only a pinprick and a drop of blood. With that they can perform hundreds of tests, from standard cholesterol checks to sophisticated genetic analyses. The results are faster, more accurate, and far cheaper than conventional methods. The implications are mind-blowing. With inexpensive and easy access to the infor­mation running through their veins, people will have an unprecedented window on their own health. And a new generation of diagnostic tests could allow them to head off serious afflictions..."

I believe vitamin D testing should be at the top of virtually everyone's list—but especially pregnant women and cancer patients. It's important to remember that optimal vitamin D levels appear to offer powerful PREVENTION of a whole host of chronic diseases, so please, do not wait for a problem to appear before addressing your vitamin D status.

How Vitamin D Performance Testing Can Help Optimize Your Health

A robust and growing body of research clearly shows that vitamin D is absolutely critical for good health and disease prevention. Vitamin D affects your DNA through vitamin D receptors (VDRs), which bind to specific locations of the human genome. Scientists have identified nearly 3,000 genes that are influenced by vitamin D levels, and vitamin D receptors have been found throughout the human body.

Is it any wonder then that no matter what disease or condition is investigated, vitamin D appears to play a crucial role? This is why I am so excited about the D*Action Project by GrassrootsHealth. It is showing how you can take action today on known science with a consensus of experts without waiting for institutional lethargy. It has shown how by combining the science of measurement (of vitamin D levels) with the personal choice of taking action and, the value of education about individual measures that one can truly be in charge of their own health.

15 Healthiest Foods to Stock in Your Kitchen Year-Round

1. Sunflower and Other Sprouted Seeds

One of the easiest and most efficient ways to optimize your nutrition is to addsprouted seeds to your vegetable juice and/or salad. While you can sprout a wide variety of seeds, my favorite is sunflower seeds.

Sprouted, the protein, vitamin, and mineral content of sunflower seeds soar,and will typically provide you with 30 times the nutrient content of organic vegetables! Sprouts in general also contain valuable enzymes—up to 100 times more enzymes than raw fruits and vegetables—that allow your body to absorb and use the nutrients of other foods you eat.

Sprouts are the ultimate locally-grown food, and can easily be grown in your own kitchen, even if you're tight on space. And since they're very inexpensive, cost is no excuse for avoiding them. I started sprouting seeds in ball jars nearly 15 years ago. Now I grow them in them in trays using soil instead. It's far easier and produces far more nutritious and abundant food.

You can view the page I created for directions for growing seeds into harvestable sprouts. We have kits to grow spouts in our store. Sprouts-as-medicine.com  is another good source for things relating to sprouts: their health benefits, recipes, and how to grow your own.

The British Verticalveg.org is another. The latter gives helpful growing tips for each month of the year. One of the benefits of sprouts is that you can grow them year-round, even when it's cold and dark. The article "6 Easy Steps to Sprout Heaven" teaches you how to grow your own sprouts, from start to finish.

2. Organic Pastured Eggs

Proteins are essential to the building, maintenance, and repair of your body tissues, including your skin, internal organs, and muscles. Proteins are also major components of your immune system and hormones.

While proteins are found in many types of food, only foods from animal sources, such as meat and eggs, contain "complete proteins," meaning they contain all of the essential amino acids. Eggs also contain lutein and zeaxanthin for eye health, choline for your brain, nervous and cardiovascular systems, and naturally occurring B12.

Eggs are powerhouses of healthy nutrition, provided they're harvested from organically raised, free-range, pastured chickens. The nutritional differences between true free-ranging chicken eggs and commercially farmed eggs are a result of the different diets eaten by the two groups of chickens.

You can tell the eggs are free range or pastured by the color of the egg yolk. Foraged hens produce eggs with bright orange yolks. Dull, pale yellow yolks are a sure sign you're getting eggs from caged hens that are not allowed to forage for their natural diet. Your best source for fresh eggs is a local farmer that allows his hens to forage freely outdoors.

