Supplemental D3 vs D3 from sunlight; ascorbate vs natural Vitamin C

Yes, the calciferol from sun and caciferol from animal sources are the same. However, your body will not overdose on calciferol from sun exposure, whereas it can if extremely large amounts are taken in supplement form.

I have to disagree when it comes to ascorbate.  Ascorbate acid is not at all the same as natural vitamin C.  It may be the same as isolated natural ascorbate acid, but it is not the whole vitamin profile which is what is found in nature.  Nature does not provide isolated compounds and nowhere in nature is ascorbate acid by itself found.   The same is true with most manufactured vitamins.   You may be able to manufacture a mirror molecule, but you do not get the natural molecule WITH the complete vitamin profile and supporting compounds found in nature.  And one must never forget that nature works synergistically (as do our natural bodies).

From the Vitamin C Council:

Since ascorbic acid is such a tiny portion of the natural Vitamin C Complex. any ascorbic acid product cannot possibly be natural. The reason is simple-to get sufficient quantities of ascorbic acid from nature, the other portions of the whole Vitamin C Complex would be so large as to make a single 500 mg "natural" ascorbic acid pill the size of a tennis ball.

Since there is no "natural" ascorbic acid, it is the combination of nutritive factors found in the whole Vitamin C Complex that do the healing, not the ascorbic acid. This was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of ascorbic acid, Dr. Szent-Gyorgyi. In a letter to the editor of the esteemed journal Nature, July 14, 1936, p. 27, he wrote that when it comes to anti-scurvy and anti-hemorrhagic effects, there are "other substances of similar importance and activity that accompany ascorbic acid."

More important, when Szent-Gyorgyi tried to cure scurvy and other bleeding conditions, he found that "with pure ascorbic acid, we obtained no response.... Yet when red pepper or lemon or lime juice was used, the condition was readily cured." The reason for this is simple, the nutritive portions of vitamin C do the curing and healing, ascorbic acid _simply performs the antioxidant function.

So we have it from the horses mouth that ascorbic acid was not effective in curing the very conditions known to be vitamin C-deficiency diseases. This has been known since the early 1930s. But it is simple to reproduce ascorbic acid and sell it as vitamin C for big bucks. So the charade has continued all these years. The real need for ascorbic acid is to protect the healing nutrients in the whole Vitamin C Complex from oxidation