Vitamin D level target: above 60
Dr. Gominak found that patients whose vitamin D blood levels reached above 60 ng/mL consistently reported improved sleep.
Snapshot · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Vitamin D Expert: The Supplement World Is Giving The WRONG Advice!
Explore episode
Jul 27, 2026
Where this was said
What Happened When I Started Treating Patients With Vitamin D
At 53:05 · chapter starts 52:20
After the ad break, Bartlett pulls the conversation back to Madeline and Natalie. Dr. Gominak explains that for the first two years of treating patients with vitamin D, everything seemed to be working: sleep improved, headaches receded, patients were happier. She learned quickly that every person requires a unique dose, and that blood levels above 60 ng/mL seemed to be the threshold at which sleep meaningfully improved. But then the side effects started arriving. Patients returned with widespread joint pain, burning in their hands and feet, and symptoms their rheumatologists were attributing to autoimmune disease. She had been operating under the false assumption that vitamin D alone would fix everything — that there was only one variable. Instead, what she had done was accelerate the body's repair machinery, which consumed B vitamins faster than the body could source them, driving a secondary deficiency. A patient walked in carrying a book about pantothenic acid (B5), and the penny dropped: B5 makes coenzyme A, coenzyme A makes cortisol, and blocking B5 causes exactly the symptoms she was seeing.
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