To find free-range pasture farmers, ask your local health food store or refer to EatWild.com or LocalHarvest.com.5 Cornucopia.org also offers a helpful organic egg scorecard that rates egg manufacturers based on 22 criteria that are important for organic consumers.

3. Butter

Good old-fashioned butter, when made from grass-fed cows, is a rich in a substance called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA is not only known to help fight cancer and diabetes, it may even help you to lose weight, which cannot be said for its trans-fat substitutes.

Butter is a rich source of easily absorbed vitamin A (needed for a wide range of functions, from maintaining good vision to keeping the endocrine system in top shape) and all the other fat-soluble vitamins (D, E, and K2), which are often lacking in the modern industrial diet. Butter is rich in important trace minerals, including manganese, chromium, zinc, copper, and selenium (a powerful antioxidant).

As mentioned above, RealMilk.com  can help you locate a source of raw butter. If you want to try your hand at making it yourself, check out Positron.org.8 They have an excellent web page with step-by-step instructions  for making your own butter from scratch, using raw, grass-fed milk.

4. Fermented Vegetables

Your gastrointestinal tract (GI) houses some 100 trillion bacteria. These bacteria actually outnumber your cells 10 to 1. When your GI tract is not working well, a wide range of health problems can appear, including allergies and autoimmune diseases. If you suffer from any major illness, it's imperative to "heal and seal" your gut in order to fully recuperate. Balancing the menagerie of microorganisms that occupy your GI tract is a key part of maintaining a robust immune system.

To maintain a healthy gut, fermented foods are a necessity. Just one quarter to one half cup of fermented food, eaten with one to three meals per day, can have a dramatically beneficial impact on your health. Yogurt and kefir are two examples, but there are many others. Ideally, you'll want to include a variety of cultured and fermented foods in your diet, as each provides different beneficial bacteria. And, as with kefir and yogurt, you can easily and inexpensively ferment your own vegetables.

While you can do wild fermentation, which is allowing whatever is on the vegetable to just naturally take hold and culture the food, this method is very time consuming. Inoculating the food using a starter culture speeds up the fermentation process. My research team has also created a starter culture loaded with powerful probiotic strains to help produce high levels of vitamin K2, which many people are deficient in.

5. Avocado

Avocados, which are actually classified as a fruit, are low in fructose and rich in healthy monounsaturated fat (which is easily burned for energy), and research has confirmed the avocado's ability to benefit vascular function and heart health. Personally, I eat a whole avocado virtually every day, which I usually put in my salad. This increases my healthy fat and calorie intake without raising my protein or carbohydrate intake by much.

It is also very high in potassium (more than twice the amount found in a banana) and will help balance your vitally important potassium to sodium ratio. Avocados also provide close to 20 essential health-boosting nutrients, including fiber, vitamin E, B-vitamins, and folic acid. Besides eating them raw, you can use avocado as fat substitute in recipes calling for butter or other oils. Another boon of avocados—they're one of the safest fruits you can buy conventionally-grown, so you don't need to spend more for organic ones. Their thick skin protects the inner fruit from pesticides.

6. Macadamia Nuts and Pecans

Mounting research suggests that nuts may actually help you live longer, and help you lose weight. This isn't so surprising considering the fact that tree nuts are high in healthy fats that, contrary to popular belief, your body needs for optimal function. Most nuts' nutritional makeup closely resemble what I consider to be an ideal ratio of the basic building blocks—fat making up the greatest amount of your daily calories, followed by a moderate amount of high-quality protein and a low amount of non-vegetable carbs.

My favorite nuts are macadamia and pecans, as they provide the highest amount of healthy fat while being on the lower end in terms of carbs and protein. The main fatty acid in macadamia nuts is the monounsaturated fat oleic acid (about 60 percent). This is about the level found in olives, which are well known for their health benefits.

