July 29, 2024 • 9 mins
In this episode, Dr. Paul Anderson delves into fat-soluble vitamins, which play crucial roles in various bodily functions. He covers:
- What Are Fat-Soluble Vitamins?: Explanation of fat-soluble vitamins and how they differ from water-soluble vitamins, including their absorption and storage in the body.
- Key Fat-Soluble Vitamins:
- Vitamin A:
- Role: Essential for vision, immune function, and skin health.
- Sources: Liver, fish oils, dairy products, and beta-carotene-rich vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes.
- Vitamin D:
- Role: Crucial for calcium absorption, bone health, and immune function.
- Sources: Sunlight, fatty fish, fortified dairy products, and supplements.
- Vitamin E:
- Role: Acts as a powerful antioxidant, protecting cells from oxidative damage.
- Sources: Nuts, seeds, green leafy vegetables, and vegetable oils.
- Vitamin K:
- Role: Important for blood clotting and bone health.
- Sources: Leafy green vegetables, broccoli, and fermented foods.
- Vitamin A:
- Benefits and Functions: Detailed discussion on how each fat-soluble vitamin supports various aspects of health, from maintaining vision and bone strength to protecting against oxidative stress.
- Deficiency Risks: Potential health issues related to deficiencies in fat-soluble vitamins, including night blindness (Vitamin A), bone disorders (Vitamin D), and bleeding problems (Vitamin K).
- Supplementation and Dosage: Guidelines for supplementing with fat-soluble vitamins, including recommended dosages and considerations for safe use to avoid toxicity.
- Dietary Sources: Tips for incorporating a variety of foods rich in fat-soluble vitamins into your diet to ensure adequate intake.
- Absorption and Storage: How fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed and stored in the body, and factors that can influence their bioavailability, such as dietary fat intake and digestive health.
- Personalized Nutrition: How to tailor your vitamin intake based on individual health needs, dietary preferences, and specific health conditions.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to Medicine Health with doctor Paul Anderson. That's me.
I'm doctor Paul and Today in our ongoing series about
natural and integrative and nature pathic therapies, we're talking about
nutrients and why they're sometimes added in what they do, etc. Well,
this particular session is a breakout from the vitamin session
(00:24):
as promised. So we talked in the vitamin section about
water soluble vitamins. There's also a group of fat soluble ones,
and these are the ones that can build up in
your system. They can have some toxicity associated, so they
really should be part of an overall health plan for
(00:45):
you and they should be used for specific reasons. Now
that doesn't mean they're dangerous. It's like anything else. You
need enough, you don't need too much. But as we
always say with nutrition and nutrients, you want to start
with your diet and absorption and then you want to
do global things like a multi vitamin mineral say, and
then you can add on things to increase those levels
(01:08):
that may be kind of below, say in a multi
vitamin or mineral. So the fat valuable vitamins are vitamin
A like alpha D like dog E like Edward, and
K like kite and so A, d E and k
are your fat solubles, and so we need to be
a little careful with the dosing on those. We do
(01:29):
use them up, so it's not like, you know, you
have to starve yourself from them. But let's start with
vitamin A because it comes first in the alphabet. Vitamin
a is a interesting nutrient in that in the plant
world it comes from the carotenoid family of chemicals, and
(01:51):
the plants produce carotenoids, and the famous one is beta kerateene.
You've heard of that that was often used in you know,
days gone by as a food dye because as sort
of a yellowish orange color to it. Think about carrots, right,
So beta carotene. But there's also you can have mixed carotenoids,
(02:14):
which are you know, other than the beta version. Here's
the thing if you think of and I apologize those
listening just on the audio, but if I hold my
two hands next to each other and then I separate them,
that would be like what your body has to do
to carotenoids like beta keratine to turn them into vitamin a.
(02:35):
And so vitamin a is a half of a carotenoid.
So from a plant, you eat it, and then you
have an enzymatic process that splits the carotenoid in half
and makes it into a retinoid, which is vitamin A.
