Billions of people are drugged legally and needlessly throughout the free world, while simpler, safer and healthier solutions are attacked and ignored -- despite their proven efficacy. If that sounds familiar to you, those safer non-drug solutions are a major cornerstone of my vision for reforming the current and fractured health care paradigm.

I stumbled across a great example of an unwarranted attack on natural treatments in a American Academy of Dermatology press release that casts considerable doubt on all the recent studies touting sunshine as your best source of vitamin D.

Fact is, sunshine is the best and most natural way to get all the vitamin D you need, so long as you do it in moderation -- starting slowly with 5-10 minutes a day and adding more time as your tolerance develops.

On the bright side, however, when the value of vitamin D merits a lengthy story in USA Today -- including an interview with Dr. Michael Holick -- you know it signals conventional medicine and the media are finally paying more serious attention to its many natural benefits.

Just to show you how slow the "experts" are on the uptake, my staff and I began touting vitamin D's many benefits four years ago, which long precedes the attention it is now receiving in the media.

Most of the long-time readers of this newsletter appreciate that they will receive insights on important health issues LONG BEFORE the media finally picks it up.

There are differences in opinion about how much vitamin D you really need and what your best sources for it are, aside from the sun. As far as how much, optimal vitamin D levels lie in a very small range. That's why I strongly urge you to have your blood checked, as that is the only way to know with any degree of certainty what your level is.

The USA Today piece also lists a number of dietary sources for vitamin D -- pasteurized milk, salmon and tuna -- all of which are problematic on their own. If you have a tough time getting an ample amount of sunshine every day -- especially during the cold of winter -- rather than leaning on those foods or on health-harming processed foods, take a high-quality, vitamin-D-enriched cod liver oil instead.