7. Organic Coconut Oil

Besides being excellent for your thyroid and your metabolism, coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, which converts in your body to monolaurin, a monoglyceride capable of destroying lipid-coated viruses such as HIV and herpes, influenza, measles, gram-negative bacteria, and protozoa such as Giardia lamblia.

Its medium chain fatty acids (MCTs) also impart a number of health benefits, including raising your body's metabolism and fighting off pathogens. Additionally, a very exciting and recent discovery is that coconut oil may serve as a natural treatment for Alzheimer's disease, as MCTs are also a primary source of ketone bodies, which act as an alternate source of brain fuel that can help prevent the brain atrophy associated with dementia.

Coconut oil is easy on your digestive system and does not produce an insulin spike in your bloodstream, so for a quick energy boost, you could simply eat a spoonful of coconut oil, or add it to your food. Make sure you choose an organic coconut oil that is unrefined, unbleached, made without heat processing or chemicals, and does not contain genetically engineered ingredients. As an added boon, coconut oil has countless other uses besides cooking and eating; from topical beauty applications to first aid treatments, to general household cleaning.

8. Fresh Herbs

Herbs are not only great in meals for spice and added flavor but are key to the nutritional density in the foods you eat. As just one example, plain black pepper actually increases the bioavailability of just about all other foods -- herbs and other compounds! Herbs can protect you against diseases, clear toxins from your body, and provide you with vitamins and minerals. Every time you flavor your meals with herbs or spices you are literally "upgrading" your food without adding a single calorie.

As a general rule, you really can't go wrong when using herbs and spices, and I recommend allowing your taste buds to dictate your choices when cooking. That said, herbs and spices also have a variety of medicinal properties, which you can read more about in my previous article on the nutritional and medicinal role of herbs and spices. Turmeric is one example of a spice with potent and scientifically proven medicinal benefits—against cancer no less.

9. Raw Garlic

Raw garlic is a food that should be on your menu daily. It boosts your body's natural abilities to protect you from hypertension and osteoporosis, and research is mounting that it decreases your risk for various forms of cancer. It is a potent antimicrobial as well, working as a natural antibiotic, antifungal, antiviral, and antiparasitic agent. Garlic must be fresh to give you optimal health benefits, though. The fresh clove must be crushed or chopped in order to stimulate the release of an enzyme called alliinase, which in turn catalyzes the formation of allicin.

Research10 has revealed that as allicin digests in your body, it produces sulfenic acid, a compound that reacts with dangerous free radicals faster than any other known compound. To activate garlic's medicinal properties, compress a fresh clove with a spoon prior to swallowing it, or put it through your juicer to add to your vegetable juice. A single medium size clove or two is usually sufficient, and is well-tolerated by most people. The active ingredient, allicin, is destroyed within one hour of smashing the garlic, so garlic pills are virtually worthless. You also won't reap all the health benefits garlic has to offer if you use jarred, powdered, or dried versions. Fermented black garlic is another option that will provide the active ingredients in a more usable form.

10. Homemade Broth

Homemade bone broth is excellent for speeding healing and recuperation from illness, as it helps "heal and seal" your gut, the importance of which was discussed earlier. It contains healthy fat, of course, but also important minerals like calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulfur, and trace minerals, as well as the broken down material from cartilage and tendons—including chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine.

Making your own bone broth is extremely cost effective, as you can make use of leftover carcass bones that would otherwise be thrown away. One important caveat when making broth, whether you're using chicken or beef, is to make sure they're from organically-raised, pastured or grass-fed animals. (For detailed instructions on how to make your own broth, please refer to my previous article: "Bone Broth—One of Your Most Healing Diet Staples.")

