I've been seeing a lot of posts and thread responses lately from people who read about the magic that is the hormone D3 and what it could and should be doing for their skin, but find that either they were never able to achieve the desired results from the start, or found their skin was no longer responding as positively to it as it once did. Most of them will either keep upping their dosage and find themselves more and more frustrated and confused that they aren't seeing results, or quit taking the D3 all together.

Now, a small group of people will experience a worsening in their acne from D3 supplements if they are allergic to lanolin or the yeasts present in some non-vegan D3 pills. That is a SMALL group of people. The rest are not seeing sustained results because their bodies don't have everything they need to absorb and properly utilize the hormone.

This is why...

A lot of people will find their D3 supplementation isn't working like it did at first (or perhaps not at all) because their Magnesium levels have become so depleted that their bodies are no longer absorbing the D3 and they can't manage to get their levels up no matter how much they up their dosage. Basically, if you don't have sufficient Magnesium to help the D3 do what it needs to do, your body can't use it.

Even if you weren't supplementing with the D3, there's a good chance you may have already been insufficient or deficient in Magnesium since roughly 80% of people are. It's a wildly important mineral in the body necessary for hundreds and hundreds of enzymatic processes. Just about every process in your body (especially hormonal processes) require Magnesium to work properly. And because it's in such high demand, it depletes very easily and must be supplemented to keep your levels up and running.

This is why you absolutely need to be including Magnesium (either in a Glycinate, Citrate, or Sulfate form) with your vitamin D3 supplementation. They work in concert together. Magnesium helps convert Vitamin D into its active form so the body can use it--otherwise, the D3 alone won't be able to do its job of preventing calcium buildup in the arteries. You want your Calcium in your bones--not hanging around and building up in your blood. That leads to all kinds of not-very-pretty things. Magnesium is a natural anti-inflammatory and a natural antihistamine. An unbalanced proportion of Calcium to Magnesium is going to act as a histamine in the body and you'll see all kinds of inflammation---acne being one of them.

Similarly, you need K2 in there to help the D3 do its job. You'll notice that a lot of K2 supplements actually include at least 1,000 mg of D3 in the formula---and there's a reason for that. Without the help of vitamin K2, the calcium that your vitamin D so effectively lets in might be working AGAINST you by building up calcium in your coronary arteries rather than your bones. Again, calcium buildup in your blood=major inflammation. There is even evidence that the safety of vitamin D is dependent on vitamin K, and that vitamin D toxicity (although very rare with the D3 form) is actually caused by vitamin K2 deficiency.

Additionally, you need to be taking a quality B Complex (with added C) along with your Magnesium. If you are deficient in certain B vitamins, your Magnesium won't be able to do its job to help the D3 do its job. I know a lot of people here have a fear of B-Complex because they've had a bad reaction to Biotin or B-12 in the past. But B vitamins shouldn't be taken at all in isolation. They can only do good and right by you when they have the whole team along.

Unfortunately, no vitamin, mineral, or hormone is an island. It would be lovely to think we could just take one magic supplement to do everything we'd like it to all on its own, but they work in synchronicity or not at all.