Now many people have you say retinoid and they think
(02:56):
of the drug like retina or acute that sort of thing.
And that's because those are synthetic retinoids. Right. So now
your body perceives vitamin a when it's not where it's
supposed to be as a toxic substance. And your body
(03:17):
actually has binding proteins that carry the vitamin A until
it gets to the target that it's going to so
that the vitamin A can't interact with other places. And
these are called retinoid binding proteins. And there's even special
ones inside yourselves called cytosolic retin all binding proteins. That's
how that's how careful your body is with vitamin A.
(03:42):
So sometimes say it during cold and flu season or something,
we might prescribe high doses of vitamin A. We'll do
it for a short period of time. The other thing
that you probably heard is vitamin a can be toxic
at a lower level in pregnancy, and so in prenatals
and dosing in pregnancy. We're always looking to make sure
(04:03):
that the dose is, you know, at a reasonable level
for pregnancy. Now, to my knowledge, there is no prenatal
vitamin that has an overdose of vitamin A anyway, so
that's usually taken care of, but you don't want to
keep that in mind. It's much more of a sensitive
issue in a pregnant woman. But where does the body
(04:29):
use these things? While there's three tissue type areas. Your
eyes use a lot of the both the carotenoid family
and the retinoid family to help you with vision, so
you can develop night blindness and other things without enough
vitamin A. Then you have the epithelial tissues, which includes
(04:50):
the skin on the outside, the mucous membranes, and the
lining of the inside of your body like your GI lining,
et cetera. And your lungs, which is why we sometimes
use vitamin A and respiratory problems, etc. And the other
thing that vitamin A A does is in the reproductive tissue.
The goonads use vitamin A also, so low levels of
(05:14):
vitamin A can lead to gonadl dysfunction. Vitamin D is
probably the most famous fat soluble vitamin and that's the
one we think of as the sunlight vitamin, because we
have pre vitamin D in our blood and in our skin.
Ultraviolet light hits the skin, converts it to a little
(05:35):
more active version, that goes to the liver, gets converted
to a little more active version, that goes to the kidneys,
convert to a little more active version, and that goes
out and does its work. And vitamin D is really
about bone homeostasis, so keeping the amount of bone breakdown
and building up equal. It's also used because it's a
(05:56):
fat and it's a steroid really in your immune system
and in a number of other places, so low vitamin
D levels can be associated with not just bone problems,
but immune problems, etc. Then there's vitamin E, which is
also very famous, and this one is used, and like
all fat solubles, it can be you know, too high
(06:18):
you don't want, too low you don't want. But vitamin
E is one of those things that's super critical to
all of your membranes, so your cell membranes, your blood
cell membranes, your lipid like cholesterol membranes, et cetera, et cetera,
And its job is to back up the antioxidant capacity
(06:39):
from glutaxone and vitamin C, which are water soluble and
so antioxidant in your cholesterol molecules, in your cell membranes
and your blood cells, in the membrane of all of
those tissues. Vitamin E is responsible for that and then
probably biochemically one of my favorite vitamins the vitamin K
(07:02):
family of vitamins, and vitamin K was named for clotting,
although clotting not in English but in German, so it's
got a K, and there are vitamin K dependent clotting factors,
so you have a whole bunch of things that help
you plot. And if you're low in vitamin K, you
will not clot as well you have bleeding and bruising.
(07:26):
If you're too high in vitamin K, that can be
a problem. But the reason I like it so much
is vitamin K also is the backup to what vitamin
D does with your bones and your soft tissue. So
vitamin D on its own helps with the movement of
say minerals towards the bone, but vitamin K keeps you
(07:46):
from having the minerals stop where they shouldn't be. So
I want the minerals to go into my bone. I
don't want a lot of calcium to build up in
my tenons or my ligaments. If I have enough vitamin K.
It operates the enzyme systems that make sure that the
calcium goes where it's supposed to go. So it's part
(08:07):
of clotting cascade, it's part of calcium movement, et cetera.