11. Himalayan Salt

Salt is essential for life, and your body needs it for optimal function. But it's important to realize that there are major differences between the refined and highly processed salt found in processed foods and regular table salt, and unrefined natural salt, like sea salt or Himalayan salt. The former will promote damaging health effects, while the latter is important to many biological processes, including:

Being a major component of your blood plasma, lymphatic fluid, extracellular fluid, and even amniotic fluid	Carrying nutrients into and out of your cells, and helping maintain your acid-base balance	Increasing the glial cells in your brain, which are responsible for creative thinking and long-term planning. Both sodium and chloride are also necessary for the firing of neurons
Maintain and help regulate blood pressure	Helping your brain communicate with your muscles, so that you can move on demand via sodium-potassium ion exchange	Supporting the function of your adrenal glands, which produce dozens of vital hormones

Natural unprocessed salt, such as Himalayan salt, contains about 85 percent sodium chloride and 15 percent naturally-occurring trace minerals—about 84 of them in all, including silicon, phosphorus, and vanadium. On hot days, or after exercising and sweating profusely, you can make a wholesome sports drink to replenish lost electrolytes and minerals by mixing a pinch of Himalayan salt and a dash of fresh lemon juice in a glass of water.

12. Canned Alaskan Salmon

Rising pollution levels have contaminated most fish to the point of being potentially hazardous, especially for children and pregnant women, if eaten too frequently, or in too high amounts. The key to eating fish these days is to choose fish that are high in healthy omega-3 fats, and low in hazardous contaminants. Wild-caught Alaskan salmon (NOT farmed) fits this description, and is one of the few types of fish I still recommend eating.

While fish will certainly stay fresh for a long time if frozen, another option is to stock up on canned salmon. Just make sure it's labeled "Alaskan Salmon," as Alaskan salmon is not allowed to be farmed. Also look for BPA free canned options like what we have in our store. Avoid Atlantic salmon, as all salmon labeled "Atlantic Salmon" currently comes from fish farms. Also, sockeye salmon cannot be farmed, so if you find sockeye salmon, it's bound to be wild, and therefore a good choice. Other canned fish that are in the safer category (having lower contamination risk and higher nutritional value) are sardines, anchovies, and pickled herring.

13. Raw Milk from Organic, Grass-Fed Cows

Contrary to popular belief, pasteurized milk is not safer than raw milk from a healthy, grass-fed cow raised according to organic standards. Data shows that even illnesses linked to raw milk are minimal, and far lower than those from pasteurized CAFO milk. Grass is a cow's natural food. Corn and other grains are not. When cows eat grains—which is the standard fare in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs)—their body composition is altered, including the balance of essential fats. As a result of the animals' diet, high-quality raw milk has many health benefits that pasteurized milk lacks. For example, grass-fed raw milk contains:

• Healthy bacteria that are good for your gastrointestinal tract
• More than 60 digestive enzymes, growth factors, and immunoglobulins (antibodies)
• Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA)
• Beneficial raw fats, amino acids, and proteins in a highly bioavailable form, all 100 percent digestible
• Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K in highly bioavailable forms, and a very balanced blend of minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and iron) whose absorption is enhanced by live lactobacilli

Getting your raw milk from a local organic farm is one of the best ways to ensure you're getting high-quality milk. You can locate a raw milk source near you at the Campaign for Real Milk Web site. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund also provides a state-by-state review of raw milk laws.

14. Whey Protein

Even if you don't have access to raw milk, you can use a high-quality, minimally processed whey protein derived from the milk of organically-raised grass-fed cows to receive many of the same health benefits. Whey protein contains beta-glucans and immunoglobulins, which protect your immune system and support your body's natural detoxification processes.

Whey protein is often referred to as the gold standard of protein, and when consumed 30 minutes before and/or after your workout, it can help increase both fat burning and muscle building. Amino acids found in high-quality whey protein activate certain cellular mechanisms, including a mechanism called mTOR,  which in turn promotes not only muscle protein synthesis, but also boosts thyroid, and protects against declining testosterone levels after exercise.

