When most people experience a symptom of a disorder they turn to the doctors for advice, and 99.9% will walk away with a prescription whether they need it or not.  Many prescriptions are to pacify and please the patient.  When nothing can be found that warrants a prescription and there are still complains from the patient, an antidepressant seems to be in order.  I personally believe that if individuals would take just a little time to improve their diet and make sure they are getting adequate levels of vitamins and minerals, they would experience less symptoms or need for prescriptions.  Take for example vitamin D3 which technically isn’t a vitamin as it was classified years ago.  We now know it is a hormone which regulates many of our body functions.  Work done by Dr. Hector DeLuca and Dr. Michael Holick has confirmed the significant health benefits of supplementing the diet with vitamin D3.  Books and websites have been dedicated to the health benefits of vitamin D3.  Briefly, here is a quick list of what you might expect from supplementing your diet with vitamin D3.  Based on the vitamin D3 experts, vitamin D3 can reduce the risk up to 77% of 17 different kinds of cancer, reduce influenza up to 90%, think again if you think you need a flu shot – vitamin D3 may be your flu shot (see your physician).  It can reduce diabetes up to 78% and can reduce depression as well.  This is just the tip of the iceberg for the benefits of vitamin D3.  Most experts agree that the only way to get vitamin D3 is to take a supplement.  You can’t depend on sunshine for vitamin D3.  The further away that you live from the equator, the more difficult it is for us to obtain this important hormone from the sun.  People who are overweight, the elderly, and those with dark skin cannot obtain vitamin D3 easily without supplementation.  We once thought vitamin D3 was adequate when it was supplied at 400 IU per day, and the thought was that anything over 400 IU per day would cause vitamin toxicity.  There is so much  misinformation on the need for vitamins and minerals that I believe if enough research was done on all the vitamins and minerals we would probably find advantages to increasing all the potencies of vitamins and minerals by a factor of at least five times.  It seems the consensus of vitamin D3 supplementation is in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 IU per day, but consult your physician to determine your level.