Counting On Sheep

In an earlier article I discussed my findings around the topic of vitamin D and the ongoing debate whether a deficiency in this pre-hormone results in worse outcomes from respiratory infections.

I was surprised at the time of discovering the vast amount of information out there on vitamin D that mainstream media hadn’t really covered it despite pleas to get the word out from David Davis MP and many scientists during the current situation and especially in the depths of winter when availability of sunlight is virtually non existent in countries north of the equator.

It seems that from the research, adequate vitamin D from food is minimal unless vast amounts of wild salmon and pasture raised egg yolks are consumed and therefore supplementation during the winter months is now even advised by our NHS, but where does the vitamin D in pill form come from?

I contacted the very helpful folks at Nutravita with a few questions and all was revealed. Wool is sheared from mature, live sheep and crude lanolin is extracted from the wool and washed in hot water with a detergent.

The lanolin then undergoes a process that separates the fatty component leaving behind lanolin alcohols and crude cholesterol is extracted from lanolin alcohol.

Finally, the purified cholesterol is then taken through a four-stage process to make 7-Dehydrocholesterol  (pre-Vitamin D3). The pre-Vitamin D3 is then irradiated to produce Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), this is the same reaction that is used by human skin to manufacture the vitamin from sunlight.

Approximately 2.8 million pills can be produced from one sheep’s fleece!

But what about those northern European countries starved of sunlight before the advent of supplements? How Cod Saved The Vikings is an enlightening insight into a more ancestral approach.

Further reading – https://cyranoltd.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/16-Sunlight-and-Vitamin-D.pdf