15. Yogurt and Kefir Made from Organic, Grass-Fed Milk

Cultured dairy products such as yogurt and kefir made from organic, grass-fed milk are other powerhouses of nutrition you'll want to keep in stock—and you can easily make them yourself, using a starter culture. Besides cow's milk, you can also make them fusing raw goat or sheep's milk. While both kefir and yogurt are cultured milk products, they contain different types of beneficial bacteria (probiotics).

Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep your digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that already are present. Kefir actually helps to colonize your intestinal tract -- a feat that yogurt cannot match. Additionally, kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria and beneficial yeasts not commonly found in yogurt. Kefir's active yeast and bacteria may provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy. It also contains vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids that help your body with its natural healing powers and maintenance functions.

What Drove Us to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day?

8 Glasses a Day Not Backed by Science

Water is, of course, essential for your survival. Every day, your body loses water through urine and sweat. This fluid needs to be replenished, for while you can survive for months without food, without water you wouldn't last more than a few days. If you get the fluid/water replacement issue right, then you have made one of the most important and powerful steps you can in taking control of your health.

But just how much water do you need to drink to replenish what you've lost? Writing in the American Journal of Physiology, Heinz Valtin of Dartmouth Medical School notes:

“Despite the seemingly ubiquitous admonition to “drink at least eight 8-oz glasses of water a day” (with an accompanying reminder that beverages containing caffeine and alcohol do not count), rigorous proof for this counsel appears to be lacking.

This review sought to find the origin of this advice (called “8 X 8” for short) and to examine the scientific evidence, if any, that might support it. The search included not only electronic modes but also a cursory examination of the older literature that is not covered in electronic databases and, most importantly and fruitfully, extensive consultation with several nutritionists who specialize in the field of thirst and drinking fluids. No scientific studies were found in support of 8 X 8.

Rather, surveys of food and fluid intake on thousands of adults of both genders, analyses of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, strongly suggest that such large amounts are not needed because the surveyed persons were presumably healthy and certainly not overtly ill.”

As for the origins of this now widely accepted dietary dogma, the closest reference Valtin uncovered was a brief mention in the obituary of a well-known nutritionist by the name of Fredrick J. Stare, which said he was an “early champion of drinking at least six glasses of water a day.”

Interestingly, Dr. Stare, who was a professor of nutrition and the head of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, was a notable friend to industry, notorious for his outspoken support for food additives and water fluoridation. He also had ties to the tobacco industry and was a strong supporter of the sugar industry; he even reportedly earned the moniker “The Sugar King” at Harvard.

At one point, sometime during the late ‘50s, early ‘60s, Dr. Stare went so far as to publish an article stating that claims made by the Boston Nutrition Society that white bread was devoid of nutrients and a contributor to disease were “a cruel and reckless fraud.” In other words, Dr. Stare believed white bread to be perfectly healthy, and openly criticized those who questioned food additives or excessive sugars in the diet, which isn’t surprising considering his financial ties to Nabisco, Kellogg and the Cereal Institute.

The point is … Dr. Stare is also being credited with perhaps being among the first to promote drinking 6-8 glasses of water a day as healthy, which, given the source, deserves to be questioned.

Also mentioned by Valtin was a 1945 recommendation by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council, which recommended 2.5 liters of water as a “suitable allowance” of water for most adults. They, however, pointed out that “most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods,” but it could be that people interpreted this to mean that 2.5 liters of water is the right amount to drink each day. The advice was repeated again in 1948, without a scientific backing.

Of course, consuming large quantities of water has been used as a medical therapy since the 19th century, when “hydropathists” advised patients to drink copious amounts of water to cure their ills. People have long been exploring the body’s need for water, as well as what the optimal “dose” appears to be … but to date there’s not much compelling evidence that the “8 8-ounce glasses a day” is the be all and end all in water consumption.

Are Bottled Water Companies Behind the Push to Drink More Water?