And then it's also now we're finding out very important
in immune function a lot like vitamin D, but we're
running up against time here. That's the fat soluble vitamin section.
Remember like share and subscribe. We're on YouTube. We're always
(08:28):
live on CTR Radio Network, which is where you're seeing
me right now. If you're watching live live stream that
over to Facebook. We're on all of the pod burners
for podcasts and audio, and then usually within a day
or two we put these up over on to YouTube.
And in YouTube we'll have show notes, and then camera
(08:49):
at CTR will also take those show notes and put
them on the other places as well. So if I mentioned,
you know, backup studies or other things like that, sometimes
I give you links to things. That's where they are
is down in the show notes or in the description box,
which would be over on YouTube. If you're watching the video. Well,
(09:09):
we are out of time for today. I'm doctor Polinage
Medicine and Health. Thank you very much. Please continue to
share these with your friends, like Share and subscribe the member.
The viewership is growing all over on all the platforms
and we're thankful for that. Thank you very much and
I'll see you next week
Welcome back to Medicine Health with doctor Paul Anderson. That's me.
I'm doctor Paul and Today in our ongoing series about
natural and integrative and nature pathic therapies, we're talking about
nutrients and why they're sometimes added in what they do, etc. Well,
this particular session is a breakout from the vitamin session
(00:24):
as promised. So we talked in the vitamin section about
water soluble vitamins. There's also a group of fat soluble ones,
and these are the ones that can build up in
your system. They can have some toxicity associated, so they
really should be part of an overall health plan for
(00:45):
you and they should be used for specific reasons. Now
that doesn't mean they're dangerous. It's like anything else. You
need enough, you don't need too much. But as we
always say with nutrition and nutrients, you want to start
with your diet and absorption and then you want to
do global things like a multi vitamin mineral say, and
then you can add on things to increase those levels
(01:08):
that may be kind of below, say in a multi
vitamin or mineral. So the fat valuable vitamins are vitamin
A like alpha D like dog E like Edward, and
K like kite and so A, d E and k
are your fat solubles, and so we need to be
a little careful with the dosing on those. We do
(01:29):
use them up, so it's not like, you know, you
have to starve yourself from them. But let's start with
vitamin A because it comes first in the alphabet. Vitamin
a is a interesting nutrient in that in the plant
world it comes from the carotenoid family of chemicals, and
(01:51):
the plants produce carotenoids, and the famous one is beta kerateene.
You've heard of that that was often used in you know,
days gone by as a food dye because as sort
of a yellowish orange color to it. Think about carrots, right,
So beta carotene. But there's also you can have mixed carotenoids,
(02:14):
which are you know, other than the beta version. Here's
the thing if you think of and I apologize those
listening just on the audio, but if I hold my
two hands next to each other and then I separate them,
that would be like what your body has to do
to carotenoids like beta keratine to turn them into vitamin a.
(02:35):
And so vitamin a is a half of a carotenoid.
So from a plant, you eat it, and then you
have an enzymatic process that splits the carotenoid in half
and makes it into a retinoid, which is vitamin A.
Now many people have you say retinoid and they think
(02:56):
of the drug like retina or acute that sort of thing.
And that's because those are synthetic retinoids. Right. So now
your body perceives vitamin a when it's not where it's
supposed to be as a toxic substance. And your body
(03:17):
actually has binding proteins that carry the vitamin A until
it gets to the target that it's going to so
that the vitamin A can't interact with other places. And
these are called retinoid binding proteins. And there's even special
ones inside yourselves called cytosolic retin all binding proteins. That's
how that's how careful your body is with vitamin A.
