Should we be taking vitamin D supplements?

Should we be taking vitamin D supplements?

☀️ A good friend and I were talking about her low vitamin D recently and it's been on my list for months to research this more. So I went down that rabbit hole for a few hours today and I'm still confused. There are reputable sites on both sides of this issue and some say that everyone should supplement, others say that taking these supplements can mess up a lot of other things in your body. So even though I don't have all the answers, I thought I'd share how I'm leaning as of now…

First, this is important:

As I've said a million times before, I'm not a doctor, I'm no where close.  The following info is only what I have found in my own research.  Your research or your doc may lead you somewhere else, so use your OWN judgment when making healthcare decisions.

If you DO choose to take a vitamin D supplement…

Make sure it's ​from a trusted source like this one​. (Use my KOP code for a discount.)

Should we be taking vitamin D supplements?

As of now, based on what I've been reading, personally I'm not going to be supplementing with vitamin D–which they say is actually a hormone and not a vitamin, by the way.  There are just so many co-factors needed (having enough magnesium is huge) or other things that can be messed up in your body by taking too much of it (calcium, copper, maybe more?).

I also learned that the testing that's done is not always the right kind of vitamin D test to accurately show what our levels are.

Sally Fallon Morrell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, was asked about this and she said:  “All vitamin D supplements are bad because they deplete vitamin A.  We need to get vitamin D from foods like cod liver oil and egg yolks from outdoor chickens.”  In a recent WAPF journal (Fall 2025 pg. 7), Sally also wrote this:

VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTS? NO BENEFIT!

An estimated one-third or more of U.S. adults sixty years or older take vitamin D supplements on the promise of forestalling cancer, cardiovascular disease and bone loss. The massive Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL), involving seventeen thousand participants, looked at outcomes of those taking two thousand internal units per day compared to a placebo. The long-awaited findings: no benefit at all!  Results of analyses from VITAL published in peer-reviewed journals have shown that “vitamin D supplementation did not prevent cancer or cardiovascular disease, prevent falls, improve cognitive function, reduce atrial fibrillation, change body composition, reduce migraine frequency, improve stroke outcomes, decrease age-related macular degeneration or reduce knee pain.” Another recent trial showed that bone mineral density did not differ significantly between participants who received vitamin D and those who received a placebo. The Weston A. Price Foundation has long warned against taking vitamin D supplements on their own—vitamin D needs coon factors to work, and taking large amounts of vitamin D can deplete these co-factors—notably vitamin A and vitamin K2, both of which are needed for protection against cancer, anti cardiovascular disease, bone loss and many other ailments. The study notes that taking vitamin D supplements did not raise vitamin D blood levels, even when very low at less than 20 ng per milliliter and concluded that “there is no justification for measuring…vitamin D in the general population or treating to a target serum level.” The researchers didn't mince words: “[P]eople should stop taking vitamin D supplements to prevent major diseases or extend life.” (New England Journal of Medicine, July 27, 2022)

Instead here's what I'll be doing…

• Continue to take ​this cod liver oil​ for a good food source of natural vitamins A & D that are also in the right ratios–God knows how much of each we need so I trust how it comes in nature.  (It also has omega-3's to balance out the high omega-6's in our diets.)  Use the code KOP at that link for a discount.  Cod liver oil is helpful for SO many things:  inflammation, immunity, anxiety and depression, heart health and tons more.
• Continue to get sunlight on my skin, but without getting burned. I do this as I always have, by building up a tan slowly over time. (I rarely use sunscreen unless I'm by water and know I'll be baking. And if I do, ​I'll only use a safe one​.) In my research I learned that even in the winter we actually can get enough sunlight for our body to make vitamin D–only 10 minutes or so, and you don't even have to have a lot of skin exposed–and we're designed to make enough to carry us through the winter months. Remember morning and evening sun at sunrise and sunset is even better.
• Continue getting sunlight in my eyes–NOT by looking directly at the sun obviously, but indirectly. (Apparently sunglasses are not recommended, and I’ve never been a sunglasses person anyway, thankfully.) This helps with vitamin D production and some say it helps your skin not to burn.
• Continue to eat a LOT of animal fats with the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E & K that we all need in abundance:
  • Grassfed butter​ or ghee
  • Beef tallow from grassfed cows
  • ​​Lard from pastured pork​
• And other foods that are good sources of vitamin D:
  • Raw milk​
  • Grassfed beef​ (use code KOP for a discount at that link)
  • ​Beef liver​ (also code: KOP)​
  • Sardines or mackerel​ (also code: KOP), which I sometimes slip into ​these tuna melts

• • Eggs​ from pastured hens.
  • Fish eggs​ <– read more there from my friend Sarah.
  • Boron supplementation.  Read more here from Sarah about how boron helped her vitamin D levels to go up & why that works (but that article is for plus members only, and worth every penny).  My friend Maureen said it stops her hot flashes.  Others swear it eliminates arthritis pain.  It has many benefits.  We used to get more in our food when our soil wasn't so depleted of nutrients.  Here's how I take it based on Maureen's advice:  1 teaspoon borax in a quart of water, take 1 teaspoon of that mixture per day diluted in a glass of water for 3 mg of boron.
  • Plenty of salmon, ​like in this yummy dip​.

• • Hint: do NOT eat foods “fortified with vitamin D”. You'll see that in ultra-processed foods that we shouldn't be eating anyway.
• And since calcium & vitamin D work off of each other, I'll continue ​taking this food sourced vitamin K2​, which tells calcium where to go in the body –> to the bones & teeth instead of arteries or urinary tract. (KOP discount code works there too.)

***See below for some of the links to the research I've been digging into on this topic.  If you do some research too, let me know what you think!

More you might like:

• Tips for anxiety and depression

• Learn about colostrum here

• Make-ahead custard!

Vitamin D research links:

• • Not a vitamin
  • “Hormone D is the biggest scam on planet Earth”/Root Cause Protocol
  • Wellness Mama podcast
  • WAPF here and here
  • Extreme health podcast
  • Dr. Berg says we all need to supplement (but he sells it too)
  • Vitamin D for cancer
  • Vitamin D toxicity
  • Just eat more animal fats