Last year, Dr. Margaret McCartney, a general practitioner from Scotland, wrote a commentary for the British Medical Journal arguing that the advice to drink 8 glasses of water a day is “thoroughly debunked nonsense” being spread by bottled water companies in order to churn up more profit. She pointed out that Hydration for Health, an initiative to promote drinking more water, is sponsored and created by French food giant Danone, which produces Volvic, Evian, and Badoit bottled waters. Interestingly, even claims that the elderly and children especially need to drink more water may also be unfounded.

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that:

“… Healthy older adults maintain water input, output and balance comparable to those of younger adults and have no apparent change in hydration status.”

McCartney also pointed out research done by Professor Stanley Goldfarb, physician and nephrologist at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues, which also found:

“There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water. Although we wish we could demolish all of the urban myths found on the internet regarding the benefits of supplemental water ingestion, we concede there is also no clear evidence of lack of benefit. In fact, there is simply a lack of evidence in general.”

Interestingly, Goldfarb was contacted by Danone after the paper was published, McCartney notes:

“After he wrote his article, he was contacted by Danone, and taken out to dinner by two of its representatives. They didn’t try to dissuade him from his views, but they did show him a graph intimating that sales fell after the editorial was published.”

Drinking Too Much Water Can be Dangerous

There’s a misconception with water consumption that the more you drink, the healthier you’ll be. This is true to a point, particularly if you drink water in lieu of sugar-laden beverages like soda and fruit juice, but if you drink too much water, the sodium levels in your blood may drop to dangerously low levels, causing hyponatremia -- a condition in which your cells swell with too much water. While most of your body's cells can handle this swelling, your brain cells cannot, and most of the symptoms are caused by brain swelling. This condition is most common among athletes, although anyone can be affected by drinking excessive amounts of water.

Symptoms of hyponatremia include:

Confusion	Decreased consciousness; possible coma	Hallucinations	Convulsions
Fatigue	Headache	Irritability	Loss of appetite
Muscle spasms, cramps, or weakness	Nausea	Restlessness	Vomiting

Most People DO Need to Drink More Water

Clearly, staying well hydrated is essential. But whether or not you actually need eight glasses of water or more each and every day is questionable, because hydration needs are so individual, and vary from day to day. You may very well need eight glasses of water a day.

Drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of pure water a day may not be likely to cause you harm; it’s just that the evidence is lacking on whether that is the magic number for everyone, and most likely it appears that it is not.

The reality is that many people are dehydrated and would benefit from drinking more water each day, and from making water their primary source of fluids.

It does now appear that the notion that caffeinated drinks like coffee and tea cannot be counted as part of your fluid intake, as they act as a diuretic that will dehydrate you even further, may be another myth -- so if you drink these beverages you can “count” them as part of your fluid consumption. However, the bottom line is that you may not need to “count” your fluid intake at all. Instead, just let your body be your guide.

Your Body Will Let You Know When it’s Time for a Drink

Your body will tell you when it's time to replenish your water supply, because once your body has lost between one to two percent of its total water, your thirst mechanism lets you know that it's time to drink some water!

Since your body is capable of telling you its needs, using thirst as a guide to how much water you need to drink is one way to help ensure your individual needs are met, day-by-day. Of course, if it's hot, exceptionally dry outside, or if you are engaged in exercise or other vigorous activity, you will require more water than normal. But again, if you drink as soon as you feel thirsty, you should be able to remain well hydrated even in these cases.

The color of your urine will also help you determine whether or not you might need to drink more. As long as you are not taking riboflavin (vitamin B2, also found in most multi-vitamins), which fluoresces and turns your urine bright yellow, then your urine should be a very light-colored yellow. If it is a deep, dark yellow then you are likely not drinking enough water. If your urine is scant or if you haven't urinated in many hours, that too is an indication that you're not drinking enough. (Based on the results from a few different studies, a healthy person urinates on average about seven or eight times a day.)

Pure clean water is the ideal beverage of choice for hydration, but remember you can get valuable fluids from fresh fruits, vegetables and certain foods, like homemade broth, too.