(03:42):
So sometimes say it during cold and flu season or something,
we might prescribe high doses of vitamin A. We'll do
it for a short period of time. The other thing
that you probably heard is vitamin a can be toxic
at a lower level in pregnancy, and so in prenatals
and dosing in pregnancy. We're always looking to make sure
(04:03):
that the dose is, you know, at a reasonable level
for pregnancy. Now, to my knowledge, there is no prenatal
vitamin that has an overdose of vitamin A anyway, so
that's usually taken care of, but you don't want to
keep that in mind. It's much more of a sensitive
issue in a pregnant woman. But where does the body
(04:29):
use these things? While there's three tissue type areas. Your
eyes use a lot of the both the carotenoid family
and the retinoid family to help you with vision, so
you can develop night blindness and other things without enough
vitamin A. Then you have the epithelial tissues, which includes
(04:50):
the skin on the outside, the mucous membranes, and the
lining of the inside of your body like your GI lining,
et cetera. And your lungs, which is why we sometimes
use vitamin A and respiratory problems, etc. And the other
thing that vitamin A A does is in the reproductive tissue.
The goonads use vitamin A also, so low levels of
(05:14):
vitamin A can lead to gonadl dysfunction. Vitamin D is
probably the most famous fat soluble vitamin and that's the
one we think of as the sunlight vitamin, because we
have pre vitamin D in our blood and in our skin.
Ultraviolet light hits the skin, converts it to a little
(05:35):
more active version, that goes to the liver, gets converted
to a little more active version, that goes to the kidneys,
convert to a little more active version, and that goes
out and does its work. And vitamin D is really
about bone homeostasis, so keeping the amount of bone breakdown
and building up equal. It's also used because it's a
(05:56):
fat and it's a steroid really in your immune system
and in a number of other places, so low vitamin
D levels can be associated with not just bone problems,
but immune problems, etc. Then there's vitamin E, which is
also very famous, and this one is used, and like
all fat solubles, it can be you know, too high
(06:18):
you don't want, too low you don't want. But vitamin
E is one of those things that's super critical to
all of your membranes, so your cell membranes, your blood
cell membranes, your lipid like cholesterol membranes, et cetera, et cetera,
And its job is to back up the antioxidant capacity
(06:39):
from glutaxone and vitamin C, which are water soluble and
so antioxidant in your cholesterol molecules, in your cell membranes
and your blood cells, in the membrane of all of
those tissues. Vitamin E is responsible for that and then
probably biochemically one of my favorite vitamins the vitamin K
(07:02):
family of vitamins, and vitamin K was named for clotting,
although clotting not in English but in German, so it's
got a K, and there are vitamin K dependent clotting factors,
so you have a whole bunch of things that help
you plot. And if you're low in vitamin K, you
will not clot as well you have bleeding and bruising.
(07:26):
If you're too high in vitamin K, that can be
a problem. But the reason I like it so much
is vitamin K also is the backup to what vitamin
D does with your bones and your soft tissue. So
vitamin D on its own helps with the movement of
say minerals towards the bone, but vitamin K keeps you
(07:46):
from having the minerals stop where they shouldn't be. So
I want the minerals to go into my bone. I
don't want a lot of calcium to build up in
my tenons or my ligaments. If I have enough vitamin K.
It operates the enzyme systems that make sure that the
calcium goes where it's supposed to go. So it's part
(08:07):
of clotting cascade, it's part of calcium movement, et cetera.
And then it's also now we're finding out very important
in immune function a lot like vitamin D, but we're
running up against time here. That's the fat soluble vitamin section.
Remember like share and subscribe. We're on YouTube. We're always
(08:28):
live on CTR Radio Network, which is where you're seeing
me right now. If you're watching live live stream that
over to Facebook. We're on all of the pod burners
for podcasts and audio, and then usually within a day
or two we put these up over on to YouTube.
And in YouTube we'll have show notes, and then camera
(08:49):
at CTR will also take those show notes and put
them on the other places as well. So if I mentioned,
you know, backup studies or other things like that, sometimes
I give you links to things. That's where they are
is down in the show notes or in the description box,
which would be over on YouTube. If you're watching the video. Well,
(09:09):
we are out of time for today. I'm doctor Polinage
Medicine and Health. Thank you very much. Please continue to
share these with your friends, like Share and subscribe the member.
The viewership is growing all over on all the platforms
and we're thankful for that. Thank you very much and
I'll see you next week
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